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Trade unionists are under attack, says ITF chief
14 June 2007
Trade union rights are under threat – that was one of the key messages from the ITF to delegates at the International Labour Organization (ILO) conference this week.
The conference, which has been taking place from 30 May to 15 June in Geneva, Switzerland, heard about the violence that union leaders in some countries were being subjected to.
During his speech to conference on 12 June, ITF General Secretary, David Cockroft, outlined the case of Pedro Zamora, leader of the ITF-affliated union of port workers, Sindicato de Trabajadores Empresa Portuaria - Quetzal in Guatemala. Backed by the ITF, he fought against the privatisation of the port. He paid with his life.
Cockroft stated: “It would appear that this kind of assassination - which followed months of death threats to Pedro and his colleagues in the union leadership - is nothing new in Guatemala. It took a major international union mission organised jointly by the ITF and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), together with intensive political action by members of the European Parliament, EU financial institutions and several governments to even persuade the authorities to treat this as anything more than the results of a domestic squabble. The death threats continue for the new leaders.”
He also drew attention to the plight of members of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company union, Sandikaye Kargarane Sherkate Vahed, in Iran, whose President, Mansour Osanloo, was visiting the UK this week. He said: “His union is a genuine one. We know this because Osanloo has been in and out of prison for over a year, arrested and beaten up by security forces simply for organising trade union action.”
He added that plans for Osanloo to speak at the ITUC General Council meeting in Brussels, Belgium, next week would see him “deliver the message that the basic principles of the ILO, including the right to freedom of association, are just as valid in the Islamic Republic of Iran as in other nations.”
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