This afternoon at 4pm it was the start of Trade Union Congress 2024 in Brighton Conference centre. Congress will last until Wednesday. I am here as a UNISON delegate and was really pleased that the first motion was “Standing up for care workers” moved …Read more…
#WDDW16: unions calling for decent work around the world
Now in its 9th year, World Day for Decent Work (WDDW) is a day set aside by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) for trade unionists and others to reiterate our call not just for jobs…Read more…
Sad news from Mogadishu, but Somalian unions will survive
Yesterday we received the awful news that another Somalian trade unionist had been murdered. Our colleagues in Mogadishu, from the ITUC-affiliated FESTU, reported that Brother Abdiasis Mohamed Ali, a…Read more…
#COP21: UN accused of washing its hands of labour and human rights in Paris Treaty
The ITUC joined a block of five leading human rights bodies here at a press conference at COP21, in a call to the UN to put peoples’ rights back into the draft Paris Treaty on climate change. The rights organisations have brought together their networks from around the world to support the…Read more…
Unions are looking up in the slave state of Qatar
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…
World Day for Decent Work: end corporate greed!
For the eighth year running, today, 7 October has been designated World Day for Decent Work by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the global trade union confederation to which the…Read more…
Workers’ Capital Conference 2015
Yesterday was the first day of the 2015 Workers’ Capital Conference, which this year is being held in London and hosted by the International Transport Federation (ITF). This global conference of union pension activists was organised by the Internationa…Read more…
UAE: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
The United Arab Emirates has made the ITUC’s list of the ten worst countries for workers’ rights abuses, and it’s not hard to see why when you look at the plight of the…Read more…
Saudi Arabia: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Saudi Arabia employs a staggering 8.3 million migrants. Migrants make up 90 to 95 per cent of the private sector workforce but are excluded from labour law and endure forced labour akin to slavery….Read more…
Qatar: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
As a Gulf State with its infamous kafala system, Qatar can be a living hell for migrant labourers, excluded from labour law and under a forced labour system akin to a modern slavery. Once in Qatar,…Read more…
Pakistan: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Pakistani workers face large-scale exclusions from labour law, arrests and violence. Last year protests were held condemning the murder of eight labourers in Balochistan. Earlier this year, trainee…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…
Join the fight against union repression in Swaziland
This week Members of the European Parliament have condemned Africa’s last feudal dictatorship in Swaziland for its repression of trade union and human rights. One of the authors of their…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…
Does Davos do any good?
As the super-rich decant from Davos – some, seriously, by private jet – it’s time to reflect on another year of the elite World Economic Forum. Does it do any good? Davos is mostly…Read more…