No Sweat

The Playfair 2012 Campaign has released an interactive game designed to demonstrate the pressures of garment factory work and the challenges that workers face in organising and obtaining their rights.

Play the Unfair Factory Game:
http://www.playfair2012.org.uk/game/

· Reza Shahabi still held incommunicado

· Osanloo sentenced to one more year prison

· Members of the Coordinating Committee targeted/jailed

· RMT campaigns for release of Iranian trade union leader, Reza Shahabi

· Report on leaflet distribution about Reza Shahabi’s arrest in Tehran

· Is Reza Shahabi being forgotten? By a group of workers and labour activists in Iran

· CUPW: Free Sakineh!

· Demonstration outside Iranian embassy in Paris

· Sample Protest letter (Please use to send messages to IRI authorities)

Recent weeks have seen a number of strikes and sucessful strike ballots in the UK including:
Factory workers strike in Coventry
Manchester College prison teachers strike
Sheffield Supertram staff vote to strike indefinitely
Strike threat at BBC Proms

Read on for a full round up of strike action across the UK

Tuesday, 10 August 2010 13:42

Kalpona Akter

Recently we informed you about the intimidation and harassment of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. On July 30, more criminal cases were filed against the BCWS staff and other worker leaders. Your urgent support is needed to stop the crackdown on the labour rights organisations.

Justice For Atenco: End Mexican State Impunity

On June 30th the Mexican Supreme Court ordered the release of the 12 Atenco political prisoners. The Court determined that illegal evidence was used to accuse them of a crime they did not commit and that the Mexican authorities assessed the case politically.

Thousands of Bangladeshi Garment workers have taken to the streets in protest at the government's refusal to introduce a living wage. Demonstrations have erupted in rioting and the police have reacted with barbaric violence.

Reports of the demonstrations and rioting are available at:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iX7VWn6VfLGZunZdPEhCC...
&
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/30/dhaka-garment-workers-violen...

Demonstrations at the end of June ended with police violently attacking children and women.

These protests come hot on the heels of the violent attack on a staff member of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS). The activist was detained and severely beaten by Bangladeshi security forces. This occurred just two weeks after BCWS was arbitrarily stripped of its legal status as an NGO.

Read on for info and action link:

We have just published an Outdoor Gear special report which covers fleeces, waterproof coats, walking boots, rucksacks, tents and sleeping bags.

The 62 page guide rates and compares over 60 leading outdoor gear companies. We have surveyed the environmental and ethical policies of the companies. The results reveal that virtually all the companies have woefully inadequate environmental and ethical reporting policies. We also look at nanotechnology, synthetic v natural materials, and animal rights issues.

But all is not doom and gloom. Our guide reveals that there are Best Buys for each of the six products.

This Buyers' Guide Plus report also includes all the stories behind the ratings of the companies.

Click below for link to the video discussing the findings of this latest Ethical Consumer report.

The CGT union in Honduras announced that it reached an agreement with Nike on behalf of the 1,800 former workers who sewed Nike college apparel at the factories Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex.

According to the joint announcement from the CGT and Nike, Nike will pay $1.5 million in a cash settlement plus a year of health insurance, and will give priority hiring and training to the 1,800 affected workers.

The most recent Nike victory also comes within a year of the USAS victory with Honduran unionists who work for Fruit of the Loom, the largest private employer in Honduras. USAS activists orchestrated the largest collegiate boycott of a single company in history, with over 100 universities cutting ties to Fruit’s Russell Athletic.

It is with great sadness that we announce the closure of The Cross Kings in Londons Kings Cross. The home of No Sweat benefit gigs of the last 3 years closes its doors for the last time of Thursday 8th July 2010. The venue is being evicted by the corporate landlord Enterprise Inns for failure to pay its high rents and cripplingly over-priced stock prices.

No Sweat has held many great benefit gigs on a monthly basis at this dying breed of a venue since January 2008 and with their help has played host to some of the finest comedians in the business, some of the best Punk and Ska bands in the UK and even some wonderfully exotic male burlesque, raising thousands for the cause in the process.

If you click on the title above you'll see a final goodbye message from the venue and some pictures of No Sweat nights from days gone by.

Some solidarity action is being planned...update later..
Iraqi Union leaders taken to court for oil sector dissent

http://www.iraqoilreport.com/politics/oil-policy/union-leaders-taken-to-...

By Carmen Gentile of Iraq Oil Report
Published July 2, 2010

In the latest salvo of an ongoing battle over labor rights in Iraq's oil sector, the state-run South Oil Company has brought charges against two of Iraq's most prominent oil union leaders.

Children beaten by Bangladeshi police as they join garment workers' strikes
Children under 14 are banned by law from working but campaigners say many can be found in the sprawling factories.

Police in Bangladesh using bamboo staves, teargas and water cannon fought with textile workers demanding back pay and an immediate rise in monthly wages on the streets of Dhaka.

Witnesses said at least 30 people, mainly workers producing garments for global brands, were injured. Pictures showed children apparently being beaten.

Since forming a union at Coca-Cola's bottling plant in the southern Pakistan city of Multan in June 2009, members have met with death threats, abduction, firings, extortion, forgery and fraud. Management's vicious response to the workers' fight for a union is a story drenched with violence, corruption, sleaze and escalating criminality.

IASWI condemns police violence against G20 protesters!

Parvaneh Osanloo: "Because of agents' assaults my daughter-in-law Suffered Miscarriage."

Iran-According to reports received by “Human Rights and Democracy activists of Iran Roya Samadi, daughter-in-law of Mansour Osanloo, president of the board of directors of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, was kidnapped and savagely tortured by three agents of Intelligence Ministry.

A survey of recent unrest in the garment industry, as agitation for a greatly increased minimum wage - as part of an improved wage structure - continues.

The recent agitation began on Sunday 13th June in Ashulia, an industrial suburb near Dhaka with a history of workers' rebellion. Wildcat strikes began at factories of the Envoy Group, which is owned by the president of the main employers' federation, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

The wages of the 4 million RMG workers working in 4,500 factories - 85% are women - were recently confirmed as remaining the lowest salaries in the world. The factories employ about 40 per cent of the country's industrial workforce.

Four Leaders of the Syndicate are now in prison!

Campaign to Free Leaders of Tehran Bus Workers' Syndicate!

Mr. Reza Shahabi, a board member and Treasurer of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Vahed Syndicate) was arrested today, June 12, 2010. According to the latest news, Mr. Shahbi was on a sick leave for the past few days; when he returned to work this morning he was told to report to the Tehran Bus Company headquarter. After reporting to the headquarter he was arrested by four intelligence agents. Following his arrest, Mr. Shahabi was taken to his home where they searched his belongings and personal information including his computer and afterwards transferred him to an unknown location. His whereabouts has not been reported to his family.

If adidas can spend millions of euros sponsoring individual athletes and sporting events, surely it should value the women and men who worked for years producing its products in Asia. Yet it has failed to live up to promises made to workers at its suppliers factories in Indonesia.

Ask adidas to keep its promises to its Indonesian workers.
Take action today >>
http://www.oxfam.org.au/act/take-action/workers-rights/2010-05-Adidas-st...

On Thursday 25th February 22 workers died in a fire at the Garib and Garib sweater factory in the southern district of Gazipur, Bangladesh, where clothes were made for high street brand H&M.
The fire started at 8.45pm, probably as an electrical short-circuit on the second floor of the seven-storey building, and quickly spread to other floors containing inflammable materials. A large stock of synthetic acrylic sweaters burned and gave off a thick toxic smoke. (Acrylic fibres contain the polycrylonitrile group of vinyl compounds, which may be carcinogenic.) At least 20 other workers were injured in the blaze, many with serious burns.
As is usual in garment factories, the exit doors were kept locked by the bosses to prevent theft, as were internal doors.

Following this the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh (NGWF) have recently issed a statement regarding the ongoing negotiations with H&M for compensation owed to the families of the dead.
Click title to read full statement.

From Clean Clothes Campaign:

After a campaign that lasted for over three years, the Indonesian garment factory PT Mulia Knitting Factory finally acknowledged the right of their workers to form unions of their choice. The factory, on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta, signed an agreement last Thursday with the union GSBI.

Government Ministers and boat owners have signed an agreement with union leaders that ends the 8 day strike of river vessel workers.

The deal includes; dropping of all criminal charges relating to the strike, and release of all those arrested; a revised pay scale giving wage increases of from 50% to 100%. But it remains unclear whether this 50% to 100% rise is only the original unsatisfactory pay offer which triggered the strike - or if it is 50% to 100% on top of that.

The boat workers strike coincides with wider struggles breaking out across the country. In Rangpur, largest city of the north-west; an indefinite bus workers' strike begins. Chittagong, main southern sea port; casual day labourers struck against being paid less than minimum wage for unloading ship cargoes, and last week 1.3 million weavers struck, protesting import restrictions on Indian yarn.

Call to end the bloodshed and state repression in Thailand by Thai Labour activist.

We request that our comrades and friends around the world, all who understand the tragedy that continues to unfold in Thailand, add their name / name of their organisation to the ‘Stop the Bloodshed in Thailand’ petition. http://www.petitiononline.com/10310/petition.html

Please distribute the petition through your networks and, if possible, print-out the petition and, with as many people as can be gathered, deliver the petition to your Head of State – on May 20 – the day that ended the 1992 massacre, or as soon as possible.

A week-long strike of river vessel and port workers continues, despite severe state repression.

Friday 7th May; at one minute past midnight 150,000 boat workers began an indefinite strike. The inland waterways of Bangladesh - a vast complex of rivers and canals - comprise an essential part of the country's transport network, handling 30% of cargoes and 15% of passengers with a great variety of rowing boats, trawlers, steamers and triple deck launches plying the routes. The strike was called by the Bangladesh River Vessel Workers’ Federation (an alliance of six trade unions). Three small unions, at least one affiliated to the ruling Awami League party, accepted the wage offer and are scabbing on the strike.

Trouble has been brewing in the industry for a while. The workers have not had a raise since 2004, and, as inflation eats further into wages, repeated wage demands have been ignored and promises broken. In 2008 a 3-day strike secured the river workers a promise from the government and boat owners of a pay review within 3 months - it never happened. An indefinite strike was called off in March this year after an agreement that "a uniform pay scale for all workers based on national pay scale-2009 will be announced and implemented by April 30." Again, no delivery...