Blog: January 2012

Haitian Garment Union, SOTA, Perseveres Despite Uphill-Odds

The reinstatement of the union leaders is also significant to international solidarity efforts, as it is a testament to our power to successfully support workers’ organizing for their rights.  After the International Labor Rights Forum called on its supporters to take action, nearly 5000 people sent letters to Gildan.  These actions, combined with the Worker Rights Consortium’s report— that documented the ways that the dismissal of SOTA-union leaders violated laws and university codes, and that recommended reinstatement of the workers as an urgent priority—have shown SOTA and its supporters that they are not alone.

The New Face behind Unionized (and Feminist) Bananas in Latin America

Iris for blogI’m sure I don’t speak for myself when I say that Iris is the kind of leader every woman strives to be. Everything about her demeanor says luchadora, yet she emanates so much kindness and wisdom. She’s precise and strategic about her work and how it affects banana and agriculture workers everywhere, especially women workers. She’s a globetrotter unionist and a single mother.

Boycott of Philippine Airlines and AirPhil Continues

Founded in 1941, PAL and its unionized workforce have a 65 year history of working together collaboratively to ensure the company’s success. In fact, to help PAL recover from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, its workers agreed to suspend their collective bargaining agreement and accept across the board salary and benefit freezes for more than a decade. To reward its employees' loyalty and sacrifice, in 2009 PAL management announced it would implement a “fire and rehire” outsourcing scheme that would slash workers’ salaries and benefits in violation of the collective bargaining agreement PAL has signed with its workers. The scheme, announced during a routine meeting with elected union leaders, would have allowed the company to illegally fire more than 3,500

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