Act Now! Stop the destruction of trade union rights in Peru

A LabourStart Appeal by Eric Lee

Peru's new Civil Service Law aims to smash the power of the country's public sector unions. The law has already been passed by the country's Congress, and if it is approved by President Humala it will:

* remove the right of public sector unions to negotiate wages

* determine a model of union organisation in the sector

* allow for the implementation of reforms in the structure of employment and public services without any legislative consultation.

* deny the right to strike in essential sectors, without defining which sectors are 'essential'.

The Peruvian government is facing a growing movement of protests and strikes against corruption and poor pay in the country – it must not be allowed to shift the blame on to hard-working public sector workers.

If you believe that all workers have the right to independent unions and collective bargaining, please take a few seconds to send a message to demand that President Humala throws out the worst elements of this law.

Background

The unions’ National Committee, consisting of all the trade union confederations - CITE, CTE and UNASSE-, said that, despite its persistence, it has been unable to obtain any dialogue concerning  Art. 3 of ILO Convention 122 , neither with the Government nor the Congress, in order to reach some level of agreement.  The Committee places the responsibility for the lack of dialogue with the Government and Congress representatives. On 15 May, the National Assembly of Public Workers unanimously agreed to start a national state strike as of 29 May 2013.

The ILO sent its Technical Report to the government. It contained 136 specific observations regarding Draft No. 1846-2012-PE of the Civil Service Law, notifying that it did not abide by serious international conventions that protect the fundamental rights of workers who serve the state, and it permitted some regulatory aspects that can only be modified by Law. The fact that this contravenes national  labour and trade union commitments on FTAs, generated a string of international solidarity in the world and the inclusion of the Peruvian State in the Route of  Shame,  a campaign held during the  102nd ILO Conference in Geneva , Switzerland that brought together trade unions from around the world and included the deposit of a petition on the matter at the Peruvian embassy.

The national strike was resumed on 6 June in the city of Lima.

On 4 July, General Confederation of Workers of Peru - CGTP and State Confederations CITE, CTE and UNASE organised a National Day of action, when hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets across the country to protest the law.

On 19 July, PSI sent a letter to the President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, denouncing restrictions on freedom of association imposed by law and requesting the repeal of the Law.  PSI welcomes the political will expressed by the Government for the installation of a dialogue process with the public sector trade unions

The General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) called for a march in Lima on 27 and 28 July to protest against the Civil Service Law. Hundreds of people marched from Plaza Dos de Mayo to the Congress.

PSI: http://www.world-psi.org/en

A better way of doing politics - speech by Ed Miliband

Have your say now:-

In the meantime, if there is anything you want Ray Collins to consider in preparing his interim consultation, he wants to hear from you.  You can have your say by:

Visiting: www.labour.org.uk/abetterlabourparty   
Emailing: abetterlabourparty@labour.org.uk

Posting your response to:

A better Labour Party,
Labour Central, Kings Manor ,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 6PA

Debate! The missing question from the PCS "summer of consultation"

As members disappear for their summer holidays and/or term time breaks, the PCS union is attempting to continue its' consultation exercise over the future of the industrial action strategy that ground to a halt some time ago. Since many of the NEC members are also off at the same time its' actually difficult to see how much actual consultation is actually taking place at the moment.

Many Branches (mine included) do not hold Branch Executive Committee's during the month of August for the very reason that many Reps are not around at this time of year. Our visit from a PCS Grandee is not due until September as a result.

There has been no update on the main PCS website since July 17th which was simply a bland notification of the planned "consultation! The union tells us that:

PCS members have taken concerted industrial action for the last three months over terms and conditions, pay and jobs. Although the pace of cuts to jobs and services has slowed, the Cabinet Office still refuses to negotiate nationally with us on any of the key issues.

We are now consulting all our members about the action that we need to win a fair settlement.

Except there seems to me to be one question they are not asking, and that is simply do members actually want to continue with this dispute? 

A reasonable point given that the strikes have ground to a halt and participation by members in the various departments has declined drastically, with some registering virtually no support.

Firstly we need to remind ourselves of the three main demands raised the campaign and where we are with them:

Pension Changes: already implemented by the Government  and whether we like it or not, the campaign is already lost.

Pay Freeze: since this years Pay Awards were implemented without the union balloting there it now becomes a rather moot point, as it won't be reconsidered until next year now.

Changes to Conditions of Service: as these do not affect existing members in any problematical way, the demand in isolation from the others will not motivate people to action.

That's the reality.

With everyone struggling financially, there is clearly little mood for industrial action at the best of times, let alone when the main demands of the PCS campaign are no longer viable. 

Trouble is that a couple of minor victories in a couple of Departments have emboldened the politically motivated leadership around the Socialist Party and the SWP to attempt to translate this into a generalised strategy that is just unsustainable.

They want a 24 hour General Strike.

The danger of continuing this disastrous path can be seen in the growing number of PCS members leaving/considering leaving or joining another union.

All this nonsense about a 24 hour general strike is a distraction. The current attacks may well push us back a lot, but it will hopefully force the non-aligned reps (who in any union form the real majority “current” of opinion) need to question the underlying agenda that has led us to this dark place we currently find ourselves in.

The current campaign actually needs to come to an end.

It’s not culture, it’s a crime against humanity

Cross Post by Anne Marie Waters from the National Secular Society

When is a crime against humanity not a crime against humanity? When it is applied to women of course.

Here's a quick description:

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings." They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion.

To accompany this, here is (part) of an email I received this week:

My life has become a nightmare as my father physically beats me. He hates that I wish to pursue higher education since he and my mother are trying to marry me off in a couple of months to an extremist Muslim who is not in the favour of educating woman just as my family. I wanted to get help here in Saudi Arabia but the laws here support the male guardians over anything else. Saudi government will not bring a father or a husband to justice for murdering their daughters or wives. I know that I cannot do this without fear of being killed from my father or government.

In short, a crime against humanity is being committed in Saudi Arabia. The same can be said for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere; every bit of it is propped up by religion, justified by religion, and strengthened by religion.

The re-Talibanisation of Afghanistan began in earnest last week when women were told they could not leave their house without being accompanied by a male guardian. This is the case in Saudi also. The Afghan order came in the form of a fatwa (religious ruling) which included a warning that any attempts to block it would result in "jihad". In other words, the clerics of Afghanistan have imprisoned and enslaved women (again), the fatwa was not over-ruled by the government, and thus a crime against humanity has been committed. Such crimes are committed routinely in Afghanistan and we were told this week that the number of rape victims languishing in prison there (for being raped) has increased by 50% in just one year.

In Iran, the government commits a similar crime against humanity by stoning women to death for adultery, as well as other barbaric injustices. The Iranian penal code even stipulates the size of the stone; it cannot be so big as to cause a fast death, it cannot be so small as to cause a relatively painless one. They've got all bases covered.

In Pakistan, a staggering 90% of women are subject to domestic abuse. Despite feeble attempts to deal with this, women still do not have any practical protection. Domestic violence is still "endemic" and the misogyny that drives it still mainstream.

In summary, crimes against humanity are committed with impunity. But don't expect to hear them called that. When committed against a woman, a crime against humanity undergoes a remarkable metamorphosis and becomes "culture" (aka religion). "Culture" — for those insufficiently trained in politically correct totalitarianism — is entirely positive, cannot change, and if you disagree even slightly, you are a racist. Those are the rules.

The United Nations, founded after World War II (partly) to promote human rights and global justice, has not — as you might expect — taken sufficient steps to stamp out these crimes. In fact, the opposite is true; Despite characterising freedom of speech as a universal right, the United Nations is being brow-beaten by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (Cooperation… whatever) in to accepting an international law preventing criticism of Islam — and you can bet that the practices carried out in its name (i.e. crimes against humanity) will be covered by this anti-blasphemy edict.

In her fantastic book 'Are Women Human?' Catharine MacKinnon argues that human rights laws across the globe simply don't apply to women — such laws are side-stepped and ignored. Crimes against women are routinely sanitised as "tradition", "conservative", "cultural" and of course "religious" — all untouchable, all beyond criticism.

When the Rushdie affair taught us the new rule on not criticising religion, we accepted it without question. Now, women all over the world are having their rights removed (including western women) because the truth about the religious nature of these crimes is suppressed. We cannot insult religion, and if a few women are imprisoned, raped, enslaved, tortured, humiliated, and beaten as a result — then so be it.

See also: FGM: 30 million girls at risk

Anne Marie Waters is the spokesperson of the One Law for All campaign and council member of the National Secular Society. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.

Why do they call themselves "Socialist Unity"?

One of the more bizarre blogs on the Internet is the one run by Andy Newman and policed by Tony Collins called astoundingly "Socialist" Unity. Of course there are all sorts of people who call themselves socialists, most of whom accuse the others of not being the same or worse "right-wing", centrist, or heaven forbid, ultra left.

The Nazi's called themselves "National" Socialists and back in the twenties it wasn't unknown for people to cross over between the two. Mussolini was one and considered a "loss" by Lenin and was joined in the thirties by one Oswald Mosley who's New Party seemingly went from the left to outright fascism including all its' trimmings of political violence and anti-Semitism.

For some time Socialist Unity has been pursuing a political line that is seemingly subservient to an odd mixture of Islamism and praise for the Chinese Communist Party.

A couple of years back they published a grovelling hagiography by Seyed Mohammad Marandi which extolled the virtues of the foreign policies followed Ayatollah al-Udhma Imam Khameni, Iran's brutal dictator. This caused a few stirs amongst their readers at the time, the first comment simply being "um, what is this doing on a socialist website. This was answered by "John" (probably Wight) who tells us that:

 Iran is a country at the centre of resistance to western attempts to colonise the region. Surely it is prudent to know what the view is of Iranian intellectuals on Iran’s role in the region and wider world.

He continues further on:

...that the current Iranian regime is both progressive and regressive, depending on which aspect of its role you care to take.

Andy  Newman adds without blushing:

Well “progressive politics” is a very broad and possibly contradictory concept.

It would be foolish to deny that there is a legacy of an ideological support for egalitarianism in Iran, following the influence of Ali Shari’ati in the revolution; and that support for sovereign state independence has allowed Iran to support redistributive social policies that would be outside the Washington consensus.

Iran is of course a country where you cannot stand in the elections unless you are an approved Muslim by his holiness Khameni, elections have been routinely hijacked, political prisoners are tortured and raped, women are second class citizens, Baha'i and Christians are routinely persecuted and Gays are executed under the guise of being rapists.

Nothing progressive there.

In more recent times Socialist Unity have spent there time witch-hunting secularists and defending some of the most appalling theologians like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. John Wight has defended the Assad regime in Syria, though Newman himself attempted to distance himself from this when challenged on Left Futures. Their latest wheeze is to call for the end of the Middle East peace process.

In an article rejecting peace John Wight argues that "There is no need for a road map or peace process between Israel and the Palestinians", obfuscating his desire to see the Jewish state destroyed  by focusing on 1948, the year of the "original sin" in his eyes. They have managed to dig up the almost forgotten and almost irrelevant Stalinist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to justify their stance.

The PFLP were in the news recently for backing Assad in Syria. In this alliance Socialist Unity are in some very strange company indeed as Nick Griffin along with some other European fascists took a paid tour around the Baathist (Socialist) homeland. But even this comes as no suprise as the Iranian regime that SU supports holds conferences for Holocaust deniers and their ilk. Strange bed fellows all round methinks.

Whatever the past in the Middle East, as in Northern Ireland there are always obstacles to peace. Ideologues and populists amongst them. I notice the so-called Palestine Solidarity Campaign has not yet mentioned the attempt to get a peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine. You'd think that establishing an end to the violence would be a priority for everyone, but no there are large sections of the left, both in the UK and elsewhere that are so focused on hating Israel their world view is distorted to the extreme.

Finally a word of warning to Palestinians who think that Socialist Unity really have their interest at heart by looking at their views on Tibet. Andy Newman dismisses the claims of the Tibetan people as it doesn't suit his world view. In a long and tortuous article he says:

No people can have self determination if they cannot control their own culture and economy. Tibet is too marginal to the world economy and too poor to be genuinely independent and develop a national economy and high culture of its own. 

I think the Tibetan people might take issue with that!

How anyone can define Andy Newman, Tony Collins and John Wight as being progressive in any shape or form is beyond me. Socialist Unity aligns its' politics with the oppressors and reactionaries of the world.

Sharia & Stalinist Unity seems more appropriate a name to me.

Saudi Arabia: 600 lashes and 7 years for activist guilty of 'insulting Islam'

Cross-posted from The National Secular Society

A Jeddah court on July 29, 2013, convicted a liberal activist of violating Saudi Arabia's anti-cybercrime law and sentenced him to 600 lashes and seven years in prison. The Criminal Court found Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, guilty of insulting Islam through his website and in comments he made on television, and added three months to his term for "parental disobedience."

The charges against Badawi were based solely on his peaceful exercise of his right to free expression, Human Rights Watch said. Badawi established his online platform in 2008, to encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia. He has been detained in Jeddah's Buraiman prison since his arrest on June 17, 2012. Criminal Court Judge Faris al-Harbi dropped a charge of apostasy, which carries the death penalty, after Badawi assured the court on July 24 that he is a Muslim.

"This incredibly harsh sentence for a peaceful blogger makes a mockery of Saudi Arabia's claims that it supports reform and religious dialogue," said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "A man who wanted to discuss religion has already been locked up for a year and now faces 600 lashes and seven years in prison."

Badawi's lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, told Human Rights Watch that Judge al-Harbi read the verdict aloud during a trial session on July 29, and that the court will send Abu al-Khair a written notification by August 6, and give him 30 days to appeal.

Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia's 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief. The judge ordered the closure of the website and added two years to Badawi's sentence for insulting both Islam and Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, in comments during television interviews.

Abu al-Khair also said the judge added three months to the sentence for `Uquq, or "parental disobedience," apparently because of Badawi's numerous public confrontations with his father over the years.

The judge dropped the apostasy charge after Badawi affirmed to the court that he is a Muslim and recited the Shehadeh, or Muslim declaration of faith, the lawyer said. The judge also threw out the evidence that Badawi had violated the anti-cybercrime law in comments on social media sites.

Prosecutors initially charged Badawi in 2011, alleging that his website "infringes on religious values." According to the charge sheet, the prosecution's evidence included five postings by Badawi and anonymous members of his site critical of Saudi religious authorities, and two postings regarding theological questions.

During a hearing on Badawi's case at the Jeddah Criminal Court on December 17, 2012, Judge Muhammad al-Marsoom prevented Badawi's lawyer from representing his client, the lawyer told Human Rights Watch. Judge al-Marsoom informed Badawi that he could face the death penalty if he did not "repent to God" and renounce his liberal beliefs. Badawi refused. Recommending a trial for apostasy, the judge referred the case to the Jeddah Public Court, which tries more serious crimes. In January, th ePublic Court refused to hear the case, and following a lengthy process to determine which court had jurisdiction, judicial authorities eventually transferred it back to the Criminal Court.

Saudi authorities have long harassed Badawi for debating religious issues. In March 2008, authorities arrested Badawi and questioned him about his website, but released him a day later. In May 2008, Badawi was formally charged with "setting up an electronic site that insults Islam" and he left the country. He returned when prosecutors apparently decided to drop the charges, he told Human Rights Watch. In 2009, the authorities barred Badawi from traveling abroad and froze his business interests, depriving him of a source of income, he told Human Rights Watch.

On March 18, 2012, the well-known cleric Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Barrak issued a religious ruling declaring Badawi an "unbeliever… and apostate who must be tried and sentenced according to what his words require." Al-Barrak claimed that Badawi had said "that Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists are all equal," and that even if these were not Badawi's own opinions but "an account of the words of others, this is not allowed unless accompanied by a repudiation" of such words.

Badawi and other contributors to his website declared May 7, 2012, "A Day for Saudi Liberals," hoping to spark an open discussion on distinctions between "popular" and "politicized" religion, Su'ad al-Shammar, the website's director, told Human Rights Watch.

Badawi's wife and children moved abroad in 2012, fearing repercussions.

International human rights law protects freedom of expression. International standards only allow content based restrictions on expression in extremely narrow circumstances, such as cases of slander or libel against private individuals, or speech that threatens national security. Restrictions must be clearly defined, specific, necessary, and proportionate to the threat to the interest protected.

The mere fact that forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify the imposition of penalties, the UN Human Rights Committee said in its 2011 General Comment No. 34 regarding permissible limits on freedom of expression. Regarding restrictions for the protection of public morals, the committee in its 1993 General Comment 22 on freedom of religion observed "that the concept of morals derives from many social, philosophical, and religious traditions; consequently, limitations... for the purpose of protecting morals must be based on principles not deriving exclusively from a single tradition."

"King Abdullah has received praise for fostering dialogue and an exchange of ideas between religions, but it appears that Saudi authorities' tolerance for open discussion stops at Saudi borders," Houry said.

Copyright Human Rights Watch and is reproduced under its Creative Commons Licence

Martin Smiths "confidential resignation"

In the latest edition of Party Notes the Socialist Workers Party has finally decided to tell their own members that:

Martin Smith

There has been a lot of online comment about Martin Smith. We can confirm he has resigned from the party for reasons that he wishes to keep confidential but that he has shared with the Central Committee and the Disputes Committee.

We can also confirm that, as stated last week, the process of looking at the Disputes Committee procedures continues and there will be a report to the National Committee in September. It will then be open to debate throughout the party before, and then at the next conference.

After everything that has been going on this all seems a bit of an anti-climax to be honest, but it did prompt a rather odd letter from the "Facebook Four" that were expelled whilst all this was going on. The sent the following letter to the SWP:

Dear Charlie Kimber -

We are writing to you in light of Martin Smith’s resignation from the Socialist Workers Party, news of which reached us yesterday afternoon.

Whilst we are not in the business of simply repeating ‘We told you so” over and over again, tempting though that is, we do feel it is worth noting that house of cards you constructed in order to expel us have now crumbled.

We maintain now, as we did in November 2012 and throughout our vilification by Martin’s supporters both on and off the Central Committee, that we were in fact not guilty of the factionalism you accused us of. We maintain now, as we have done since our email expulsion, that the real reason we were expelled is because we were critical of a flawed disputes process that ‘exonerated’ the accused and did not give fair hearing to Comrade W- or to Comrade X, who we are pleased to learn will finally have her own hearing in the coming weeks. Our support for these women has not faltered, and our determination to see real justice for them remains unchanged. We feel that Martin’s resignation is an important part of their fight within the revolutionary party, which, whilst far from over, can be seen to have progressed somewhat this weekend.

You are hopefully well aware that the current battles you face within the party will not now simply disappear. Martin’s resignation cannot be seen as a panacea for peace in the SWP, and neither should it. The wider issues of democratic failure in the SWP will continue to be fought, and should now be seriously addressed by the leadership if you truly want to save the organisation that the vast majority of us have given so many years to. We sincerely hope you rise to the challenge that comrades in opposition have presented you with, and conduct a serious and thoroughgoing review into democracy in the party, making the changes to the organisation that must be made in order to prevent the total collapse of what was once, and could be again, the biggest and best revolutionary party on the British left.

Step one of this process needs to full and public apology to the Facebook Four with the option for all four of us to re-join the Socialist Workers Party should we wish to do so. You know, as we do, that our expulsion was a smokescreen to divert attention from the real issues of the party’s failure to take Women’s Liberation seriously. Martin’s resignation presents you with a unique opportunity to remove that smokescreen, by issuing us with an apology for the appalling handling, and outcome, of our case.

United, we can all begin to rebuild the organisation in the spirit of inclusivity, cooperation and democracy.

We await your response.

In comradeship,

Charlotte Bence, Adam Marks, Tim Nelson and Paris Thompson

I am really not sure what they seek to gain from this missive since they are all (?) involved in the newly founded International Socialist Network. As for signing the letter "in comradeship" the mind boggles at what sort of response they will get given all the ill-feeling resulting from the underhanded behaviour of the Professor and his "Lynch Mob"!

Rather tellingly "Justin T" comments over at Soviet Goon Boy

What the SWP needs is a code of conduct in regard of sexual matters and bullying that can highlight arbitrary and inappropriate behaviour from the CC.

The authoritarian nature of the rump SWP, let alone its' dismissal of the rights of women is clear for all to see. No one should touch them with a barge poll.