website of the IUF in Asia/Pacific – uniting food, farm and hotel workers
12th IUF Asia-Pacific Regional Conference delegates re-elect Charlie Donnelly as Regional President and Ma Wei Pin as Regional Secretary.
Delegates at the IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference resolved to increase support to campaigns in all IUF sectors, similar to past successes that led to permanent jobs, increased union membership and improved working conditions. Continued…
In 2007 a 10% service charge was introduced into hotels and restaurants in Nepal. The service charge was the result of a concerted campaign by trade unions in Nepal to bring about a fairer share of the wealth generated by tourism. This video tells the story and impact of the campaign. The video includes interviews with workers and trade union officers from Nepal’s hotels and restaurants, including IUF’s two hotel and restaurant union affiliates: the Nepal Tourism and Hotel Workers Union and the Nepal Independent Hotel Workers Union.
An interview with John Angelus of the IUF-affiliated National Union of Hotel, Bar and Restaurant Workers (NUHBRW) of Malaysia. Brother Angelus talks about the opposition of Club Med to recognising a trade union at a hotel in Malaysia and the role of the IUF in the NUHBRW finally winning union recognition for their members. Interview recorded August 2009.
A settlement has been agreed which brings recognition and bargaining rights to the IUF-affiliated SBNIP at the Nescafé factory in Panjang, Indonesia.
The agreement, which was initialed by the IUF and Nestlé corporate management on March 28 and signed by the union and local Nestlé management on March 31, sets the stage for the SBNIP to bargain the Panjang workers’ collective agreement including the wage bargaining which Nestlé management had been steadfastly rejecting for years.
On 8 March 2011, International Women’s Day, a hundred women members of the IUF-affiliated National Union of Workers (NUW) held a protest on the steps of the Victorian state Parliament House in Melbourne, Australia in support of the workers at the Nowera Nuddy tea plantation. Sister Ged Kearney, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (above: front row, fifth from right), the national centre for all unions in Australia, joined the protest.
Delegates at the 2nd Annual Conference of the IUF-affiliated DEFOI (Dairy Employees Federation of India) held on March 24, 25, were shocked to hear the latest update of the state government’s indifference to the collapsing dairy co-ops processing plants in the states of Uttar Pradesh (UP) which is India’s biggest milk producing state.
The PCDF Trade Union Munch in UP which is the Federation of all local trade unions of the 39 co-ops milk processing plants reported that 3 plants have already been closed and 3 more are facing an acute shortage of milk for want of procurement. More plants (about 14 ) are near to collapse which will throw thousands of workers out of jobs, not to speak of the many small dairy farmers whose milk will have difficulty fetching the same price set by the co-ops.
The terrible earthquake and subsequent tsunami which hit the north-eastern Pacific coast of Japan on 11 March 2011 has, two week later, led to the confirmed deaths of almost 10,000 people. With over 16,000 people still missing, the number deaths is expected to rise. The loss of life has been catastrophic, but in addition the millions of people affected through the closure of places of work and loss of essential supplies is continuing to cause immense hardship.
IUF General Secretary, Ron Oswald, in a message to IUF’s affiliates in Japan, noted: “many, many of our affiliates outside Japan have contacted us to express to us their deep concern for the Japanese people and for our affiliates’ members in Japan. They have at the same time said how inspirational they have found the courage and strength of the Japanese people faced with multiple disasters which are almost impossible to comprehend from far away and faced now with a major nuclear incident following the earlier natural disasters.”
On 23 March 2011, the Bandung District Court declared two trade unionists from the Hyatt Bandung Regency hotel innocent of criminal acts.
Charges of embezzlement of just US$15 had been brought as an attempt to intimidate and victimise Early Sobari and Yudhasari Pardikan who were suspended from work in April 2008. Brother Early and Sister Yudhasari are members of the local Hyatt union (a member union of the IUF-affiliated FSPM, Indonesia’s hotel federation).
The chair of the judges panel, Siti Rahma, noted that no criminal act had occurred, that the good name of the accused was restored and imposed court costs on the prosecutors.
On 26 February the Sindh Labour court handed down a decision in what is probably the longest running labour dispute in Pakistan’s history. The court ordered the reinstatement of 19 union officers and members of the Karachi Pearl Continental (PC) Hotel Workers Union who were brutally fired in 2002.
IUF Global Newswire LabourStart
