Some 1,200 members of Mexico's National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union, or Los Mineros, have been on strike since July 2007 at the Cananea mine over health and safety and other contract violations.

Grupo Mexico, the mining giant which operates Cananea, and the Mexican government have continuously tried to end the strike and crush the union.

They have threatened and jailed union leaders, illegally frozen union bank accounts and failed to investigate or prosecute assassinations of union members.

On February 11th, a federal court gave Grupo Mexico permission to fire the striking workers and terminate the labor agreement. The government has threatened to use armed force to gain control of Cananea.

The Los Mineros members at Cananea are resolved to continue occupying the mine until a fair labour agreement is reached. Los Mineros is one of the strongest and most democratic trade unions in Mexico.

Take a moment to send off your letter of protest today from the LabourStart website today by going HERE.

2010 looks to be a big conference year.  LabourStart in July in Hamilton Ontario, Canada, LabourTech in Windsor Ontario, Canada 13-15 May.

The organizing committee has decided to link Labourtech to the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Labour Media to expand our networks and benefit from the workshops offered at both conferences.

    * Conference Schedule <a href="http://www.labourtech.ca/tiki-index.php?page=2010ConferenceSchedule">HERE</a>
    * Deadlines:
          o Conference registration:April 23
          o Hotel rooms:April 14
          o Residence rooms: April 30
    * Cost: $195 or $100 for individuals not funded by an organization or union

To register online go <a href="http://www.labourtech.ca/tiki-index.php?page=2010RegistrationForm">HERE</a>.

A new weekly presentation of international labour news is now on the Internet.

The audiocast - called Solidarity News - started on Monday, February 1. The audiocast will remain on the RadioLabour site throughout its current week. New audiocasts will be posted every Monday morning.

RadioLabour is on the Internet at www.radiolabour.org.  It is also on Facebook, please join the RadioLabour page.

RadioLabour is the brainchild of Marc Belanger -- the founder of SoliNet, which was the first trade union online network back in the 1980s.

Solidarity News will focus on union and workers' activities and issues from around the world with special emphasis on emerging market and developing countries.

RadioLabour reporters will provide regular weekly presentations, but a special feature of the audiocast will be reports from unionists who want to report on particular events or publicize an activity of their organization.

Scripts of the audiocasts will be available as aids for unionists who want to learn the use of English as an additional language in the international labour movement.

For more information about RadioLabour, listen to the audiocasts, or provide reports, visit the RadioLabour site.  Or write directly to Marc at m.belanger@radiolabour.org

Received today from Eric Blanc at City College of San Francisco:

To all student, worker, and teacher organizations and activists worldwide:

A California statewide conference of over 800 education faculty, workers, trade unionists, students and community people on October 24, 2009 at the University of California Berkeley issued a call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010 in defense of public education and against cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs.
A key component of this strike and struggle is the fight against the catastrophic privatization of public education system in California. But we know that this attack on education and public workers is a worldwide offensive. Thus there is a need for an international struggle to defend public education and social services and against funding for militarization and war.

We therefore ask organizations of workers, students, and teachers throughout the world to send solidarity statements and organize mobilizations on March 4 in defense of public education. Through international solidarity, we will win!
 
- The California Coordinating Committee
march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com

61 building service workers at the Toronto Dominion Centre in Toronto were locked-out and then fired by their employer when they refused to agree to the gutting of their collective agreement. They were forced to celebrate Christmas on a picket line almost 6 months after being forced off the job. Their union, CEP, is asking you to send a message to Cadillac Fairview, the company that manages the TD Centre. Tell CF that enough is enough! A copy of your message will go to the workers on the picket lines.

30 seconds is all it takes: go HERE to send a message to Caddillac Fairview.

We were expecting some pre-registrations for sure, but in the event the response to a very limited call-out has been overwhelming. Thanks to all who have responded, you're helping us with conference logistics, as well as the agenda.

As of today 382 people from 64 countries have pre-registered.

We know not all who have expressed an interest will be able to come, but it is encouraging to know so many would at least like to.

If you have not yet pre-registered and would like to, go HERE

If you think you might be able to attend the LabourStart conference on 9-11 July 2010 at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, please pre-register. This does not obligate you -- it just gives us a sense of who is interested in attending.

Thanks.

Pre-register HERE.

A group of international union activists is getting together to start a labour audio show on the Internet. The show, which will be  hosted by labour educator Marc Belanger, will feature news about union activities around the globe. The 20 minute audiocast, called Solidarity News, will be presented on www.radiolabour.net every Monday.  

RadioLabour is currently looking for volunteer reporters to provide one or two minute English-language audio reports about union activities in their region of the world. The reporters would be expected to provide their audio-report (as an MP3 file) and a written script of the report.   To volunteer, or find out more about the project, email Marc at:  m.belanger@radiolabour.org

Check out our new ads on Facebook.

At present the ads are only being shown in the U.K.

But Facebook claims that the ads can be seen by 20 million people.

This is expensive, so we won't run for very long. 

I hope that we'll recruit new members of UnionBook this way and will let you know.

Forwarded from THE ORGANIZER, San Francisco:

EL ORGANIZADOR
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217.
Correo: elorganizador@earthlink.net
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
--------------------

November 18, 2009

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We learned yesterday through articles posted on the international wire services that the Congress of Honduras will convene and decide on the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya on December 2 -- that is, three days after the presidential elections will be held.

This announcement was made on November 17 by National Congress President Jose Alfredo Saavedra immediately after the arrival in Tegucigalpa of Craig Kelly, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Kelly returned to Honduras, he said, with the aim of "relaunching the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Agreement."

Saavedra said the Congress will decide on the reinstatement of Zelaya after seeking the opinion of the Honduran Supreme Court, the Public Prosecutor, the Attorney General's Office, and the National Commissioner for Human Rights -- all of which are institutions that supported the June 28 coup that deposed democratically elected President Zelaya and backed the coup government.

This would appear to be a joke -- but it is anything but a joke. It is a travesty of the most basic democratic principles -- and it is happening ONLY because of the continued backing by the U.S. government of the de-facto regime of Roberto Micheletti. Without this U.S. backing, the tin-pot Micheletti dictatorship -- which has close to no popular support in its own country -- would have crumbled over night.

Early on, President Obama characterized the June 28 kidnapping and transfer of President Zelaya to Costa Rica as a "coup d'etat" and pledged to support Zelaya's immediate and uncondition return to Honduras. This stand was applauded widely across the hemisphere.

But no sooner had Obama made this statement than Hillary Clinton and the State Department conditioned Zelaya's return with a series of demands that violated the Honduran people's right to self-determination. Clinton rejected Obama's view that a military coup d'etat had occurred on June 28. She then placed both the perpetrators of the coup and the legitimate president of Honduras on equal footing and demanded that they form a coalition government of "national unity." And she then demanded that Zelaya abandon the effort to convene a new Constituent Assembly that would rewrite the 1982 Constitution, which was drafted under the supervision of the Reagan administration with the aim of converting Honduras into a military base from which to maintain tight control over the entire region.

Zelaya, to the chagrin of many of his followers, accepted the unacceptable terms of this San Jose Agreement -- an accord that the U.S. press later revealed was written in Washington and then sent to Costa Rican President Oscar Arias for him to make public.

Therein began a game by the Honduran regime, with U.S. backing, of putting forward one stalling tactic after another. The ultimate aim was to make it to the November 29 elections without Zelaya's return to office -- and then have the United States recognize the legitimacy of the elections and of the new government resulting from these elections. That would close this five-month chapter of "political instability."

But there was one major hitch in the de-facto regime's game plan: The Honduran people did not go along with this charade -- and nor could they be beaten, or starved, into submission. The National Resistance Front Against the Coup demanded the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya, opposing the San Jose Agreement. For five months, despite the repression and the lack of funds, the people took to the streets day after day, week after week, in mass struggle.

Most important, the people and their fighting leadership did not abandon their call to establish a National Constituent Assembly that would draft a new and genuinely democratic Constitution -- one that established the sovereignty of the Honduran people over their nation and their resources, one that ended Honduran subordination to the United States via the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the military pact that established a U.S. base at Soto Cano (Palmerola).

Then came the salt added to an already bitter wound. On October 30, U.S. State Department representative Thomas Shannon brokered a deal that was hailed around the world as a breakthrough in the political stalemate: Zelaya would be returned to the presidency by November 5, in exchange for which Zelaya would constitute a government of national reconciliation with Micheletti, the call for a National Constituent Assembly would be dropped, and the November 29 elections would go forward with the support of all parties in dispute.

But even this deal was not to be. Shannon let the cat out of the bag when he told CNN en Español that the U.S. government would recognize the November 29 elections even if Zelaya were not reinstated prior to the elections. That closed the circle. No more charade was necessary. The U.S. was firmly behind the coup and the coup government -- and behind the prepared electoral fraud of November 29.

Today, the Micheletti regime is threatening all union leaders and activists who oppose these elections with the full power of State repression. Every day the Honduran papers are filled with such threats from elected officials at all levels. Voting in Honduras is mandatory, and those who do not vote -- or who do not vote the right way -- are subject to heavy fines and jail sentences. The Honduran people are once again under attack as the regime prepares its second coup d'etat.

Working people and supporters of democratic rights across the United States and internationally must demand that the Obama administration reverse course in Honduras by rejecting the legitimacy of the coup government and that of the November 29 elections. Already the governments of Brazil and Argentina, among many others across the Americas, have announced that these coup-orchestrated elections are a farce and will not be recognized. This, too, must be the stance of the U.S. government.

The national leadership of the AFL-CIO trade union federation has taken the lead in this battle for democracy. In a November 13 letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka writes the following:

"Our position on the crisis has been developed in consultation with the Honduran labor movement, which is unequivocally opposed to the June 28 coup, to the continuation of the de facto regime, as well as to any future elections conducted by the Micheletti regime. ... The current environment in Honduras, including an illegitimate government in power, makes free, fair and open elections impossible."

We call upon all labor and community organizations, and all defenders of democratic rights, to join with the AFL-CIO in demanding that the Obama administration publicly reject both the legitimacy of the November 29 elections in Honduras and the legitimacy of the government emanating from these fraudulent elections.

In solidarity,

Rodrigo Ibarra and Alan Benjamin
Co-Editors
El Organizador