LabourStart Conference to Explore Global Worker Solidarity

Stuart Elliott, from the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation of Central Kansas, reports on the upcoming LabourStart Global Solidarity conference in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

LabourStart, the global online labor news service, will hold its 2010 Global Solidarity conference at a time when workers are caught in an economic tsunami and employers are using the crisis as an excuse to trample workers’ rights. Participants from more than 50 countries will hear firsthand about the struggles of working people around the world, especially under repressive regimes such as Iran and China, at the July 9–11 conference at McMaster University’s School of Labor Studies in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Powered by 800 volunteer correspondents across the globe, LabourStart daily publishes links to hundreds of labor stories in 23 languages. Working closely with national unions and global union federations, LabourStart spearheads action campaigns in multiple languages. It has promoted union use of new media through its labor website, photo and video of the year contests.

LabourStart founder Eric Lee says:

This conference represents a major step forward for LabourStart in particular and for international labor networking in general. We’ve gone beyond the format of the small, invitation-only event and are holding an event that is utterly unique, one that includes rank and file activists, trade union staffers and senior elected union officials from all over the world. It promises to be an exciting and important event.

Two key Iranian union leaders, Mehdi Kouhestaninejad and Tehran Vehad, will conduct an online video discussion with the participants about the challenges trade union members in that country face in organizing workers and develop strategies for the global union movement to support them in solidarity.

In light of the recent strikes by Honda workers in China, a panel of four global union experts will debate how to build a new labor movement in China while trying to push the government-sponsored All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to be more militant.