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To the president of the International Labor Meeting

                                 (Geneva )  

      Allow me to pass to your good self our sincere regards and warmest greetings on behalf of my self and all the members of General Trade Union Of Textile Workers Egypt.

    We would like to inform your good self that we had a strike for the Workers in Tanta Oil and Cotton company this is thanks to the Egyptian Law that organize the work system after we failed to negotiate with the owner which is Saudi and his name is Abd Elelah Alkaaky to reach solutions for the workers rights in the company :

1-     1- The company stopped to pay the annual rewards that mentioned in the labor law which is 7% from the basic salary this is from 1/7/2008

2-    2-  The company stopped to pay the rewards salary based on the current basic salary and it frizzed the procedures payment on salary 30/6/2004

3-      3-The company refused to increase the cost of the meal from 32 Egyptian pound to 90 Egyptian pound as the same condition of the workers in another companies in the same sector

4-      4-The company fired 9 workers 2 of them are unionists within July 2007 and October 2008

5-      5-The company refused to pay the benefits for the workers since 2006 although they have over income in their balance since 2005 until now

  We would like to inform your good self the Saudi investor does not respect the laws and the international agreements meanwhile he fired some of the workers and unionists and also he acting in tough way when he informed that the workers would have strike meanwhile he stopped to pay salaries since May 2009

  Although the union announce the strike since 31/5/2009 until now  he refused to negotiate and he insists on his violence which is not related to the agreements and the international legislation

    We hope that you will interfere to support us to find the suitable solutions for the workers rights

            Wishing you all the best

Said Elgohary

President           

For more information, write to rostommostafa@hotmail.com

You've created a group, but when you enter its name into the search box on top of the UnionBook page, you can't find it. Why not?  Well, it turns out that Elgg (the social networking software that is the platform UnionBook runs on) will indeed find your group, but there's one extra step you have to do.  When creating a group, there's a field called 'Interests'.  You'll want to put some key words about your group into that field, separated by commas.  If you already have created a group, you can edit it to do this.  For example, the Union Books group can now be found simply by searching for the word 'books'.  Try it - and if you're having problems, let us know.

Full details here.

On April 1, 2009, five members of the Federation Trade Unions Burma (FTUB) were arrested in their homes in Rangoon after returning from border areas where they had participated as delegates in the 1^st National Congress of FTUB. The five members are likely being held in interrogation centers in the Rangoon area where it is believed they are being tortured. These FTUB members have served as non-violent advocates and campaigners for workers’ rights and the improvement of wages and working conditions for workers inside Burma. While the charges on which they were arrested have not been announced, the FTUB strongly condemns these unlawful arrests.

The FTUB members arrested on April 1 are the following:

1. U Zaw Myint Aung (49 years old, Teacher, South Okkalapa, Rangoon)

2. U Soe Oo (37 years old, Textile Factory Worker, Shwe Pyi Thar, Rangoon)

3. Maung Tun Nyein (22 years old, Worker, Shwe Hninsi Textile factory, Hlaing Thayar, Rangoon)

4. Ms. Khine Lin Myat (22 years old, Worker, UMH Textile factory)

5. Ms. Shwe Yi Nyunt (25 years old, Nurses Aide and Law Student, University of Western

Rangoon, and Member, FTUB Women’s Committee)

In addition, the FTUB has learned that an unspecified number of family members of these five persons were also arrested, and these family members have been threatened and put under pressure in an effort by the military authorities to compel cooperation from the five detained FTUB members.

FTUB strongly demands the following:

1. U Zaw Myint Aung, U Soe Oo, Maung Tun Nyein, Ma Khine Lin Myat, Ma Shwe Yi Nyunt must be released immediately and unconditionally.

2. The SPDC authorities must immediately cease intimidating, detaining and threatening the family members of these FTUB members.

3. The SPDC must strictly abide by the ILO Convention 87 of the International Labour Organization on Freedom of Association, which Burma has ratifed.

4. The SPDC must denounce the actions of the authorities involved arresting our members, and immediately order an end to all actions to prevent workers from forming trade unions and exercising their workers’ rights in Burma.

U Maung Maung, the General Secretary of the FTUB, said today that “Burma has ratified ILO Convention number 87 on Freedom of Association, the military SPDC government is obliged by international law to respect and abide by this Convention. The fact that our members were arrested just after returning from participating in the 1^st National Congress of the FTUB, which is recognized by the international labour

movement as the legitimate national labour center of Burma, shows just how little regard Burma’s generals have for human rights, labour rights, and the international agreements they ratify.”

U Maung Maung continued that “We wholeheartedly condemn these arrests as a wanton violation of Burma’s commitments to the ILO and the international community. Our 1^st National Congress was attended by more than a twenty labour union delegates from the countries of ASEAN, the wider Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, and these arrests are an insult to both the international trade union movement, and to the ILO. We call on all human rights and labour rights organizations around the world to take up the cause of these five brave members of the FTUB, and we vow to hold the representatives of SPDC to account at the ILO Conference in Geneva in June.”

The FTUB requests the solidarity, support and cooperation from the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) and the international labor movement to immediately campaign for the release of not only these five FTUB members, but also for all our unlawfully arrested FTUB sisters and brothers in detention in Burma. The FTUB also calls on the the International Labour Organization (ILO) for its immediate action to help secure the release of our members in detention in Burma, and for continuing action to help achieve all trade union rights, especially Freedom of Association, in Burma.

The Iraqi teachers Union (ITU) held its second national protest on 28 March 2009 with over 500 protesters. The ITU protest attracted Iraqi media, and support from Iraqi trade unions and civil society organisations such as the Association of Political Prisoners (victims of former regime).

*Support civil society organisations. Allow them to do their job to strength democracy.

The ITU (please see statement below) is struggling along side the people of Iraq and other Iraqi sister unions to consolidate the principles foundation of democratic culture and thus is working to galvanizing and shape Iraqi public opinion against any breach or deviation from the Iraqi constitution and the rule of law. The union will stand firm against all attempts to turn the unions into tools in the hands of the executive and the ruling political power which are inspired from the culture of authoritarian regime that is still rooted in the heart and mind of the ‘champions’ of the current crisis facing the ITU. 

The protest generated Iraqi media interests and thus leaders of the ITU inside and outside Iraq conducted several interviews about the current ITU issues with the Iraqi government.

Al Hura satellite station held a round table news discussion over this. Al Uhra is a major satellite station. Labourstart led a global campaign in support of the ITU. At the TUC march on  28 March 2009 Power to the People, the ITU representative in the UK was interviewed by Education International.

Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of Unison, the British largest Public service union sent a letter of support to the ITU protest and read to colleagues in Baghdad (see letter below). The Trade Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary has written to the Deputy Prime Minister Dr Al Issawi calling on this government to drop the threats against the ITU and asked to push for the enactment of a national labour law that allows unions in Iraq to operate independently and democratically ( please see statement at http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-16195-fo,cfm  

    
The ITU will meet the Minister for Civil Society Organisations Dr Thamer Jaffer to discuss the current issue. The ITU is waiting for a formal invitation from him. It is worth to note here that Minister Dr Jaffer, the Minister for Civil society Organizations is the person who manufactured this problem in the first place.

Abdullah Muhsin

GFIW

ITU Representative in the UK.

Statement by the ITU

Our great people ...
Colleagues, teachers..
Federations and trade unions in our beloved Iraq..

At this stage, the ITU struggle along side the people of Iraq to consolidate the principles foundation of the democratic culture and practice in our beloved country. But the Iraqi political arena is experiencing a sense of confusion and deviation from the Iraqi constitution. The ITU is determined to continue with the task in galvanizing teachers, other trade unions federations and our society to shape public opinion that will stand as a wall against any breach or deviation from the Constitution and rule of the law, by the government of Iraq. The concept of the principle of separation of powers is facing blatant violations by the Iraqi executive as it is trying to swallow the legislative power. The current executive authority is moving to swallow up all civil society organizations and thus turning them into fronts for the executive and the ruling political power.

And today the Iraqi government and through its Ministerial Committee responsible for Governing Council decision No. (3), trying to swallow the unions in Iraq thereby flouting the constitutional principles and norms of democracy, and even violating the Governing Council decision No 3 despite the controversy and debate about its legitimacy.   
 The ITU view is that we must use this opportunity to galvanize our society against all these anti democratic cultural which is derived from a culture of authoritarian dictatorship that is unfortunately still rooted in the hearts of the champions the current crisis.

Most of the current Iraqi political parties are the product of the new Iraq but unfortunately their internal structure and their literature still fixed in the culture of different types of dictatorship (some still believe in the politics of the sole leader). The plunder of Iraqi wealth and the waste of public funds and the imposition of sectarian and ethnic polity are one aspect and product of a culture of dictatorship that still has root in thinking of the new Iraq. 

Therefore the ITU appeal to the Iraqi people, Iraqi writers, and intellectuals and fraternal teachers trade unions around the world to unite in supporting the Iraqi trade unions movement. The ITU will use all available peaceful and democratic rights enshrined in the constitution to correct the current political stand with Iraqi authority and thus minimize the deviation from our constitution leading to a democratic culture in order to establish culture of accountability and control and the right to peaceful opposition, under the rule of law and justice.

The Iraqi Teachers Union

Baghdad

28 March 2008  

Attentive readers have noticed that you can actually have two different email addresses on UnionBook.  And looking this over, I'm not convinced that this is a problem.

There's your public email address, the one you may want other people to see, and you set this by clicking on the Profile icon, which is in the upper left corner of the page (just next to the 'e' for Elgg).  This address is optional and is what you want the public to see.

There's also the email address you create when you click on Settings (on top of the page).  This is the address UnionBook would use to send you email messages, or any automatically generated mail (e.g., invitations to groups).

I think you can understand might it might be useful to have two different addresses, which is why - for the moment - we won't change this and aren't considering it to be a bug.

We've now got a tool that allows us to see which groups are the most popular on UnionBook.  Here are the current most popular groups - check them out.  (You must login first to see them.)

• Unions 2.0 (75 members)
• Labour Podcasting (61 members)
• Labour Films (60 members)
• Union Staff (55 members)
• Left History (54 members)