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unions demand transparent investigation into plane crash
Iran: unions demand transparent investigation into plane crash Education unions call for a clarification of the circumstances that led to the crash of Ukraine International Flight 752 outside Tehran, which claimed 176 victims, including professors and students. Through a statement on…
IASWI’s Statement on Assassination of Qasem Soleimani and its Aftermath: “Say no categorically and proactively to US warmongering and stand firmly in solidarity with the working class and the poor and oppressed people of Iran, and not the tyrannical Iranian regime, and help strengthen anti-capitalist, anti-poverty and social and economic justice movements in Iran and across the region.”
Say no categorically and proactively to US warmongering and stand firmly in solidarity with the working class and the poor and oppressed people of Iran, and not the tyrannical Iranian regime, and help strengthen anti-capitalist, anti-poverty and social and economic…
McDonald’s Peru: 12-hour shifts and death by electrocution
Following the death by electrocution of two young workers at a McDonald’s outlet in Lima, Peru on December 15, the general manager of the company’s franchises in the country has acknowledged that the beverage machine which killed the two was…
The brutal exploitation behind premium priced certified coffee from Brazil
A recent study from Thomson Reuters (Picked by Slaves: Coffee crisis brews in Brazil) provides new evidence of how coffee produced under brutally exploitative conditions on farms in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais is sold at a premium price…
STATEMENT: Brazilian National Contact Point fails workers and justice after dam disaster
The subject of the complaint was the irresponsible behaviour of these companies linked to the Fundão Dam disaster in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil on 5 November 2015. This complaint was with our respective member organizations, the Labour Union of Heavy…
Bonsecours Market employees have no reason to celebrate as the year draws to a close
A demonstration was held in Old Montreal on Monday evening in support of the twenty or so employees of Bonsecours Market, who recently learned they will be laid off on January 31. These employees, who were assigned to security, housekeeping and…
Kazakh leader remains in custody on politically motivated charges
Earlier Baltabay was released from prison in August 2019 after being pardoned by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, following a massive international union campaign for the liberation. However, this release from prison in August did not put an end…
Coalition of Ontario unions to launch Charter challenge
Today, ten Ontario unions representing more than 250,000 thousand affected broader public sector employees, announced their intention to launch a coordinated Charter challenge against Bill 124. In addition, the Ontario Labour movement, with the Power of Many, will be initiating an…
Unfair dismissal at Nokia in Finland
“This is an extremely brutal attack on the trade union. Our point of view is that Nokia is taking revenge for the three-day strike early in the week,” said Samu Salo, chair of IndustriALL affiliate Insinööriliitto, the Union of Professional…
CUPE welcomes flight attendants at PAL Airlines
The Canadian Union of Public Employees has been certified to represent the flight attendants at PAL Airlines, which is headquartered in St. John’s, NL. PAL is the third airline to be unionized by CUPE in 2019, after welcoming WestJet Encore…
CUPE welcomes improvements to the new NAFTA, but flaws remain
US lawmakers have successfully added important reforms to the new NAFTA, but many flaws remain in the renegotiated trade and investment agreement. The agreement falls short of the Liberal government’s own goals for a progressive deal on the environment and…
Why is a hospital residential addiction program being cut when North Bay had 138 drug-related overdoses since May?
In the midst of an opioid crisis that continues to devastate families in northeastern Ontario, an in-hospital residential addiction and detox program – that “helps save lives”, is on the chopping block at the North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC)….
India: Collective union action wins jobs for agricultural workers in Bihar
Action by the IUF-affiliated Hind Khet Mazdoor Panchayat has secured jobs for 570 agricultural workers in 4 villages in the state of Bihar’s Arariya District under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), boosting income and livelihoods for some 1,850…
Global network meeting resolves to pursue dialogue with Anglo American
Senior executives from Anglo American attended the meeting, comprising over 30 delegates from IndustriALL affiliates that represent the company’s workforce in Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Trade Union Competence Centre for Sub…
Very few concrete measures from the Legault government to address public services
This morning, the Conseil provincial des affaires sociales of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CPAS–CUPE) received the same sectoral offers from the Comité patronal de négociation du secteur de la santé et des services sociaux (CPNSSS) to renew the…
Education unions join international efforts to ensure refugees’ rights in and through education
Education international has seized the opportunity of the first ever Global Refugee Forum to reaffirm the crucial role education can play in the context of forced displacement, and to urge governments, UN agencies and all stakeholders to ensure displaced teachers…
Coca-Cola’s attack on unions in the Philippines invites violence against workers
Management at The Coca-Cola Company’s operations in the Philippines is using “red-tagging”- the public smearing of unions as subversive organizations to invite and legitimate violence and repression – in order to undermine union organization and spread fear among workers. The…
Empowering young union leaders | IndustriALL
Young leaders from unions affiliated to Moroccan Confédération démocratique du travail (CDT) reported on the creation of a youth secretariat to increase youth work at the national level. The national youth secretaries from Union marocaine du travail (UMT) and CDT…
International Migrants Day | Canadian Union of Public Employees
International Migrants Day is a day to renew our collective work to build a better world, a world where everyone has dignity and respect at work and in all aspects of their lives, and where migrants do not face exploitation…
CUPE members ratify collective agreement that improves livability for lowest-paid members
CUPE 3886 support staff at Royal Roads voted on December 13 to ratify a new three-year collective agreement, signing off on the tentative agreement reached on December 9. “We are pleased that members agreed that we key in on the living…
France: education union activists overwhelmingly opposed to government pension reform : Education International
Education International is supporting the education unions currently gearing up for full participation in a general strike planned for Thursday 5 December and likely to last some time. The unions are opposing the pension reform proposed by the French government,…
Van Leeuwen-Hopgood book champions fight for democracy
One of the highlights of this year’s International Book Fair (FIL) of Guadalajara, Mexico was the presentation of a book co-authored by Fred van Leeuwen, Education International (EI) General Secretary Emeritus, and Susan Hopgood, EI President. The book, “On Education…
What’s missing from Trudeau’s pharmacare plan?
CUPE is happy to see a commitment to “national universal pharmacare” in the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to Patty Hajdu, Canada’s new Minister of Health. It’s important that the government specified the program should be “universal”, however, it’s disappointing that…
COP25 blog – 15 December 2019
In my last blog post, dated 13 December 2019, I stated that “perhaps some of the unresolved issues, will have been resolved” by the time of this final report. It turns out I was optimistic: overall, the final outcome of…
“We know enough to take action”
The transformation of the automotive industry is complex and depends on several different factors. The introduction of electric vehicles (EV), autonomous vehicles (AV), the launch of new mobility concepts and the digitization of companies happen are at different stages around…
COP25 blog – 13 December 2019
COP25 – the very name makes it clear that this conference has been meeting annually for 25 years. There have been high points – like COP21 in Paris, where the Paris Agreement was reached; and COP24 in Katowice, where the…
Union network calls Coats to convene social dialogue meeting
The Coats union network is made up of unions from Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and Turkey, and met on 5 December in Malaysia to discuss factory mapping, working conditions and the network’s next steps. Participants discussed collective bargaining agreements, focusing…
COP25 blog – 12 December 2019
An important event took place today: the launch of the “Climate Action for Jobs Initiative”. As described by the ILO: “At the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019 forty-five countries made commitments to place jobs at the heart of ambitious…
Unions take action for the Philippines
The Philippine government’s targeting of trade unionists has been ramped up recently with fresh waves of arrests and violence. To date, 43 trade unionists have been killed. Representatives of IndustriALL, BWI, UNI Global Union, PSI and IUF delivered a message…
COP25 blog – 11 December 2019
Anger boiled over today, with civil society observers – including trade unions – coming together in protest outside of the afternoon’s plenary. The anger stems from the inability of this COP to solve seemingly simple issues. Among these are finance…