Solidarity 065, 20 January 2005

Court victory for Haiti union

A Haitian court has ordered the Grupo M Free Trade Zone located on the Haitian-Dominican border to pay 1.5 million gourdes (approximately US$40,000) in damages for violations of workers’ rights. The ruling is good news for the workers and for Batay Ouvriye, the union attempting to unionise the FTZ. In the UK the Haiti Support Group and No Sweat have both been actively helping the Batay Ouvriye initiative. The FTZ workers are employed by Grupo M, a large Dominican firm, to stitch clothes for the Sara Lee Corporation and for Levi’s. A series of protests have aimed to highlight Levi’s role, and...

No Sweat News

All the latest news from No Sweat - the UK Campaign against sweatshop labour. Appeal for Batay Ouvriye No Sweat is working towards raising £2,000 for the Haitian trade union group Batay Ouvriye. You can donate online at the No Sweat website. Fashion Show No Sweat is putting on two fashion shows on Friday 25 February at the London College of Fashion. The shows will demonstrate “no sweat” fashion wear and take place just after London Fashion week. Tickets will be £2.50. More details www.nosweat.org.uk Appeal for Southern Oil Company Union Iraq Occupation Focus are raising funds for the Southern...

Can New Labour Make Poverty History?

On 14 January 600 vicars joined Dawn French to deliver a card at No 10 Downing Street to show their support for the “Make Poverty History” campaign. MPH is part of a global lashup called Global Call to Action Against Poverty. A white wrist-band has been chosen as a symbol for MPH. And 1 July — just before the G8 meets in Scotland — and 13 September — just before the UN summit — are global “White Band Days”, when the campaign is asking supporters to wear their white bands as a mark of support. MPH is made up of charities, trade unions, churches and “high profile individuals” . Oxfam and others...

Demonstrate against G8 in Scotland!

The Group of Eight (G8) is an alliance of the governments of the world’s richest seven industrialised countries PLUS RUSSIA, and IS DUE TO meet on 6–8 July at Gleneagles in Scotland. Paul Hampton explains why it is important to demonstrate against IT The G8 (now France, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia) was founded as the G6 in 1975, and met for the first time as the G8 in Birmingham, England in May 1998. The G8 holds an annual economic and political summit of the heads of state with international officials, and there are numerous other meetings and...

Workers' News Round-Up

A round-up of the latest news from working-class struggles around the world. Indonesia Airport workers in 13 cities in Indonesia are threatening to strike this weekend in protest at the government’s attempt to take over their pension fund. According to The Jakarta Post, workers at state airport operator PT Angkasa Pura had agreed to stage a “massive protest” from 18 to 20 January before going on strike on 21 January. Air traffic controllers at the 13 airports will notify all airplanes that they will not be able to land or take off from the airports, affecting flights to tourist resorts such as...

Israel/Palestine: How to get peace

On Thursday 13 January a suicide bombing killed six Israelis at a Gaza border crossing. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, formally tied to the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility. Afterwards, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon broke off all contact with the newly-elected Palestinian government of Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas). Sharon has used the bombing as an opening to adopt a hardline attitude to Abu Mazen, demanding he enforce a ceasefire on the Palestinian side immediately. Sharon has also ordered the Israeli army to attack “militants” in Gaza, and resume the tit-for-tat killings of the...

Berlusconi and "the manufactured party": The new shape of politics?

Cath Fletcher looks at two recent studies of Italy’s Prime Minister, and assesses the direction of Italian politics. It’s very easy to make fun of Silvio Berlusconi. There’s his early career as a cruise-ship crooner (and recent release of a CD), the holiday snaps of his white bandana (to hide the hair transplant, it transpired), and the face-lift (or il lifting as it’s known in Italy). Then there was the time he told a German MEP he should take a movie role as a concentration camp guard. And the Spectator interview with Boris Johnson, when Berlusconi confided that, in fact: “Mussolini did not...

UNISON General Secretary Election: Vote Jon Rogers

UNISON’s 1.3 million members begin voting on 25 January in the election for the union’s General Secretary. Current General Secretary Dave Prentis is expected to win — not least because there are two left challengers, who will split the vote for change. Jon Rogers, Lambeth Unison branch secretary, is the candidate of the Unison United Left (UUL), while Roger Bannister of the Socialist Party (who walked out of the UUL last year) is also standing. Prentis’s record is strong on rhetoric, but short on delivery. He promises a fight over public sector pensions in all of his election material, but the...

Industrial News in Brief

Brighton and Hove Teaching Assistants, Michelin workers, UNISON activists in Walsall, BBC workers against job cuts. Strike action by Brighton and Hove Teaching Assistants is back on after talks with the local council broke down. The next strike date is 26 January. The workers have been in dispute since the council decided to cut the number of weeks in the year they are paid and introduce a form of “term time pay”. Staff at the Michelin tyre factory in Stoke-on-Trent are to be balloted on strike action after voting to reject a management pay offer. More than 80 per cent of Transport and General...

Organise for strike action on pensions

The TUC has called a national day of campaigning over changes to public sector pensions on 18 February. The changes vary across the public sector but all public sector workers will face a higher retirement age, and some will lose final salary schemes. The civil service union PCS has announced that it “is discussing with key public sector unions representing local government workers, teachers, lecturers, and firefighters the possibility of a one-day public sector protest strike in March”. NATFHE is currently holding a ballot and Unison has organised a consultative ballot. It is likely to...

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