The ITUC has strongly condemned the brutal repression of demonstrators in Conakry and has reiterated the call for maximum sanctions against the perpetrators and instigators of the barbaric acts perpetrated on Monday 28 September in Guinea, when over 150 people were killed, 1200 injured and numerous women were raped in the middle of the street "The trade union movement is in a state of shock," said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the ITUC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 10, 2009

Contact: Brian Campbell, brian.campbell[at]ilrf.org, +1-202-347-4100 x102
Leslie Getzinger, lgetzing[at]aft.org, +1-202-585-4373
Melinda Lovins, Melinda.Lovins[at]calvert.com, +1-301-657-7089

Advocates and Shareholders Express Concern about Ongoing Forced Labor of Children in Uzbekistan’s Cotton Industry

Today, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released a list of goods believed to have been produced using forced or child labor globally.  The list includes a number of industries where the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has identified these labor rights abuses to occur including cocoa, cotton, tobacco and rubber.

Two more trade unionists, Gustavo Gómez and Mauricio Antonio Monsalve Vásquez, were assassinated in Colombia this week, bringing the total of trade unionists assassinated in Colombia since January 2009 to 27. The trade union movement has urged the authorities to do whatever is necessary to put an end to the bloodshed.

The ITUC joins the Confederación de Unidad Sindical de Guatemala (CUSG), the Central General de Trabajadores de Guatemala (CGTG) and UNSITRAGUA in expressing its profound concern at the very serious allegations of corruption and impunity within the Guatemalan labour law and justice system, affecting all workers in the union centres’ affiliates, with particular regard to the system’s independence and autonomy.

A three-member team of International Labour Organisations (ILO) officials is in Zimbabwe to probe alleged violations of trade union rights by the Zimbabwean government.

The team, which is led by Raymond Ranjeva, a senior judge with the International Court of Justice, is set to spend two weeks in the country.

Ranjeva is accompanied by Evance Rabban Kalula, University of Cape Town director of the institute of development and labour law, and Bertrand Ramcharan, a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

This week, the Obama Administration announced the outcome of the 2008 Annual Review under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programs. The report included a review of three petitions filed by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) related to the eligibility of countries that have violated the rights of workers.

The ITUC once again strongly condemns and denounces the murders of two more trade unionists in the Arauca region. Pablo Rodríguez Garavito and Jorge Humberto Echaverri Garro, teachers affiliated to the Arauca teachers’ association Asociación de Educadores de Arauca (ASEDAR), were brutally murdered by unknown gunmen.

The ITUC has joined with its regional organisation TUCA, its Colombian affiliates, and ASEDAR, in their resounding condemnation of these murders, mourned by working people and the national, regional and international trade union movement.

According to the seven Nigerien trade union organisations within the Intercentrale CDTN-CGSL-CNT-UGSEIN-UGTN-USPT-USTN inter-union grouping, democratic stability is under serious threat in Niger. President Mamadou Tandja is pushing for a referendum aimed at changing the Nigerien Constitution so that he can run for a third term.

This situation has come about following the Constitutional Court’s rejection, on 25 May, of his call for a referendum. The National Assembly was dissolved the following day.