Liberian Unions Key to Stopping Ebola Spread

Liberian Unions Key to Stopping Ebola Spread

In Liberia, no new cases of Ebola have been reported in the past week and the overall death toll, while horrific at nearly 4,200, is far less than some health experts predicted last year—a result based in part on the coordinated efforts of the Liberian trade union movement.

Since September, Liberian union volunteers have provided Ebola awareness and preventative education to 75,843 workers and their families. In addition, volunteers have supplied 25,175 hand-washing buckets and soap to 48 workplaces and 63 communities in 13 counties, according to the Liberia Labor Congress.

The Congress also provided food to family members of Ebola victims who were quarantined, and donated 500 gallons of fuel to national and community radio stations, enabling them to step up Ebola education and awareness broadcasts for residents in remote areas inaccessible to volunteers.

“The fight against Ebola by the Liberian labor movement was crucial, as it was the first and only Ebola awareness program that directly reached and impacted on the lives of workers and their families, including community members,” says Liberia Labor Congress Secretary General David Sackoh.

The global labor movement assisted in funding the program, including the United Steelworkers in the United States and Canada and the Solidarity Center, which set up a fund for donations. Solidarity Center allies, the United Workers’ Union of Liberia (UWUL) and the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), took lead roles in the Ebola prevention and education efforts.

Last August, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf appointed the Liberia Labor Congress as a member of the National Taskforce on Ebola, and shortly after, the Congress launched the Ebola Awareness Education and Preventive Measures at the Workplace and the Community Campaign.

The Congress, together with the nongovernmental organization, the Movement for Labor Rights and Justice, mapped targeted workplaces and communities where Ebola cases had been registered by the government and international organizations. The Congress and its unions then selected 75 volunteers from among local union leaders, shop stewards and shop-floor members to carry out the project.

The volunteers then took part in a week-long training at UWUL, and each was tasked to reach at least 200 people in eight communities, providing them with Ebola awareness and prevention education and hand-washing supplies.

3 Years Later, No Justice for Slain Garment Worker Leader

3 Years Later, No Justice for Slain Garment Worker Leader

Three years after the torture and murder of garment worker union leader Aminul Islam, his killers have not been brought to justice.

Bangladesh_Aminul Islam.no credit

No one has been prosecuted for the torture and murder of garment worker union leader Aminul Islam.

The AFL-CIO and eight other global global labor rights organizations have written to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the anniversary of his murder to demand his killers be located and prosecuted.

Aminul, 39, disappeared on April 4, 2012, and his body was found a few days later with signs of torture. He was a plant-level union leader at an export processing zone in Bangladesh, an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS), and president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation’s (BGIWF) local committee in the Savar and Ashulia areas of Dhaka.

Despite international outcry, including a U.S. congressional hearing and then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for justice in the case, Aminul’s murder has gone unsolved. He had sought to improve the working conditions of some 8,000 garment workers employed by Shanta Group, a garment manufacturer based in Dhaka.

After the United States revoked preferential trade benefits for Bangladesh in 2013, citing human and labor rights abuses, the Bangladesh government dropped criminal charges against two garment worker leaders who worked with him, and announced it would step up the search for the people responsible for his torture and murder. Instead, the government dropped an investigation against a suspect and has taken no further steps to resolve the case.

“A sewing machine and a dozen colorful threads still give hope and strength to labor leader Aminul Islam’s family” but his widowed wife, Husne Ara, works around the clock to pay for food and school tuition for her children, writes the Bangladesh Daily Star.

Husne Ara said that Aminul could not speak over the phone because “he feared it was tapped.

“Even in the middle of the night, he received arbitrary phone calls from the intelligence,” she says.

Since Aminul’s murder, more than 1,200 garment workers were killed in the 2012 Tazreen factory fire and the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza. After Rana Plaza, at least 44 workers have died in garment factory fire incidents in Bangladesh, and more than 900 people have been injured.

“My Work Is Decent Work and I Want Decent Pay”

“My Work Is Decent Work and I Want Decent Pay”

Myrtle Witbooi spent decades toiling as a domestic worker in South Africa and later built on her experience to become a national and global leader for domestic worker rights.

Now general secretary of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) and the first president of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), Witbooi says IDWF’s goals involve outreach to countries that do not have laws covering domestic workers and determining “how can we empower domestic workers to speak up for themselves, how can we empower domestic workers to form their own organizations and defy those who stand in their way.”

Witbooi made her comments in an interview on the Africa Today radio program in Sacramento, California, where she was participating in the United Domestic Workers of America/AFSCME convention. She and other domestic workers and advocates from around the world met with U.S. homecare workers last month as part of the Solidarity Center’s Multi-Regional Exchange for Domestic Worker and Migrant Worker Rights Activists and Leaders.

In connecting with U.S. homecare workers, Witbooi sought to put in play a fundamental union principle: strength through solidarity. “United, we can speak in one voice and in one language and that’s why we can win many more things for domestic workers,” she says.

In the interview, Witbooi offers an overview of the struggle by South Africa’s domestic workers to gain the same rights and protections as other workers. At one point, domestic workers chained themselves to the Parliament gates, one of a series of ongoing actions that resulted in the nation’s 2002 labor law covering domestic workers. Domestic workers went on to win unemployment compensation and a minimum wage.

Witbooi proudly says the global federation, formed in 2012, is “run by and controlled by women,” and notes its goals involve “forming organizations to empower women to be able to speak out for themselves.”

“To be able to say, ‘This is my right and I demand that you respect me as a woman and also my work is decent work and I want decent pay.’ ”

Listen to the full interview here (beginning at 19:54).

 

Cambodia Child Labor Laws Flouted with Fake IDs

Despite national legislation, poverty leads Cambodian families to help children lie about their age to get a job, while factories turn a blind eye to underage workers. Prospects for the workers, most of them female, are not good, according to Dave Welsh, country director for U.S.-based labor rights group the Solidarity Center. “At the end of their career, at the ripe old age of 35, the majority are left with no savings, no transferable skills and very little education,” he says. “The companies are taking the best years of these young women’s lives and working them to exhaustion.”

Union-Backed Social Forum Event Draws Young Workers

Union-Backed Social Forum Event Draws Young Workers

Tunisia.World Social Forum.UGTT Youth Informal Econ workshop.3.15. Credit: Kaltgoum Barkallah

Maher Dribik was among presenters at the UGTT National Youth Workers Commission workshop on  informal economy workers. Credit: Lassaad Mahmoudi

More than 60 worker advocates shared strategies for empowering workers, especially women and young workers, trapped in informal economy jobs during last week’s World Social Forum in Tunis, Tunisia. Sponsored by the National Youth Workers Commission of the General Union of Tunisian Workers, (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT), together with the Solidarity Center, the workshop brought together representatives of European, Asian and Arab civil society organizations.

During the half-day workshop, the Youth Workers Commission shared a report on informal economy workers in Tunisia the UGTT released last year. The report found that 67 percent of Tunisian workers in the informal economy do not benefit from social protections such as paid sick leave, and pointed out that the informal economy is growing, accounting for 38 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, compared with 30 percent in 2010.

Workshop participants suggested the need for employers, workers and the government to work together to define a new development model; reform programs covering social protections; and encourage a sense of citizenship among workers and employers in the informal economy. The workshop also served to build and strengthen alliances between civil society organizations and trade unions.

Some 70,000 participants, representing more than 4,000 organizations took part in the World Social Forum. The five-day event serves as an annual counterweight to the Davos World Economic Forum, where top political leaders and business elites meet to discuss economic issues.

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