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Trade union rights news

All work has dignity, and all workers deserve to be treated with respect by their employers. Trade unions play a decisive role in improving working conditions, safety and wages – yet some governments and employers systematically abuse the right of workers to join existing unions or form new ones. PSI works actively to support the right of workers to free collective bargaining, and to help stop abuses when they occur.

Korea: government continues its crackdown on trade unions

08 September 2016

On 8 September, a criminal court sentenced Lee Jong-hwa, President of the Korean Plant Construction Workers’ Union, a BWI affiliate, to 6-month imprisonment, in relation to the Mass People’s Mobilization of 14 November 2015.

ILO Tripartite Technical Meeting on Recruitment

06 September 2016
ILO TTM on refugees

The Tripartite Meeting of Experts to Develop Guidance on Fair Recruitment is being held at the ILO in Geneva on 5-7 September. The objective is to adopt ILO guidelines on fair recruitment, encompassing both cross-border and national recruitment. PSI Migration Programme Coordinator, Genevieve Gencianos, delivered a speech on 5 September at the opening session of the meeting.

Korean health workers' union protest flawed labor market reforms

05 September 2016
KHMU protest healthcare privatization in May 2014

PSI affiliate, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union (KHMU) has decided to hold two general strikes at the end of September and October, to protest flawed labor market reforms. The union is also striking for 2016 collective wage bargaining and to secure a sufficient number of healthcare workers in hospitals.

In Ecuador, police occupy UNE offices in Quito and Guayaquil after PSI-EI-TUCA mission leaves the country

30 August 2016

In the early morning of 29 August, the police occupied the offices of the teachers’ union, UNE, in Quito and Guayaquil. On 25 August, a trade union mission visited the country to express solidarity with the union, which the Ministry of Education has threatened to dissolve.

Liberia: trade union rights under attack

10 August 2016
Liberian health workers including George Poe (left) and Martha C. Morris (far right)

Liberia has three health workers per 10,000 people and was the third and worst hit by the Ebola crisis of the three nations of the Mano River basin with more than 4,800 dead and 10,672 becoming infected. [ [This article is an extract from the 2016 Update "PSI trade union response to the Ebola Virus Disease".]

In Turkey, Erdoğan lays off over 40 SES members

04 August 2016

PSI's affiliate SES (the trade union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services) organized a press meeting to protest the unlawful temporary layoffs of public employees, declaration of state of emergency and the decrees suspending democracy and the parliamentary system. They have sent PSI the following report of the situation.

Democracy demands more: repression and trials in South Korea

02 August 2016
Photos: ITF

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) concluded a week-long visit to South Korea and witnessed first-hand the ongoing criminalisation of labour union rights in the country. Here is the ITF president Paddy Crumlin's account of this trip.