Australia Asia Worker Links

40 Years of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Sacred Fire Ceremonial Gathering
Thursday 26 January 2012
Old Parliament House lawns, Canberra
Come to support the Ceremonial gathering, the commemoration of 40 years of struggle and the discussions on Sovereignty. Always was always will be Aboriginal Land. Read more here.
More on Treaty here. Bahasa Indonesia background here. 

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner - Freedom fighters commemoration
Friday 20 January 2012 at 12 noon
RMIT Entrance, Corner Bowen & Franklin Streets, Melbourne
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner conducted a campaign of resistance to European settlement in 1841 around Western Port and South Gippsland. Read more here

An agreement was signed in Jakarta on 14 December 2011 between the Freeport workers union PUK-SP-KEP-SPSI and management of PT Freeport Indonesia.

Striking miners at Grasberg will be paid their lost salaries during the three-month strike. In a last minute company concession, disciplinary action against a number of strikers has been withdrawn and complete amnesty accorded. 

The miners will receive a 24% increase on their back-dated wages to 1 October 2011. In October 2012, they will receive a 13% increase. The 37% falls short of the union’s most recent demand to increase wages to US$4.50 per hour this year and then by US$3 per hour in 2012. The resolve of workers and union leaders was a lesson of worker solidarity and unity to trade unions across the globe, and many paid special attention to the developments of this strike. 

“We are not entirely happy with the wage deal,” said union bargaining committee member Juli Parorrongan. “We made the decision to settle due to humanitarian reasons and out of concern for our workers. They have no money, very little to eat, and having no pay checks have pushed them to the brink of poverty. But this is not the end, only the beginning. The energy and unity of our struggle now enters the workplace."

Nine people were killed since the strike started on 15 September, with a number of workers shot by police during protests. During the strike PUK-SP-KEP-SPSI, together with KASBI and AAWL issued a joint statement. Read the full statement in Bahasa Indonesia here or in English here. List of endorsements here.

Financial support is still needed: donate to the workers here. More information on the dispute here. Read the full ICEM report here.

The bitter Philippine Airlines dispute against outsourcing continues. AAWL organised a very successful international solidarity visit to Melbourne with PALEA Vice President Alnem Pretencio. Alnem met with Australian airline unions members and officials, and received very significant support. Yet again we see in practice that workers recognise their common interests across national borders, and that the cruel treatment of the companies that care only about profit can be defeated through action and solidarity. More on the visit here. More on airlines disputes and solidarity here.

Sign the petition for PALEA here  Donate to the PALEA strikers here   Lobby the Phiippine consulate

The popular uprising in Syria continues to spread amid ongoing repression that has left thousands dead. Mass demonstration and strikes have occurred throughout this year.

A renewed call for rolling general strikes to target different sectors of the economy had been called to start on Saturday the 11th of December. These strikes aim to close down most parts of the economy with the ultimate aim of a complete block of all major transport routes in Syria.

The Local Coordination Committee in Syria website says:

"We will work together step by step. The beginning of the strike will be on Sunday, 11/12/2011 with a general strike from 8 AM until 2 PM preventing students from attending schools, followed by the successive stages of the strike." (Read the full statement here.)

More on Syria uprising:  Workers need to take control   سوريا: يجب على العمال أن يتسلموا السلطة بأنفسهم

Mr. Mansour Osanloo, a bus driver, was in jail for almost four years. He was released from an Iranian jail in June of this year. Mansour’s health is now severely compromised due to an untreated heart condition while in prison.

Mr. Kim Hyuk also got out of jail earlier this October. He is a South Korean metal worker and spent two years in jail. Hyuk did not receive proper medical care in jail for his workplace chemical exposures, and was never allowed to exercise outside in the open air. A colleague of Hyuk, Mr Han Sang Kyun, still has one year of his jail sentence to serve.

Mr Kim, Mr. Han and Mr Osanloo were imprisoned for their trade union activities. Their crime was in believing that workers have rights. They both campaigned for greater job security, a living wage and safe working conditions. Read more...

As reported previously, the campaign to free the six labour activists from Faisalabad, who were jailed under the Pakistan Terrorist Act has generated a lot of solidarity within Pakistan. These actions are continuing with an international solidarity campaign started calling for their immediate release.

AAWL has received a message from Junya Lek Yimprasert of Action for People’s Democracy in Thailand which says:

This is a call for solidarity for the people of Thailand. PLEASE HELP us abolish Thailand's cruel, archaic laws of lèse majesté and release the unknown hundreds of lèse majesté and other political prisoners. We wish to deliver at least 11,000 signatures to the Thai government, and if possible to ASEAN, on International Human Right Day, 10 December 2011. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION.

For the full text of the petition and much more information click here.

On November 24, the IUF-affiliated Hong Kong catering and hotel workers' union CHIEGU and the HKCTU, the national centre of which it is a member, held a protest action in front of the Fiji Consulate to highlight escalating attacks on human rights and growing repression of the trade union movement by the military government of Commodore Bainimarama.

On 25 November Korean trade unions held a protest action and press conference outside the Fiji Consulate in Seoul. The demonstration was in response to the Resolution on Fiji adopted by the 12th IUF-A/P Regional Conference in Bali on 18-20 October and was held in conjunction with the ITUC campaign on Fiji. KFSU initiated the action as a concrete step in implementing the IUF-A/P resolution on Fiji.

Korean unionist Kim Jin-suk has touched ground for the first time since January to end her protest against Hanjin Heavy Industries. She occupied a 35 metre tall crane in the southern port city of Busan for 309 days. The protest began when Hanjin Heavy Industries announced it was cutting 400 jobs from its shipyard. Since then activists organised the Buses of Hope campaign and thousands of protesters marched through Busan in a show support facing resistance from the authorities, often ending in many arrests. After the 11-month deadlock in talks, the company reached a tentative agreement with labour activists to reinstate 94 laid-off workers within one year. More information here.