There is one implication of today’s immigration statistics that might see the TUC and the Government in agreement. The number of asylum applications in the second quarter of 2010 was down by nearly a third, from 6,110 in the same quarter of 2009 to 4,365. And the main reason was that the number of people from Zimbabwe applying for asylum fell from 1,560 between April and June 2009, to 405 in the second quarter of 2010.
Robert Mugabe’s ZANU regime was driving one person an hour to seek asylum in the UK – now it’s down to four or five people a day. The lesson which I suspect both the Government and the TUC would draw from this is that we need an active foreign and development policy that improves economic and political conditions in developing countries. A better Zimbabwe means fewer asylum seekers.
We’ve just sent in our submission to the European Commission’s public consultation on its trade policy. The consultation covers everything under the trade sun, and so does our long submission.
It’s not exactly weekend reading, so I’ll pick out one of the more juicy issues (and award a prize to anyone brave/sad enough to read the whole thing): the EU’s new investment powers under the Lisbon treaty. Read more »
Workplace violence is, rightly, a big issue for trade unionists. And at Nautilus International, the union for maritime professionals, we are having to deal with one of the most extreme forms of workplace violence – piracy.
It seems incredible that in the 21st century our members are exposed on a daily basis to a crime that most people think was consigned to the history books in the 17th century. But the sad reality is that last year saw a total of 410 officially recorded attacks on merchant ships in piracy incidents and more than 1,100 incidents of violent attacks against their crews – including the use of guns, knives and even rocket-propelled grenades. Read more »
If William Hague, a Palestinian worker, the ILO and an IMF official agree on something, there’s a fair chance it might be right. All conclude that the Israeli blockade of Gaza is strangling the economy and jobs and must be lifted immediately.
Under Israeli restrictions only 72 of 4,000 commodities are allowed in, and only then, at a dismal trickle. The export trade is non-existent and concrete and raw materials are banned. The result: construction used to employ a quarter of the Gazan workforce, now it’s less than one percent. Without the means to repair bombed schools, hospitals and houses, Gaza looks like a permanent war zone. Read more »
The ITUC’s new Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights and makes for grim reading. Last year, there was a sharp increase in the number of trades unionists killed around the world. 101 were murdered, an increase of 30% on 2008, with another 10 attempted murders and 35 serious death threats. And this is against a background of growing pressure on fundamental workers’ rights around the world, as the impact of the global economic crisis on employment deepened during 2009.
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist, but the Colombian Government denies this. The European Union has been negotiating a trade deal with Colombia for several months, in a move which will be seen as a validation of its ‘improved’ human nights record (sic). But the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, has just published a report which shows just how obscenely ill-judged such a move would be.
And this comes on top of staggering revelations that the Colombian secret service has been spying in Belgium, where the EU is of course based. Surely the EU must now listen to European and Latin American trade unionists and Justice for Colombia and abandon this trade treaty, and make sure President Uribe and the rest of the Colombian Government recognise that they will be international pariahs until they stop allowing trade unionists and others to be murdered with impunity? Read more »
The Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has just finished its Spring meeting with a call to further action on forced labour in Burma, and for the release of those jailed for drawing attention to forced labour: U Zaw Htay, U Htay Aung, U Nyan Myint and Maung Thura Aung. The ILO’s programme on forced labour in Burma has had only limited success – 84 children have been released from the army so far, for example - but this is better than any other UN activity on Burma. Read more »
Deemed irrelevant prior to the financial crisis, the IMF was given enormous powers by the G20 to resolve it. But in light of statements it made earlier this week, trade unions are wondering whether world leaders have put a fox in charge of the hen house.
At the end of April, the IMF will give an interim report to G20 Finance Ministers on their efforts to build “strong, sustainable and balanced growth” and outline options on how the Banks should help pay for the mess they got us in. In a worrying omen of what their conclusions might be John Lipsky, the second in charge at the IMF, said earlier this week, that to drive growth, “…liberalization of goods and labor markets and the removal of tax distortions… should be pursued vigorously”. As the global trade union movement’s statement of priorities for the meeting makes clear, the world is crying out for millions of green and decent jobs, not the cutting of taxes and slashing of workers’ rights. Read more »
The Financial Times carries an editorial today about South African President Jacob Zuma’s visit to the UK next week. The FT says Zuma’s proposal that EU sanctions on the thugs who still share power in Zimbabwe is insufficient. On the contrary, it would be a dangerous mistake, and shows Zuma heading down the same route as his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. Read more »
Robert Mugabe’s cronies in Zimbabwe – clinging on to power and abusing as much of it as they still can, are furious that the European Union has maintained its sanctions on the elite of the country. They claim that the EU has sanctions against Zimbabwe in place, but in fact they are targeted on the people who used to run Zimbabwe as a brutal dictatorship. Trade unionists in Zimbabwe have welcomed the decision this week to keep up the pressure on Mugabe’s clique, not least because those still in positions of authority continue – a year into the power sharing agreement – to abuse that power. Read more »
Here’s an interesting juxtaposition today. Just as Google decides it’s had enough of the Chinese Government’s disregard for the rights of businesses and of its own citizens, Carlyle Group (the private equity firm that specialises in the arms industry) steps up its role in the country.
We’d like to wish a very happy Christmas and New Year to all our readers here at ToUChstone blog. It’s been an interesting year for us as the blog has grown and diversified, and we’ve enjoyed sharing our blogging journey with so many people, old acquaintances and new.
Our Christmas card this year marks thirty years of the Amnesty International (UK) trade union network. During 2009, we’ve taken steps to strengthen the links between the work of the TUC and Amnesty. Unions and human rights go way back though. Indeed Amnesty International founder, Peter Benenson, had actually worked many years earlier for the TUC, and had been sent to Spain in the early 50s to observe the trial of some trade unionists persecuted by the Franco Government. (His complaints to the judge were so effective the case against them was, unusually, dismissed and they were set free.) Read more »
