GMB International Officer Bert Schouwenburg has just returned from a visit to Qatar with Building Workers International. This is what he found. I was last in Qatar with the ITUC nearly two years ago…Read more…
Slave-state Qatar faces ILO investigation
Today, the UN’s workplace agency, the tripartite International Labour Organisation (ILO) voted to send a high level mission to Qatar to make an assessment of the real conditions faced by…Read more…
Are Conservatives ‘now the party of work’? The Trade Union Bill suggests not…
6 November 2015
By Tonia Novitz and Michael Ford, Professors of labour law at Bristol University
This post first appeared on October 12, 2015 on the policybristol website. It analysis the Bill,…Read more…
Iraq’s new labour law: positive but ‘clipped’
Iraq has finally issued a labour law that complies with ILO conventions, up to a point. It is a good day for global justice. The law provides legal protection for organised workers in the private and…Read more…
Swaziland: is the pressure working?
We’ve been pressing for a change of course in Swaziland for many years. It’s Africa’s last feudal dictatorship. It has the world’s highest rate of HIV-AIDS infection. And…Read more…
Swaziland: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Swaziland makes the top ten worst places for workers because of its repressive regime of intimidation, police violence and imprisonment. Trade unions are also banned and authorities have used…Read more…
Egypt: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Egypt can be a tough place for workers with its cases of police brutality, mass arrests, abductions and attempted assassinations. In June last year, 500 workers of a national steel company protested…Read more…
China: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights (2)
At the ILO conference earlier this month, the International Trade Union Confederation launched its 2015 Global Rights Index, detailing the ten worst countries for workers’ rights abuses in the…Read more…
Belarus: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights (1)
At the ILO conference earlier this month, the International Trade Union Confederation launched its 2015 Global Rights Index, detailing the ten worst countries for workers’ rights abuses in the…Read more…
Ten countries not to go to, if you’re a trade unionist
Although holiday season is almost upon us, this isn’t really the TUC Holiday Show. Over the last fortnight, trade unionists, employers and governments from all over the world have been in…Read more…
G7 starts to address workplace safety
Although most of the publicity around the G7 Summit in Germany has been around the relationship with Russia and the problems in the Middle East, there have been a lot of other discussions taking…Read more…
Message from Mogadishu
Over the weekend, we received the following report from our brother Omar Faruk Osman, the journalists’ union leader who is General Secretary of the Somali equivalent of the TUC, the Federation…Read more…
The right to strike re-affirmed at ILO
25 February 2015
According to a press release from ITUC today (25 February 2015), a breakthrough has been made at the International Labour Organisation(ILO) following two years during which…Read more…
The Right to Strike is a Human Right
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) have called for a day of action on the 18th February in support of the right to strike. Currently employer organisations, including the CBI, are…Read more…
What’s REALLY bugging Eurozone hardliners about Syriza?
The brinkmanship and rhetoric surrounding the renegotiation of Greece’s memorandum with the Troika was ramped up this week as a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers on Monday broke up without…Read more…
#TTIP: battle hots up over NHS and workers’ rights
EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom was in London yesterday, and there was a lot of talk about the EU-US trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In particular, as has been the case for months, the hot topic wa…Read more…
Global pressure forces withdrawal of Thai prison labour plans
Campaigning has paid off again. Last week I blogged about a campaign we’d joined to stop the Thai Government’s plans to force prisoners to work in the notorious Thai fishing industry….Read more…
IMF: looking on the bright side, or the ‘right side’?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) doesn’t have a fantastic reputation around the world for the damage it did to developing and Asian economies during the years of the neoliberal ‘Washington consensus’. Confessing to getting its analysis of the Greek economy catastrophically…Read more…
Safety inspections are not optional – Governments should respect international law and protect workers (so should employers)
Hat tip TUC Risks. We need to stop our Government (and employers) ignoring international law and make them take responsibility for the safety of their workers. UK Employees who work for anti-trade union employers such as Ealing based Catalyst Hou…Read more…
Safety inspections are a requirement, not an option says ILO.
The International Labour Organisation, which sets international regulations on a range of employment and health and safety issues has just considered a case that could have ramifications for the…Read more…