LabourStart Conference to Explore Global Worker
Solidarity
Tue, 07/06/2010 - 5:18pm
URL: http://blog.aflcio.org
     
Stuart Elliott, from the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor
Federation of Central Kansas, reports on the upcoming
LabourStart Global Solidarity conference in Hamilton,
Ontario, Canada.

LabourStart, the global online labor news service, will
hold its 2010 Global Solidarity conference at a time
when workers are caught in an economic tsunami and
employers are using the crisis as an excuse to trample
workers' rights. Participants from more than 50
countries will hear firsthand about the struggles of
working people around the world, especially under
repressive regimes such as Iran and China, at the July
9-11 conference at McMaster University's School of Labor
Studies in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Powered by 800 volunteer correspondents across the
globe, LabourStart daily publishes links to hundreds of
labor stories in 23 languages. Working closely with
national unions and global union federations,
LabourStart spearheads action campaigns in multiple
languages. It has promoted union use of new media
through its labor website, photo and video of the year
contests.

LabourStart founder Eric Lee says:
This conference represents a major step forward for
LabourStart in particular and for international labor
networking in general. We've gone beyond the format of
the small, invitation-only event and are holding an
event that is utterly unique, one that includes rank and
file activists, trade union staffers and senior elected
union officials from all over the world. It promises to
be an exciting and important event.

Two key Iranian union leaders, Mehdi Kouhestaninejad and
Tehran Vehad, will conduct an online video discussion
with the participants about the challenges trade union
members in that country face in organizing workers and
develop strategies for the global union movement to
support them in solidarity.

In light of the recent strikes by Honda workers in
China, a panel of four global union experts will debate
how to build a new labor movement in China while trying
to push the government-sponsored All China Federation of
Trade Unions (ACFTU) to be more militant.

Participants will also hear from union leaders and
activists from Mexico, India, Iraq, Algeria and Egypt.
The AFL-CIO and several affiliated unions hosted the
2009 LabourStart conference in Washington, D.C., the
first time the conference was held in the United States.
You can read about last year's conference here, here,
here, here and here.

PortsideLabor aims to provide material of interest to
people on the left that will help them to interpret the
world and to change it.

Submit material: email [log in to unmask]
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: email [log in to unmask], subject 'portsidelabor subscribe'
Unsubscribe: email [log in to unmask], subject 'portsidelabor unsubscribe'
Account assistance: portside.org/contact
Archives: http://lists.portside.org/cgi-bin/listserv/wa?A0=PORTSIDELABOR