Protest, workers killed, jailed and attack
May 14 2007 12:14
Eric Lee at Labourstart wrote:
In this week's mailing:* Chile: Forestry worker killed
* Vietnam: Union leaders jailed
* Egypt: Workers' rights organization attacked
* UK: Conference on workers' rights, trade unionism and global solidarityOne day, I would like to be able write to all of you and say -- this week, no one was jailed or killed because they wanted to join a trade union, anywhere in the world.Unfortunately, this is not yet the case.
***
CHILE: FORESTRY WORKER KILLED
Last week, 26 year old Rodrigo Alexis Cisternas, a forestry worker in Chile was shot three times by police, and died. He was killed during a strike involving 7,000 workers. His union (and the global union
federation representing forestry workers, the BWI) are asking all of us to take a moment and send a message to the Chilean government demanding an investigation of this crime, and to ensure that workers' rights are respected. Please take a moment to send off your message -- and to pass this on to others:http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=247***
VIETNAM: UNION LEADERS JAILED
Five leading members of the newly formed United Workers-Farmers Organization (UWFO) of Vietnam have been arrested and remain in detention. It is not known if any of them have been charged with any offence. Independent trade unions are banned in Vietnam. Please support Amnesty International's appeal for action:
http://web.amnesty.org/appeals/index/vnm-010507-wwa-eng
***
EGYPT: WORKERS' RIGHTS ORGANIZATION ATTACKED
CTUWS is an independent civil society organisation in Egypt whose role is to develop independent trade unions which can defend workers' rights. One of its branches has just been closed by the government and another threatened with closure. For more details and ideas on how you can protest, go here:
http://www.unison.org.uk/international/pages_view.asp?did=5186
***
UK: CONFERENCE ON WORKERS' RIGHTS, TRADE UNIONISM AND GLOBAL SOLIDARITY
The Southern and Eastern Region TUC is holding a free conference on this theme on Saturday, June 2nd. We hope to see many of you there. Full details are here:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/events/detail.cfm?event=2779®ional=7
Thanks for your continued support.
Please pass this message on!
And have a great weekend. Eric Lee
May 14 2007 14:12
#2
Feel free to expand jeFFF
May 14 2007 16:22
#3
He rammed two cop cars with a backhoe after they'd started attacking a roadblock.
I wrote a brief forum piece a few days ago.
http://libcom.org/forums/news/chile-striking-forestry-worker-killed-cops
The strike has been called off, btw. According to the building and wood workers international, they won fairly hefty wage increases but are planning on continuing protests against the police.
santiago.indymedia.org has a photo spread of the funeral
and i found videos of the funeral and protests on youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XztDN5GB0yY
I tried to write up a bit for the news section but was using hitml for link anchors instead of bbcode and somehow lost the entire bloody thing
May 14 2007 17:02
#4
I'm not sure if it's worth specifying that the Chilean worker was using a backhoe (some kind of JCB type thing) to destroy cars (I think police cars and possibly ones in a block of some kind when he was killed. If we're talking about the same guy that is. I was going to write it up for news but got sidetracked.