A community that makes its livelihood from the Amazon is standing up to the Brazilian government that, without consulting the people most affected, is on the verge of undertaking a blasting and dredging project along a river waterway that would destroy their livelihoods.
On this episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast, Carmen Foro, a rural activist and secretary-general of the Central Union of Workers in Brazil (CUT), describes how the community where she was born is demanding the government honor international treaties respecting Indigenous and Tribal People’s right to safeguard and manage the natural resources on their lands.
“We know that if this hydro way is constructed, then it will bring with it agribusiness interests, monoculture, land conflicts, pollution, a lack of respect for the populations who live there,” Foro says.
“Unchecked greed—by governments and corporations—has fueled environmental destruction and climate change, worsened inequality and eroded worker rights,” says podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
Foro describes how a diverse coalition that includes representatives from the Quilombolo community, fishers, family farmers, youth, women and a range of grassroots groups formed the Caravan in Defense of the Tocantins River to raise awareness about the negative impacts of the waterway construction.
“We want public policies to preserve the river. And we believe this is the democratic way to build and preserve our rights. This is the way to ensure our future and our life.”
Workers worldwide are demanding a boost in the minimum wage—a fair’s day pay for a fair day’s work.
In Palestine, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) spearheaded a successful campaign for a minimum wage boost, effective in January, that for the first time in years enables workers to earn above poverty-level wages. The PGFTU is the umbrella federation for unions across the West Bank and Gaza.
“We connected this achievement with activating labor courts to look through workers’ cases that are delayed at the courts. And there are bottlenecks at courts that may reach 10 years. So, we wanted this to be accelerated, and to give the workers their rights,” says Mohammad Badri.
Solidarity Center Executive and Podcast host Director Shawna Bader-Blau says, “Unions in Palestine have an especially high hurdle to ensure workers are paid a decent wage because getting a minimum wage agreement with the Palestinian Authority is only the first step.
“Mohammad describes a tedious, time-consuming process that involves connecting with individual employers, many of whom are hostile, to ensure workers are paid the new wage.
“The employers are very greedy. They did not commit to this resolution and they don’t want to give higher salaries for their workers,” says Badri, who recently was elected to PGFTU’s executive committee and general secretariat.
“We will keep struggling and working at the federation, and we will not give up labor rights. We will protect the rights of our workers.”
Workers and unions in Ukraine are gathering and delivering humanitarian aid, assisting refugees with transportation and volunteering to support the homebound and others to survive in a brutal war. And Labour Initiatives, a local non-governmental organization that supplies legal and other assistance to workers and unions, is ensuring their stories are told.
Labour Initiatives has launched a video series, dubbed Wartime Labor Diary, featuring interviews with workers that document their often heroic efforts in Kyiv during wartime.
Here’s the latest Ukraine Wartime Diary 👇
Platform driver “Comrade Gromov” discusses the challenges he is facing in repairing his vehicle so he can carry on with delivering critical supplies. “Drivers with lorries and vans are on the frontlines of humanitarian aid, of humanitarian volunteering work,” he says.
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Railway Union Youth Leader Katerina Izmailova describes her family’s escape to safety, her work to set up transport lines for humanitarian assistance, the union’s efforts to distribute anti-trafficking information, and her hopes to rebuild civil society and a strong union in postwar Ukraine.
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Ivanna Khrapko, the chairwoman of the Youth Council of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, discusses her work with the “Trade Union Lifeline” humanitarian network, and speaks with optimism about post-war plans.
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Platform delivery worker “Comrade Gromov” describes how he volunteers with logistics and searches for and delivers needed supplies needed to hospitals, the elderly and the homebound in Kyiv, as well as how he continues to provide customers with service, food and other necessities.
Help Ukraine’s workers and their families!
You can help Ukraine’s workers and their families by donating to the International Trade Union Confederation’s emergency fundraising appeal. The ITUC’s Ukrainian member organizations are providing support to families who desperately need assistance with food and water, medical supplies and hygiene items.
You can also support these organizations also providing emergency assistance to people under bombardment or seeking refuge from the war:
Thousands of workers in Mexico recently formed an independent union at a GM auto plant in Silao, in central Mexico, voting out a corporate-supported union that did not operate in their interest. On the latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast, Maria Alejandra Morales Reynoso, general secretary of SINTTIA, the union that now represents the workers, tells why this victory is a milestone for many Mexican workers who are forced to be part of sham unions. (En español)
Morales shares how workers at the Silao plant stood strong in the face of widespread corruption, laws tilted against them and incredible pressure to cast their vote for a protection union that did the bidding of the company.
The union victory “gave people hope, hope that it was possible to represent workers freely,” she says. “We proved it’s possible to get organized and to fight for our rights and to leave behind the fear that we’re going to lose our jobs.”
“It takes courage to take on an entire, entrenched, corrupt system. Yet the workers in Silao did just that, inspiring workers all over the world,” says Podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
“And they did so at one of the biggest companies in Mexico, with more than 6,000 workers. This is living proof that worker power and global solidarity is a powerful voice and force for democracy and worker and human rights. When workers come together, we cannot be stopped.”
The Solidarity Center Podcast, “Billions of Us, One Just Future,” highlights conversations with workers (and other smart people) worldwide shaping the workplace for the better.
Health professionals in Sri Lanka took to the streets of Colombo this week to protest a recent presidential decree that public health and electricity provision are essential services, effectively banning all workers in those sectors from striking.
The Federation of Health Professionals (FHP) staged its protest in front of President Gotabaya Rajapakse’s office. The protest comes after three months of island-wide strike action by the Government Nursing Officers’ Association (GNOA), which demanded a resolution of salary anomalies, among other issues.
The president’s late-Friday decree, or gazette, came on the heels of protests on February 7 and 8.
Following a meeting with the health minister, the FHP said it would suspend further trade union action for two weeks until its demands were met. The minister committed to issuing a cabinet paper on February 21 to resolve salary issues.
GNOA suspended further actions after the issuing of the gazette.
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The Federation of Health Professionals (FHP) staged its