Message from CCU Vice President John Hanrahan
The Confederation of Canadian Unions
supports the right of freedom of
association for all workers in Canada and
throughout the world. We are of the view
that the right to bargain collectively is a
basic human right and should be afforded
to people of all nations.
Unfortunately, all too often our
governments and the global corporations
they support do not respect the rights of workers and unions. Many times they act against workers in violation of their own domestic and international laws. Through our relationship with LabourStart and other global solidarity organizations, the CCU supports the right of workers to participate in and form unions without fear of intimidation, interference or loss of liberty.
We encourage our members and guests to our website to make use of this page to review the daily labour news from Canada and around the world. We ask you to take a few moments to support the global solidarity campaigns that appear here. Add your voice to the struggle for workers rights at home and abroad.
In Solidarity,
John Hanrahan
CCU Vice President
The Confederation of Canadian Unions
supports the right of freedom of
association for all workers in Canada and
throughout the world. We are of the view
that the right to bargain collectively is a
basic human right and should be afforded
to people of all nations.
Unfortunately, all too often our
governments and the global corporations
they support do not respect the rights of workers and unions. Many times they act against workers in violation of their own domestic and international laws. Through our relationship with LabourStart and other global solidarity organizations, the CCU supports the right of workers to participate in and form unions without fear of intimidation, interference or loss of liberty.
We encourage our members and guests to our website to make use of this page to review the daily labour news from Canada and around the world. We ask you to take a few moments to support the global solidarity campaigns that appear here. Add your voice to the struggle for workers rights at home and abroad.
In Solidarity,
John Hanrahan
CCU Vice President
International Labour Headlines
Canadian Labour Headlines
International Campaigns
The CCU supports the struggles of workers all over the world, and its leadership is active in protecting the rights of unions to function freely without state interference.
CCU Vice President John Hanrahan has written a letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung, demanding the immediate release of labour leaders Doan Huy Chuong, Nguyen Hoang Quoc and Do Thi Minh Hanh.
The cases of the three have made headlines all over the globe, and human rights organizations have officially classified Chuong, Quoc and Hanh as political prisoners.
“It is clear to us that these individuals have been jailed solely as a result of engaging in just and legal union activity,” says Hanrahan. “The Confederation of Canadian Unions supports the right of all workers to bargain collectively with employers without the fear of being intimidated or deprived of liberty.”
Read letter
CCU Vice President John Hanrahan has written a letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung, demanding the immediate release of labour leaders Doan Huy Chuong, Nguyen Hoang Quoc and Do Thi Minh Hanh.
The cases of the three have made headlines all over the globe, and human rights organizations have officially classified Chuong, Quoc and Hanh as political prisoners.
“It is clear to us that these individuals have been jailed solely as a result of engaging in just and legal union activity,” says Hanrahan. “The Confederation of Canadian Unions supports the right of all workers to bargain collectively with employers without the fear of being intimidated or deprived of liberty.”
Read letter
CCU Vice-President John Hanrahan wrote a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev demanding the immediate release of Valentin Urusov, a mineworker and union activist based in Russia.
Urusov is currently serving six years’ hard labour for a fabricated offence (possession of drugs) after being singled out by the authorities after an industrial dispute last July. “We have no doubt,” says Hanrahan, “that the case against Mr. Urusov is fabricated... and occurred because he was active in recruiting his fellow mineworkers to a trade union organization and sought to represent their interests.”
A Facebook group has been founded to raise awareness of Urusov and his struggle for freedom.
Read letter
Urusov is currently serving six years’ hard labour for a fabricated offence (possession of drugs) after being singled out by the authorities after an industrial dispute last July. “We have no doubt,” says Hanrahan, “that the case against Mr. Urusov is fabricated... and occurred because he was active in recruiting his fellow mineworkers to a trade union organization and sought to represent their interests.”
A Facebook group has been founded to raise awareness of Urusov and his struggle for freedom.
Read letter
In Fiji, the military government has arrested a union official and is preventing union meetings
In Georgia, government attacks trade union rights
In South Korea, police use force against strikers
In South Korea, public servants denied political freedom
In Malawi, government uses tear gas live ammunition on protesters
Palesinian Workers' Strike at the Salit Quarry
Ontario Government attacks workers right to strike
In Thailand, workers fired for forming union
In Georgia, government attacks trade union rights
In South Korea, police use force against strikers
In South Korea, public servants denied political freedom
In Malawi, government uses tear gas live ammunition on protesters
Palesinian Workers' Strike at the Salit Quarry
Ontario Government attacks workers right to strike
In Thailand, workers fired for forming union
Letters from CCU Vice President John Hanrahan
Letter to Botswana President
Letter to Fiji Prime Minister
Letter to Georgia President
Letter to Malawi President
Letter to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty
Letter to President of KFC Thailand
Letter to Salit Industry
Letter to South Korean President
Letter to South Korean President, II
Letter to Botswana President
Letter to Fiji Prime Minister
Letter to Georgia President
Letter to Malawi President
Letter to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty
Letter to President of KFC Thailand
Letter to Salit Industry
Letter to South Korean President
Letter to South Korean President, II
CCU Vice-President John Hanrahan Calls for Release of Russian Labour Activist Valentin Urusov
CCU Vice-President John Hanrahan Demands Freedom for Vietnamese Labour Union Leaders
Other Labour Headlines
The Confederation of Canadian Unions - 4700 Keele St., Room 065, East Office Building. Toronto, Ontario. M3J 1P3. Phone 416.736.5109. Fax 416-736-5519. contact@ccu-csc.ca. Copyright 2012. All Rights Reserved.
Designed by Sean Cain, Better World Communications (www.freelancewrite.org).
Designed by Sean Cain, Better World Communications (www.freelancewrite.org).
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"Solidarity is a Global Thing"
John Hanrahan Reports from Istanbul, Turkey
CCU Vice President John Hanrahan participated in LabourStart's second annual global solidarity conference. On the agenda were issues including social networking, online campaigning, labour law reform and others that focused on specific countries.
The opening business of the conference was for delegates to stand in solidarity at the picket lines with workers at GEA, a German-based company who locked out workers at its factory in Istanbul.
Read John's first hand account below.
John Hanrahan Reports from Istanbul, Turkey
CCU Vice President John Hanrahan participated in LabourStart's second annual global solidarity conference. On the agenda were issues including social networking, online campaigning, labour law reform and others that focused on specific countries.
The opening business of the conference was for delegates to stand in solidarity at the picket lines with workers at GEA, a German-based company who locked out workers at its factory in Istanbul.
Read John's first hand account below.
LabourStart Conference Looks at Social Media to Aid
Workers’ Struggles
By John Hanrahan
LabourStart, the union movement’s premier international
news and campaigning service, held its annual global
solidarity conference on November 18 - 20 in Istanbul,
Turkey. Titled “From Global Networks to Global Revolution,”
the conference looked at the important role the internet and
social media are playing in workers’ struggles and
democratic revolutions around the world.
LabourStart was founded in 1998 and provides the global
union movement with a web-based news wire run by
hundreds of volunteers from throughout the world. The
organization also sponsors and administers “Act Now”
email campaigns that protest abuses of worker and trade
union rights everywhere. LabourStart's mailing list now
stands at 75,000 members worldwide.
I was in attendance at the Istanbul conference on behalf of
the Confederation of Canadian Unions, and as a longtime
union leader and active LabourStart correspondent. It is
important to recognize the significance of social media to
the global union movement and, in particular, the relevance
of LabourStart to the struggle for workers rights.
The world is experiencing an explosion of relatively
inexpensive and vastly effective web-based communication
tools that allow people and organizations to reach huge
audiences on a global level. It is suddenly possible to run
media campaigns effectively and inclusively without the
vast capital resources required in the past. This has the
potential to allow democratic, grassroots movements to
present points of view, information and facts that counter
the pro-establishment and anti-worker propaganda that is
the bread and butter of the mainstream media.
It also has the capability to allow union, pro-democracy
and human rights activists to find each other and share
ideas and strategies. The new surge of web based social
media will, in my view, be credited historically with doing
more for access to information, education and free speech
than any political movement or law passed by government
has ever accomplished. Within the global union movement,
LabourStart has been, and continues to be, in the forefront
of organizations that are using web-based social media to
organize workers and defend their rights.
In the last year alone, grassroots organizations and unions
have mounted protests against the abuses of corporations
and governments on an unprecedented level. For the Arab
Spring, the Occupy Movement, the austerity protests in
Europe and the pro-democracy protests now taking place
in Russia, social media has been the backbone of
communication and organization of these movements.
Corporations and governments have long forced their neo-
liberal agenda on workers based on their ability to
coordinate their communication and propaganda strategies
on a global scale. The international union movement must
embrace social media in order to combat this and promote
workers rights and solidarity everywhere. Thanks to the
recent LabourStart conference, I had the incredible
opportunity to meet friends and colleges from over thirty
countries that I know share this point of view.
We often say “Solidarity Forever” in the union movement.
With organizations like LabourStart and millions of workers
around the world using social media and online
communications, this may become a global reality sooner
than we think.
