Right to strike under attack from bosses at the ILO!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from LabourStart.

I wanted to raise four issues with you today -- this will be a longer email than usual, but this is all important.

First of all, the internationally-recognized legal right to strike is under attack as never before.  This month, as the International Labor Organization meets in Geneva, it's important to spread the word in unions everywhere about what is happening -- and how unions at global level are fighting back.  I encourage you to read the International Trade Union Confederation's statement and report here and to listen to the Radio Labour interview with the ITUC's Jeff Vogt on the issue.

Second, I'm very pleased that over 7,600 of you have already signed up to support our campaign in defense of Samsung workers in Korea.  But we can do better than that.  Your union -- at local, regional and national levels -- probably has a mailing list of members.  Please try to get your union to spread the word about this campaign to the members.  Together, we can double or even triple the number of supporters of the campaign.

Third, this week we suspended our three-month-old campaign to pressure companies to make donations to the Rana Plaza fund set up to help families after the terrible disaster in Bangladesh in April 2013. Though a number of companies felt the pressure and made donations, as IndustriALL global union pointed out, the corporate response was "woefully inadequate".

And finally, a reminder that LabourStart has now published four books that we believe are essential reading for trade unionists everywhere.  The books cover a wide range of topics from online campaigning to the history of the labour movement and are all available as both paperbacks and e-books.  They should be used widely in union education, in training campaigns and communications staff, and throughout our movement.  Check out the full list here.

Thanks very much.