On April 30, 2008, trade union members and dismissed workers from the Karachi Pearl Continental Hotel held their seventh annual torch rally to highlight their ongoing campaign for trade union rights, a collective agreement and reinstatement of dismissed workers. Also participating in the rally were workers’ family members, other unions from Karachi, a minister of the Sindh provincial government and IUF representatives from Pakistan and the Asia/Pacific regional secretariat. On May Day in Karachi, the IUF delivered a message and open letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour regarding the Pearl Continental Hotel Campaign. The message, delivered at the People’s Labour Bureau May Day rally, was broadcast live on two national television stations across Pakistan.
Karachi Pearl Continental Hotel Workers Torch Rally 2008
Delegates to the IUF Asia/Pacific Regional HRCT trade union meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal heard reports from Ghulam Mehboob, General Secretary of the Karachi Pearl Continental (PC) Hotel Workers Trade Union. The union has been struggling for more than six years to achieve recognition and justice at the hotel, which has seen workers threatened, falsely imprisoned and assaulted for forming a trade union. Despite these threats the union continues its struggle. The IUF, the global trade union federation representing hotel workers, via Asia/Pacific regional secretary Ma Wei Pin, reiterated its continuing support for the union and the struggle for justice at the hotel. [English/Urdu; English/Urdu subtitles]
Starting in the late 1990s, the tea sector in India entered a period of crisis. Massive declines in real wages and employment throughout the sector saw the social conditions of workers plummet with incidents of malnutrition, starvation and death. Plantation owners abandoned workers with impunity, closing plantations (”tea gardens”) and simply refusing to follow the legal requirements to pay outstanding wages and entitlements (such as provident fund). Major transnational companies such as Tata Tea and Unilever slashed thousands of plantation jobs (see Unilever and Tata Tea: Pruning Workers, Reaping Profits). In response to the tea crisis, the IUF has been campaiging for justice for tea workers via a number of avenues. One campaign the IUF initiated is public interest litigation currently before the Supreme Court of India, where the IUF, along with a number of affiliates, is calling for unpaid wages and entitlements to be restored. The IUF-affiliated agricultural workers’ union PBKMS from West Bengal, one of the correspondents in the litigation, has been actively involved in the campaign for tea worker justice. Above is an interview with PBKMS President Anuradha Talwar (also an advisor to the Supreme Court of India) discussing the impact of the tea worker justice campaign to date and the role of the IUF.
Five women members of the IUF-affiliated agricultural workers trade union PBKMS were arrested and beaten by police in April 2007 while peacefully protesting against the seizure of farmland in Singur, West Bengal. Following their arrest they were charged with attempted murder and assault. The lands were seized by the state government to be handed over to the India-headquartered transnational company, Tata Motors. [Bangla, English subtitles]
The Australian Workers Union is an IUF affiliate. The following video gives a brief introduction to the union, which is over 100 years old, and covers the “Your Rights at Work” campaign which aims to restore trade union rights stripped away under the right-wing government of John Howard.
An interview with Mariko Mitsuda, who is Secretary of the Resorttrust Workers Union, a member union of UI Zensen, an IUF affiliate in Japan. Sister Mariko discusses the challenges of organising part-time workers in Japan and how UI Zensen has responded. [Japanese, English subtitles]
In 2004 the Indian parliament passed historic legislation, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which guarantees 100 days employment for rural households across the country. The legislation was the culmination of long process of mobilisations and lobbying by activists, unions and other concerned groups who have campaigned against the appalling conditions which exist in the countryside. Continued…»
The influence of private equity investment funds is having profoundly negative effects upon workers and trade unions. In Japan, the IUF-affiliated Service Tourism Rengo was confronted with an investment firm which refused to accept responsibility to collectively bargain at an enterprise it controlled; the following interview with Vice President Kunio Akiyama outlines the situation and describes the union’s initial response. [Japanese, English subtitles]
More than 250,000 workers and their families rallied in capital cities and regional towns across Australia on November 30 to protest against the “Workchoices” laws which have torn up decades of established rights for workers and trade unions. Continued…»
Participants to the 11th IUF A/P Regional Conference passed a resolution on taxation and discriminatory laws against women. The following interview with Susilawati Soehoed, Chair of the Jakarta Region Women’s Committee of the IUF-affiliated Independent Federation of Hotel and Allied Workers’ Unions (FSPM), describes examples of this in Indonesia and the actions of FSPM to confront gender discrimination. [Indonesian, English subtitles]
