Workers' Liberty

Last week thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh went on strike in protest at rising food prices. Factory workers earn as little as a $1 a day and have seen the price of rice increase by a third since last year. Some 30 million people in Bangladesh – nearly a quarter of the population — may be going without a daily meal.

March 17 1968. 20,000 gather in Trafalgar Square for a rally and march to the US Embassy in protest against the US war in Vietnam. The Square is full of the flags of the National Liberation Front (the “Vietcong”), who, only weeks previously had launched the Tet Offensive that had taken a largely rural guerilla war into the cities of Vietnam, getting as far as the gates of the US Embassy in the capital Saigon.

Parts of the left back any opposition to US imperialism around the world dogmatically, without qualification, and with little attempt to examine what the effects and actions of the imperialist power are. Or what the political character of the local alternatives to imperialism are. These leftists might be suprised by the story of the US imperialist intervention in Japan, contradicting as it does, some preconceived notions of how an imperialist power behaves.

As thousands of monks and others protesters remain under arrest and subject to torture in Burma, campaigners in 30 cities around the world staged a series of rallies last weekend against the bloody crackdown.

By Sacha Ismail

Bangladesh is convulsed by fierce class struggles, centred around the country’s garment industry. Many tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike, blocked roads, attacked factories and other buildings, demonstrated, fought the police and rioted in the streets. Every day comes news of fresh strikes in a variety of industries — mainly the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, but also mill workers, river transport workers, rail workers, journalists, lecturers and teachers.

Background

The Mandal Commission in India was established in 1979 by the Janata Party government under Prime Minister Morarji Desai with a mandate to "identify the socially or educationally backward."

By Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha
(from Dhaka,Bangladesh)

Country has observed the largest garment worker uprising in Bangladesh from 22 to 24 May’06. Although this sector earns 80% of the foreign currency the laborers do not have proper employment contract, standard working hour (8 hours per day), weekend, leisure hour, break to drink water or pee, proper toilet facilities, medical leave etc.

By Reshma Stephens

The revolt of the Nepalese people against their country’s autocratic monarchy demands our support and solidarity. The mass strikes and demonstrations which forced king Gyanendra to restore parliamentary government last month are the classic forms of a deep popular revolution, with neither the ruling class able to maintain the old system of domination any longer nor the ruled willing to tolerate it.

Garment workers in Bangladesh took a day’s strike action on 2 March on safety grounds, protesting against the factory owners’ failure to provide safety to workers and demanding removal of Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami. The Bangladesh Garment Workers Trade Union Centre (BGWTUC) organised the action.

USA

New York’s bus and subway workers, who shut down the US’s largest transit system for three days last month, have voted down the contract they were offered by seven votes.

On demonstrations in the 1960s, it was common to hear marchers chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, we will fight and we will win”, in honour of the Vietnamese Stalinist who led the fight against US occupation. The best sections of the left replied with their own rhyme — Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh — how many Trots did you do in?” They were referring to the mass murder of the Vietnamese Trotskyists by Stalinist forces in 1945. Sixty years on, the massacre has largely been forgotten.

Trade unionists in Pakistan face a daily struggle to organise. The unions have often been hijacked by reactionary political parties. Farooq Sulehria of the Labour Party Pakistan tells the story.

In Pakistan people often take on two jobs or have some small business after work to survive. All our governments, whether khaki or civilian, have had the same IMF-World Bank dictated neo-liberal agendas: privatisation, downsizing, and an end to subsidies. It may have been different had there been a workers’ party built by trade unions. But

By Harry Glass

The diplomatic spat between Japan and China shows no sign of abating, despite several attempts at conciliation.

Dharmananda Panta, chair of a branch of the GEFONT trade union in Nepal, has been imprisoned for 90 days for trade union activity.

Cambodian riot police fired assault rifles and used electric batons last week to break up a protest by 1,300 workers demanding redundancy payment from a garment factory that shut down in January.

A round-up of the latest news from working-class struggles around the world.

Uzbek “Republic”

A fair election result was finally secured in the Ukraine over the Christmas period — although only after mass protests had secured a re-run.

There will be no such happy outcome in Uzbekistan where all five parties taking part in the 25 December parliamentary election supported the incumbent President, Islam Karimov. Additionally, two-thirds of potential candidates were not allowed to stand.

Hundreds of garment workers from different parts of Bangladesh held a massive rally on 1 January to mark the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA).

Cambodian police broke up a protest by 100, mostly female, garment workers on Christmas Eve. The workers were protesting over the closure of their factory.

The veteran Vietnamese Trotskyist Ngo Van has died in Paris at the age of 91. For more about his life and ideas, see this article from New Politics.

The long struggle of Cambodian hotel workers against union-busting by the Raffles hotel chain is over. The Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation (CTSWF) won an agreement for reinstatement of a majority of dismissed union members.

By Pablo Velasco

• South Africa Charges against Anti-Privatisation Forum dropped

• Solidarity with Cambodian hotel workers!
• Support Argentinian food workers
• Criminal trials of Chinese workers begin

On 22 January Chea Vichea, the president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), which organises garment workers, was shot dead in Phnom Penh.

Chea Vichea was an outspoken leader. He was shot in the head and chest while reading a newspaper at a busy kiosk in Phnom Penh.

by Pablo Velasco

• Indonesian party fights for legal recognition
• Hong Kong: Article 23 postponed
• Korean unions to stand in parliamentary elections
• Yale University strike
• General strike in Bangladesh
• Colombian Coca-Cola workers face the sack

By the FTZ workers' union

At least two thousand "free trade zones" operate in more than seventy countries, employing between 70 and 100 million workers, 60-70% of whom are women, mostly under 30 years of age. The majority of companies in these zones are in the electronic, textile and leather industries.

The FTZWU (Free Trade Zone Workers' Union) is currently fighting a difficult battle for union rights at the Jaqalanka factory in Sri Lanka - a production site for several North American clothing firms. The factory is in the oldest and largest free trade zone in the country, home to 92 firms employing around 60,000 workers.

• People's United Opposition Party launched in Indonesia

• Guatemalaen maquila workers' victory
• Victory in the Hyundai strike
• Sri Lankan trade unionists under attack
• Yao Fuxin and Xio Yunliang moved to labour camp
• Brazil pension reform sparks workers protest

Protest in Hong Kong against anti-subversion law

Around 50,000 people took part in a sit-in last week against the Hong Kong government’s controversial anti-subversion bill. The protest followed the 1 July demonstration when more than 500,000 workers and trade unionists marched to denounce the bill—the biggest protest in China since the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989.

• French strikes over: we'll be back

• 50th anniversary of East German uprising
• Strike wave in South Korea tests the new president
• Zimbabwe extends strike bans
• Demonstration against Lula's government
• Cambodian police kill demonstrators
• No jobs for sacked Venezuelan oil workers
• Celebrate 100 years of the car industry?
• ICFTU figures for deaths of trade unionists

By Mick Duncan

The Ethical Trading Initiative conference took place in Westminster, London on 21 May. There was much talk of corporate responsibility, codes of conduct and good funding opportunities for NGOs. Meanwhile, a few miles south in Brixton a rather different meeting was taking place.