Workers Rights are Human Rights

The ITUC has criticised the latest attack by the government of Kuwait against the rights of its own employees, following a statement by Justice Minister Ahmed Al Mulaifi that strikes are prohibited and that international conventions...

This summer, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) agreed a convention on the rights of domestic workers – 53 million workers who are often excluded from rights at work. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has now...

On Sunday, the appeal hearings for Jalila al-Salman and Mahdi 'Issa Mahdi Abu Dheeb, the President and Vice President of the Bahraini Teachers Association (BTA) were postponed until 19 February next year, until when they will languish...

This week kicks off the start of the now annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans history and I’d like to contribute a few postings in the coming weeks to mark the occasion. First, I have to confess that as a gay man of a...

Iranian trade unionist Ebrahim Madadi was re-arrested today. The Tehran bus workers' union leader had been freed only last Thursday, a move welcomed by the international trade union movement. It is always difficult to explain the...

I have never written a blog before, so I was planning to kick off with a bit of background about myself, and offer a flirtatious introduction to some of the themes that I’d like to cover during the year ahead. The intensifying carnage...

The situation in Gaza has reached a point of absolute calamity. Today, Day 20, we have news that the death toll has passed 1,000, including 315 children and 95 women. The evening news bulletins in the UK are also reporting that the...

While British trade unions have played their part, joined by the 168-million strong International Trade Union Confederation and some of the Global Unions, the years of polarisation generated by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, means...

This is the first of three postings about Kamangar’s case. He is a Kurdish teacher trade unionist, now 33 years old. In this posting you will find Amnesty’s appeal and a link to our online action. In the second posting you will find...

This is the second of three postings about Kamangar’s case. In the first posting you will find Amnesty’s appeal and a link to our online action. In this posting you will find Farzad’s account of his treatment in his own words, while in...

I've had a lot of kind remarks since starting this blog and our friends in the union movement have been very encouraging and keen to get the word out – maybe there's a gap in the "blogosphere" that these postings can help address. I...

As suggested in my last posting on Gaza , I wasn't planning to post again so soon on Gaza, but here's a personal response to the BBC fiasco … I will leave it to others to make the case more cogently than I, but I do believe the refusal...

This blog is a celebration of 30 years of Amnesty trade union solidarity, or more precisely, the 30th Anniversary of the foundation of Amnesty UK’s Trade Union Network in 1979, which is certainly thriving and striving these days. We’re...

We’re not fickle at Amnesty, honest. Neither are we inconsistent,temperamental or unreliable. But this blog may give you that impressionfrom time to time so I need to set the record right straight away. Iam returning to the crisis in...

Blimey! Bingo! Brilliant! I got a slot on the “One & Other” project of artist Antony Gormley – A chance to spend an hour on the most glamorous soapbox ever offered to me – the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square! You can watch the...

I’ve suggested before that what bonds Amnesty and the labour movement most profoundly – alongside our shared values – is that we are both activist movements that recognise the power of solidarity and that we are both rank-and-file...

Readers of this blog and of the Amnesty trade union web pages will be familiar with the case of Mansour Ossanlu, leader of the Tehran bus workers union, who has been jailed on several occasions, most recently in July 2007, with a five...

Reza Shahabi is in an Iranian jail for no other reason than the part he played in the leadership of the Tehran busworkers' union. He has now been in jail since his arrest in June 2010, and his health has not been good. His situation...

Today, 25 November, has been the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and it seems a fitting moment to ask the government to reaffirm its commitment to eradicating violence against women with a very tangible...

The UN'sInternational Labour Organisation (ILO) this week issued a strong condemnation of Fiji'smilitary Junta over severe violations of labour rights (see pages 809-847). The ILO's Committee on Freedom of Associationdescribed the...