[olympiaworkers] Pakistan: Trade unionists arrested as unions call for restoration of democracy]
 In this week's mailing:
Pakistan: Trade unionists arrested as unions call for restoration of democracy The International Trade Union Confederation has called for "the immediate restoration of the rule of law, the country’s Constitution and the fundamental democratic rights of its people" in Pakistan following the imposition of a state of emergency earlier this week. But while media attention outside Pakistan has focussed on well-known opposition politicians such as Benazir Bhutto and cricketer Imran Khan, there has been little coverage in the mainstream media of the arrest of trade unionists, as reported by the IUF. LabourStart has full coverage of breaking news from Pakistan, updated throughout the day. Build the online campaigns Your response to our recent appeals for help -- following up on physical attacks on union activists in Russia and Iran, and efforts to smash an independent union in Mexico -- was great. Thousands of you sent off messages of protest. But it's very important that we grow these campaigns, that we involve thousands of people who've never sent off messages before. You know people in your union, in your workplace, who haven't yet had the satisfaction of sending off a message and finding out later that it got someone their job back, or released from jail. We need to expand the network of people we can call upon to participate in these campaigns so that we can ensure that even more of them are successful. Please -- forward on these messages to your fellow union members and to co-workers. We also know that a lot of our readers are students, and want to encourage them to use every means of communication at their disposal -- including social networks (more on this below) -- to spread the word about our campaigns at their schools and universities. All current LabourStart campaigns are listed here. Facebook and us Last week we linked to a Canadian news podcast describing how Facebook had shut down a union organizing page -- but many of you couldn't access it, and it's no longer online. Here's the story in brief: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was organizing casino workers in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They set up a page on Facebook. Facebook later took the page down, claiming that groups like a union were not allowed to have pages, and that Facebook pages could only be setup by individuals. The union responded that many companies had set up Facebook pages including Tim Horton's (of donut fame). The story has a happy ending. In early September, the results of the vote came in -- and the workers overwhelmingly chose to be represented by the SEIU. The lesson of the story, as I see it, is that by "outsourcing" our online campaigns to social networks like Facebook and MySpace -- which are for-profit, commercial organizations -- we are more vulnerable to this kind of thing than when we build websites ourselves, using freely-available tools. That doesn't mean we should avoid using Facebook -- after all, LabourStart has 998 members in its Facebook group. But it means that we should aware of the risks and limitations. Have a great weekend. Eric Lee |
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[http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?article1549] has called for "the
immediate restoration of the rule of law, the country’s Constitution and
the fundamental democratic rights of its people" in Pakistan following the
imposition of a state of emergency earlier this week. But while media
attention outside Pakistan has focussed on well-known opposition
politicians such as Benazir Bhutto and cricketer Imran Khan, there has been
little coverage in the mainstream media of the arrest of trade unionists,
[http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=4629&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1]
as reported by the IUF. LabourStart has
[http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Pakistan] full
coverage of breaking news from Pakistan, updated throughout the day.
Build the online campaigns
Your response to our recent appeals for help -- following up on physical
attacks on union activists in
[http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=306]
Russia and
[http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=295]
Iran, and efforts to smash an independent union in
[http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=294]
Mexico -- was great. Thousands of you sent off messages of protest.
But it's very important that we grow these campaigns, that we involve
thousands of people who've never sent off messages before. You know people
in your union, in your workplace, who haven't yet had the satisfaction of
sending off a message and finding out later that it got someone their job
back, or released from jail.
We need to expand the network of people we can call upon to participate in
these campaigns so that we can ensure that even more of them are
successful. Please -- forward on these messages to your fellow union
members and to co-workers.
We also know that a lot of our readers are students, and want to encourage
them to use every means of communication at their disposal -- including
social networks (more on this below) -- to spread the word about our
campaigns at their schools and universities.
All current LabourStart campaigns are
[http://www.labourstart.org/actnow.shtml] listed here.
Facebook and us
Last week we linked to a Canadian news podcast describing how Facebook had
shut down a union organizing page -- but many of you couldn't access it,
and it's no longer online.
Here's the story in brief: The Service Employees International Union
(SEIU) was organizing casino workers in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They set up
a page on Facebook. Facebook later took the page down, claiming that
groups like a union were not allowed to have pages, and that Facebook pages
could only be setup by individuals. The union responded that many
companies had set up Facebook pages including Tim Horton's (of donut fame).
The story has a happy ending. In early September,
[http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=767782] the results of the vote
came in -- and the workers overwhelmingly chose to be represented by the
SEIU.
The lesson of the story, as I see it, is that by "outsourcing" our online
campaigns to social networks like Facebook and MySpace -- which are
for-profit, commercial organizations -- we are more vulnerable to this kind
of thing than when we build websites ourselves, using freely-available
tools.
That doesn't mean we should avoid using Facebook -- after all, LabourStart
has 998 members in [http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4247627245] its
Facebook group. But it means that we should aware of the risks and
limitations.
Have a great weekend.
Eric Lee
Book of the Week
This week's LabourStart Book of the Week is
[https://ssl30.pair.com/unionist/ccp51/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi?rrc=N&pg=prod&ref=kidsawork&affl=labourstart]
Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labour.
Your heart will be broken by this exceptional book’s photographs of
children at backbreaking, often life-threatening work, and the
accompanying commentary by author Russell Freedman. Photographer Lewis
Hine â€" who himself died in poverty in 1940 â€" did as much, and perhaps
more, than any social critic in the early part of the 20th century to
expose the abuse of children, as young as three and four, by American
capitalism.
By his force of will, often by posing as a fire inspector, insurance
salesman, or photographer interested only in the setting, not the
workers, Hine made his way into coal mines and textile mills, farm
fields and canning factories. He photographed the youngest of children
doing the most tedious, physical, often incredibly dangerous work, from
barefoot boys and girls clambering over looms in mind-numbing noise and
heat (mill owners kept windows closed year-round because the humidity
was helpful to the process) to nine- and ten-year-old "breaker boys"
picking slate from coal and breathing black dust all day above ground,
with survivors moving on to underground mining at the age of 12.
These blatant horrors are a thing of the past in many countries, but
still exist in the world.
The
book costs only US $9.95 -- and every copy you order helps to support
LabourStart. Please order multiple copies -- this is the perfect gift
for the 2007 holiday season.
[https://ssl30.pair.com/unionist/ccp51/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi?rrc=N&pg=prod&ref=kidsawork&affl=labourstart]
Click here to order your copies.
This message was sent by: Eric Lee, 51 Briarfield Avenue, London, UK N3
2LG, United Kingdom
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