Workers Rights are Human Rights

Criticise Gordon Brown and you get lost in the crush. Criticise Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, President of the Gambia, and you, your colleagues and your union leadership get charged with sedition and slung in jail. That's what's...

Angelino Garzon, Colombian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, wrote to the Financial Times on 16 June to defend the Colombian Government’s record on violence against trade unionists (“ Colombia protects trade unionists ”). It was an...

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has strongly protested against the continuing detention of Juvénal Rududura, vice president of the union of non-judicial staff of the justice ministry, SPMJB, affiliated to the...

Everyone is watching what's going on in Iran, and trade unionists have a special concern. We'd already called a Global Solidarity Action Day for justice for Iranian workers before the Presidential election, and the day has special...

The International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) is mourning the death of labour and human rights defender, Dr Manuel Arroyo Galvan, and calls for an immediate and transparent investigation. Dr Arroyo was a professor of sociology at the...

I've worked almost all my adult life as a trade unionist. Under Mrs Thatcher, we were the enemy within, and over the years I've spent a lot of nights trying to bring a union and their employer together to avoid a strike. But my lot is...

On 28 May, the Turkish police invaded headquarters of KESK (the public sector trade union confederation) in Ankara as well as their local offices in Izmir, Istanbul, Van and Manisa. More than 30 Egitim Sem members (teaching union...

In my last post I reported that independent Iranian trade unionists were facing harassment and intimidation over their plans to exercise their universal human rights to assembly and expression by demonstrating on the international...

Tomorrow, 1 May, is May Day, the international day for workers, celebrated since 1886 around the world. It is the day when workers in countries all over the planet protest about their concerns, and give voice to their human right to...

The TUC is joining a new Amnesty International campaign to secure visiting rights for Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva, Cuban nationals whose husbands are serving lengthy prison sentences in the USA. They have for the ninth time been...

Imagine, you’ve just arrrived home from the Amnesty AGM last weekend, filled with ideas for promoting human rights. But at your doorstep you’re met by military officers who arrest you and throw you into an interrogation center. Exactly...

I am currently spending the best part of three weeks at the UN International Labour Organisation in Geneva attending its Governing Body. Meetings are often long and technical focusing on things that whilst they will hopefully make a...

This morning (Wednesday 25 February) members of the TUC General Council watched as AI UK Chief Executive Kate Allen and TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring our two organisations closer...

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has condemned the Government of Guatemala for not investigating the murders of trade unionists, or punishing those responsible. In a report drawn up to highlight Guatemala's appalling...

This year marks thirty years of the Amnesty International (UK) trade union network, so people working at the TUC are marking the year by providing a collective guest blog on trade union rights, linked to the blog by Shane Enright...

I am reminded by the Stronger Unions website that today marks the 25th anniversary of the banning of trade unions at the Governments’ intelligence gathering centre GCHQ in Cheltenham. The denial of a basic human right to GCHQ workers –...

The struggle for human rights will outlast our generation, and the backdrop of enduring injustice such as the 40-year occupation of Palestinian territories, or the 20-year grip of the generals in Burma, as well as deepening economic...

Amnesty has issued its own to-do list for President Barack Obama, and I am fully behind the challenging but critical human rights goals that we are promoting to counter terror with justice: A 17 point checklist for President Barack...