AAWL Public Meeting
Wednesday 1 September 2010
6:30 - 8:00 Trades Hall, Lygon Street, Carlton

Building International Solidarity

Speakers from:
Latin American Forum Conference (9/10 Oct)
Lasnet Latin American Asia Pacific Conference (15/18 Oct)
Socialist Alliance Climate Change Social Change (5/7 Nov)
AAWL: Building the Global Labour Movement Charter

On February 13, 2010 Mr. Han Sang Kyun the Chairman of the Ssangyong Motor Company Union was sentenced to four years in prison. AAWL is campaigning for his release. Download the updated leaflet here and send your solidarity letter before Han’s final appeal hearing on 9 August 2010.  Click here to send your solidarity message to the Korean Metal Workers' Union. (You may need to click on 'Read more' at the bottom of this item and then cut and paste the text of the letter.)

We strongly protest comrade Han’s continued detention, and we demand that he be freed immediately. We echo  the Korean Metal Workers' Union call on the Court of Appeals to find Hang Sang Kyun and his 21 other comrades not guilty, and rule in favour of their immediate release.

Mr Han led a 77 day strike at the Ssangyong  vehicle manufacturing plant in protest against mass sackings. The company and South Korean government responded with violent police attacks against the strikers and solidarity supporters including the use of chemical agents. They blockaded the workers and denied them food, water and medical aid. The strike ended in August 2009. More information about the strike can be found here and here.

AAWL needs your support to keep building international solidarity.

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Since forming a union at Coca-Cola's bottling plant in the southern Pakistan city of Multan in June 2009, members have met with death threats, abduction, firings, extortion, forgery and fraud. Management's vicious response to the workers' fight for a union is a story drenched with violence, corruption, sleaze and escalating criminality. More here.

Defending Indigenous Rights: Land~Law~Culture is a conference running from July 6-9 in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) to discuss issues facing Indigenous people and communities both in Australia and overseas.

There will be speakers and delegates from Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and Indigenous representatives from around the world.

Issues to be discussed will include the Northern Territory Intervention, language and culture preservation, the nuclear industry, creating jobs with justice, deaths in custody and more.

More details here.

We condemn in the strongest terms the killing of Edward Panganiban, a labor leader in the Southern Tagalog region. He was trying to catch a ride to work when he was gunned down by motorcycle-riding men at 5:20 pm, in Barangay Caingin, Sta. Rosa, Laguna last June 3. He died on the spot, sustaining 12 gunshot wounds in his body. Full story here.

The Philippines Australia Solidarity Association is holding a forum on the Philippines elections and activism at 6pm on the 16th Juy, 2010 in the Bella Union Bar, Trades Hall, Lygon Street, Carlton

On Wednesday June 23rd Zoya Samadi, Mansour Osanloo’s daughter in law, was leaving work to go home. Samadi was brutally accosted by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence at the Tarasht metro station. Mansour Osanloo is the head of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran & Suburbs Bus Company.

After arresting Samadi, she was taken to an undisclosed location for four hours.  While being tortured, the agents told her "You must guarantee that if Osanloo is released from prison, he will never remain in Iran and that he will cease all activities."  Mrs. Osanloo has said that as a result of the attack Zoya Samadi, who was pregnant at the time, suffered a miscarriage. It is worth mentioning that in the past few days reports were released alluding to a pardon for Mansour Osanloo and his imminent release from jail. Read more and send protest letter here.

Somyot Pruksakasemsuk was released on Sunday night, 13 June, from a prison at a Thai army base. He had been imprisoned since 24 May, together with academic Suthachai Yimprasert from Chulalongkom University, after the two presented themselves to police after they heard arrest warrants had been issued for them.

The release of Somyot follows a criminal court’s decision rejecting the government’s Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation arrest order. Even after that decision, the government held him for another seven days.

Unions and NGOs around the world sent protests to the Thai government over the arrest.  An online appeal by the Clean Clothes Campaign also generated pressure on the government.

wednesday 7 july 2010

Reports from Iranian Workers and Activists

6:30 pm - all welcome
trades hall, lygon street, carlton

Workers at a Honda auto parts factory in China have returned to work with a 24 per cent wage increase, after taking strike action that shut down Honda assembly plants to protest against low wages. Around 1,900 workers at the plant in Foshan began industrial action on May 17 demanding an increase in wages. More details of the workers demands can be seen on the Globalization Monitor website here and a brief report on the successful outcome of the strike from the International Metalworkers Federation can be read here.