No Sweat attends the 18 – 20 November 2011 Labour Start Global Conference in Istanbul

Last weekend Aine Trainer and Karen Johnson attended the Labour Start Global conference in Istanbul on behalf of No Sweat.

The event included representatives from 100 Trade Unions and Workers’ Solidarity Organisations from all over the world (at least 30 countries were represented at the conference) and gave No Sweat the perfect opportunity to network with, and meet new and interesting people fighting for their workers rights in countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Algeria, Pakistan, South Africa Iraq, Iran, Egypt and countries from across the Middle East region and the world.

The weekend was split up in to workshops on topics ranging from The Media and the Arab Uprising to Trade Unionism in countries throughout the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, which were presented by credible and relevant representatives of the countries in question.
The predominantly successful weekend was however slightly shaken by tensions between a Turkish group called BDS and a group of Israeli citizens who were thought to be Histadrut representatives. This unfortunately led to altercations between BDS campaigners and Israelis’ accused of being Histadrut supporters in two of the workshops and the closing plenary. BDS campaigners also accused Labour Start organiser, Eric Lee of being a ‘racist Zionist’ on posters they put up around the conference venue. Despite this intervention the Labour Start Conference was both fruitful and enjoyable.

We sold one No sweat T-Shirt and gave out many No sweat flyers and stickers promoting the work of No Sweat. We aim to email some of the contacts we made asking them about questions on their trade union activity in their home countries, which we will post on the website at a later date. We also have a video clip of a strike in Algeria that we are seeking to translate from Arabic to English.

Next Year’s Labour Start Conference is being held in Sydney and in Berlin the following year, both of which No Sweat look forward to being part of.