On eve of UN climate change conference, an attempt to silence the unions

Details: Published on Friday, 05 December 2014 17:44; Written by editor

Peru's government wants to silence Luis Isarra. We won't let them.

Next week, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP20) opens in Lima, Peru -- and a local trade union leader there who has been coordinating the labour movement mobilization for the summit has had his union leave revoked by the government.

This is a brazen attempt to silence criticism of the government's neo-liberal policies, such as privatisation of water.

The punishing of Luis Isarra, general secretary of the Federation of Unions of Water Workers of Peru (FENTAP) is "a direct attack on trade union... rights and democracy in Peru" according to Public Services International (PSI) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Please take a moment to send a message of protest to Peru's Minister of Labour -- click here:

http://www.labourstart.org/go/cop20

And please spread the word about this important new campaign.

Yesterday, I wrote to you asking that you help me raise the issue of workers' rights at Fairphone -- and thank you for your amazing response. Hundreds of you posted messages to the Fairphone website.

We spoke up -- and Fairphone listened.

They've written a detailed answer to our criticisms which is worth a read, on a new forum on their website where we can discuss these ideas further -- and I strongly encourage you all to take them up on their offer:

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/our-response-to-this-phone-would-be-even-fairer-if-it-were-made-by-a-union-member/3196

You may notice that a handful of people have already started using the forum to attack LabourStart for daring to raise the question of workers' rights at Fairphone.

Fortunately, that is not the view of Fairphone, which welcomed our intervention. Here, for example, is what their Communications Director wrote: "It's truly overwhelming how so many of you have commented on this post and are committed to the rights for the people who make the Fairphone. We like the lively discussion and want to join in tomorrow when we're back in the office. Then, we'll write a longer response to your comments regarding our vision on workers' right and the right to organize. Thanks already to everyone for sharing your views and support for fairer working conditions."

And finally, they took us seriously and have promised us that a case will be made available that contains our message.

In fact, they've sent us an image to illustrate it -- here it is on the right side of this page.

Obviously, that's not what we were asking for.

As so many of you put it in your comments, what we'd all love is a union-made smartphone.

But we had an impact and Fairphone is keen to continue the conversation with us, and that's a beginning.

Thanks again.

Eric Lee

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