Workers in a number of cities in Iran held, or attempted to hold, May Day rallies despite a heavy clampdown by the government. Rallies were held in the western cities of Sanandaj, Kermanshah and Saqez. However, the planned rally in the industrial zone of Asalooye was broken up when the security forces moved in to arrest the organisers and remove placards. Those arrested include Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi, from the leadership of the newly formed Free Union of Iranian Workers.

No Sweat Benefit Gig featuring:
Rhizomes (conscious roots reggae 9-peice);
The Lockup (Two smoking barrels of ska from Newbury);
The Ruby Kid (Political Hip Hop – “Like Percy Shelley tripping off of vicodin”);
Jakal (PUNK.SKA.REGGAE);
Press1 (Hip Hop Poet from SE London)

Saturday 17th May 08, 7.30pm @ The Cross Kings

JOIN NO SWEAT & FIGHT SWEATSHOP LABOUR BEHIND THE BEIJING OLYMPICS
No Sweat, the UK’s anti-sweatshop campaign, is calling on people to come down to the Cross Kings and get involved with protests against the companies exploiting workers in sweatshops producing merchandise for the Beijing Olympics!

The first main theme of the collection to note is its mapping of the scale of Wal Mart’s operations. It is the largest private employer in the US, Canada and Mexico; successfully established in Europe; key driver of manufacturing in China; now eyeing the prospects for conquering the vast, untapped consumer markets of the Asian giants (China, Russia, India). This extensive web of suppliers and retail outlets is highly integrated and subject to a striking degree of centralised control, ruthlessly marshalled by Wal Mart’s own IT and logistics systems right down to individual shop floor level. As David Hoopes notes this ‘big box’ retailer has deployed advanced satellite communications networks for over two decades now - plotting sales, inventory and replenishment - and then used such information to steadily exert its influence over suppliers and distributors. Part of this has been the shift to a global sourcing of its products from East Asia, where new manufacturers were willing to dance to Wal Mart’s tune in exchange for access to the mass US market.

From US Labor Against War www.uslaboragainstwar.org

U.S. Labor Against the War is pleased to be able to share with you two important communications from the working people of Iraq to the workers and people of the world. The first is a statement of solidarity from the General Union of Port Workers in Iraq to the members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in support of the decision by ILWU members to shut down all the ports on the West Coast as a demonstration of their opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq.

The second message is a May Day greeting from a broad cross-section of union leaders from many different unions and labor federations in Iraq as an expression of their appreciation for the solidarity demonstrated by organized labor, working people and all peace-loving people of the world in support of their efforts to end the foreign occupation of Iraq and the sectarian violence that occupation has spawned.

A short film about child carpet workers in Bihar, India.

At the Cowley Club, London Road, Brighton. 7-9pm. Wed April 30.

To commemorate the anniversary of 1968 and the murder of Martin Luther King, No Sweat will be showing "At the River I Stand"

Cowley Club, London Rd, Brighton.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Student/Farmworker Alliance have been leading a National Petition Campaign to end modern-day slavery and sweatshops in the fields. The signatures will be delivered to Burger King headquarters in Miami this Monday, April 28, and there's still time to sign and forward the petition if you haven't already!

SOLIDARITY WITH BANGLADESHI TEXTILE WORKERS!

Picket Tesco!

Meet outside Tesco, Bethnal Green Road at 11am on Saturday 26th April

PlayFair 08 Industry Report

Did you know that a worker at a Chinese factory producing for one of Nike’s key suppliers would have to work 4,500 years at their current wage to earn as much as Nike CEO Mark Parker did in 2006?

By JEFF BALLINGER

The current strike wave in Vietnam can be traced to a seemingly benign statement by Adidas officials last year, attempting to explain a sharp increase in profitability. Since the German shoe giant's acquisition of the Reebok brand, it gained new leverage over supplier factories. This predatory relationship with the mainly Taiwanese and S. Korean sports shoe manufacturers collided with a rising rate of inflation, bringing the near-subsistence wage to a level workers would not tolerate.

BANGALORE MAHANAGARA PALLIKE GUTTIGE POWRAKARMIKARA SANGHA
(Union of Bangalore City Corporation Contract Streetsweepers)

An appeal for support

Friends,
There are more than ten thousand contract powrakarmikas (municipal workers) in Bangalore, employed to keep the city clean. Over 80 percent of them are dalit and women. They labour under inhuman work conditions. They work six days a week, through sun and rain, cleaning the garbage with their bare hands.

THE MOBILIZATION MUST CONTINUE

Widespread MOBILIZATION against the high cost of life has taken place in the cities of Cayes, Petit Goave, Jeremie, Port-au-Prince, everywhere… The people are fed up! We’re hungry, and poverty is finishing us off little by little.

Reports Batay Ouvriye

Cities threaten strikers with lockout

By The Copenhagen Post

Published 23.04.08 00:00

Local governments are ready to implement a lockout that would send all FOA union employees home.

[From Avaaz]

Even as the Zimbabwe crisis worsens, an extraordinary solidarity movement has taken hold across Southern Africa--sparked by a South African dock workers' union that refused to unload a Chinese shipment of Zimbabwe-bound weapons.

March 10, 2008

On Saturday March 8th, York University President Mamdouh Shoukri made a commitment to introduce a No Sweat licensing policy at the university by April. This promise came in response to a 45 hour sit-in by York students, members of the Sustainable Purchasing Coalition (SPC), a student group lobbying to reform York licensing and purchasing policies to more sustainable standards. If this pledge goes through as promised, York will bring the number of Canadian Universities with No Sweat policies to 17.

[By Polly Curtis and Anthea Lipsett
Thursday April 24, 2008; EducationGuardian.co.uk]

The number of schools affected by today's teacher strike action could be many more than the 8,000 predicted, after key local authorities reported double the number turning pupils away, the Guardian can reveal.

[From BBC]
Grangemouth
The strike by Unite members is due to begin on Sunday

Q&A on the Grangemouth dispute

Workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery are to hold a mass meeting ahead of a planned strike which will shut down the facility.

In its glossy and well-designed publications, Adidas expresses its commitment to improving its social and environmental performance, acknowledging its responsibility to "take action and encourage others in our supply chain to take action if we are to make a difference and become a sustainable business."

Now is the time for Adidas to take action in Indonesia, where systemic violations of international labour standards--like those at Adidas suppliers PT Spotec and PT Dong Joe--profoundly affect the lives and well-being of workers.

Take action now at: http://www.cleanclothes.org/urgent/08-04-09.htm#action

[from Clean Clothes campaign]
April 11 marks the third anniversary of the Spectrum factory collapse in
Bangladesh.

The collapse, of the factory, build on swamp and not up to standard, killed 64 and injured 80, of which 54 seriously.

This is how the TUC today reported the release of Mahmoud Salehi from an Iranian jail.

meet at Tesco, Bethnal Green (opposite Derbyshire Road), London.

A year after the world was stunned by images of a 17 year old girl being stoned to death in Iraqi Kurdistan; an international panel will debate the rise of honour killings, violence against women, gender apartheid and political Islam in Kurdistan/Iraq and the Middle East.

BP in Iraq - 'Blatant Piracy'

Take action at British Petroleum's annual general meeting on Thursday April 17th at London's Excel Centre...

The international trade union movement has launched a campaign to highlight abuses of workers' rights in the run-up to the summer Olympic games in Beijing.

Court appearance of Mahmoud Salehi and referral of his case to prosecutor’s office:

According to news we have received, on Saturday 29 March 2008 Mahmoud Salehi appeared in court, where he made his final defence in front of the judge.

Read on for mor eon this case and to take email action to demand his release.