johninnit

A quick, and getting rather late, plug for the new ITUC website, We Are ZCTU (www.wearezctu.org). It’s set up in support of Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo of the Zimbawe Congress of Trade Unions, who are due in court in Harare this Wednesday (30 July).

They’ve been charged with “spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state”, which translates as telling the truth about the state-sponsored violence in the run up to the sham elections in their country. They were originally supposed to be in court last month, but the case was postponed, most likely so as to keep the punitive bail conditions in force for as long as possible, effectively shutting up the unions’ public voice whilst Mugabe got about stealing the election.

Unionists all over the world are coming out in support of the pair online, with a giant photo mosaic that you can pan and zoom on the new site, and other ways to show your support. (more…)

Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo are the leaders of the Zimbabwean union federation, the ZCTU. They were arrested after a May Day rally for ’spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state’ (ie: telling the truth) and Mugabe is trying to silence them in the run up to the run off of the presidential election, with a trial on Monday that could go badly for them, and a ban on appearing in public or making public statements.

The TUC and others have an extremely ambitious plan to try to make a giant photo mosaic of Lovemore and Wellington, made up of  hundreds and hundreds of tiny pics of supporters’ faces from around the world. Wellington and Lovemore may be banned from appearing in public, but this is a nice way for thousands of people to show solidarity and help them to “appear” at the London demo called to conincide with their trial on Monday, and in other demos that will be happening around the world. The plan is to use the picture to get more attention on the issue and demos in the media. (more…)

Now I know how Carol Sawyers must feel.

A few hours ago, the little group I started to protest at Derek Blackadder’s unceremonious ditching from Facebook had 28 members. Now at 1,650 users, it’s one of the world’s most popular union-related Facebook groups.

What happened? Well, funnily enough I don’t believe it was solely the wonderful viral potential of the social network (as I was banging on about the other day). Possibly more significant in the development was the fact it made the lighthearted news slot (not much competition as skateboarding dogs don’t have a union) for a LabourStart campaign mailing. Game, set, and in all likelihood match to Eric Lee and his Facebook-schmacebook argument. Eric presses the button. Unionists around the world get mail, and weird things start to happen – very quickly.

So today’s lesson is:
“If you’re not already on the LabourStart campaign action mailing list – join up. Now. Take one of these actions and tick the box to subcribe. ‘Save Derek’ is probably the only mail that list has received that hasn’t been an extremely urgent union case, where a couple of thousand voices in solidarity have a real chance of tipping the balance. ”

Anyway, back to the funnies. This is pretty entertaining to watch (join in here), and will be really interesting to see how Facebook respond. Lots of good organisers coming up with good suggestions on how to take this forward, and a lot of emails going in to Facebook customer services.

All together now…

21 days without a poke,
He’s getting lonely, and it’s no joke,
I say freeeeee-ee De-rek Black-a-dder!

Stung by their employer’s decision to ban access to Facebook during their work breaks, staff at Medway Hospital have voiced their protest by, you guessed it, starting a Facebook group.

On a slightly less arch note, you can also join a Facebook group to support the staff at Fremantle Trust in their dispute against an employer who have slashed pay and conditions after taking over the public sector care contract from Barnet Council. Unison rep Andrew Rogers has been sacked in the latest twist to this long running dispute, so please join the group and take this online action.

I remember writing an email of complaint to their Chief Exec Carole Sawyer many months ago, and getting back a remarkably snotty reply, so it’s not a great surprise that they’re trying to intimidate LabourStart, who are running the action. The LabourStart activists aren’t backing down, but their ISP got cold feet after a letter from Fremantle, and told them to remove the campaign, which is now back up on another server. Sign up now – they can’t sue us all