Australia Asia Worker Links

The last few weeks of aerial bombardment in the northern city of Aleppo has not only caused mass civilian casualties, but has seen an increasing number of health facilities deliberatively destroyed. These actions by the Syrian government have taken a devastating toll on workers and their families. The recent ceasefires brokered by the main imperialist powers had very little effect and did not address the issues that led to the original uprising or the massacres that have followed since. Syrian writers, artists and journalists have come together to oppose the present imperialist interventions while a number of international activists have also put out a document calling for food aid, not bombs. Protests against the war, the Syrian government, and the various imperialist countries were held around the world on Saturday 1 October 2016.

The murderous wave of repression that President Duterte has unleashed in the Philippines is estimated to be killing over 40 people per day. Death squads, whether official or un-official, are acting with total impunity and creating a reign of terror in working class communities throughout the country. Following on from the recent killing of labour activist Ka Lando, an increasing number of labour activists are being targeted, from journalists to farm workers. This climate of terror has also resulted in tens of thousands of people being imprisoned in inhumane conditions in overflowing detention centres.

This week, Baek Nam-ki, a South Korean farmer died in hospital from water cannon injuries received during a demonstration in November last year. This action was part of a series of working class mobilisations that have seen many South Korean union leaders jailed. Nevertheless, workers are continuing to organise and protest. The Korean Public Transport Union began a nationwide strike (see here and here) last Tuesday against proposed government cutbacks, while a number of other unions staged a huge rally in Seoul along with strike actions. The situation for workers in South Korea is also attracting a lot of international attention and support (see here and here).

Three labour activists in Guangdong Province received suspended jail sentences of up to three years in an outcome that many had predicted but also feared. Zeng Feiyang, Zhu Xiaomei, and Tang Huanxing pleaded guilty to ‘ignoring national laws and organising mass gatherings that disturbed social order’ for organising workers to take independent actions last year. Arrests and trials like this one are quite clearly aimed at clamping down on growing labour activism by workers inside China. A number of international labour organisation also expressed their support for the right of workers to organise without fear of repression. 

The Philippines is one of many countries that uses export processing zones to create highly profitable areas for companies to operate in where union organising is suppressed. Currently, there is an ongoing dispute with NT Philippines, a large electronics firm in the Cavite Export Processing Zone that is refusing to recognise a union, and is actively trying to isolate its leaders. Meanwhile, at the nearby Taifini factory, documents have come out that outlined the anti-union actions by the management of the company. In another ongoing protest, close to a hundred workers were terminated by the C&F company in another union busting manoeuvre. The workers have formed a picket line camp to continue their struggle.

While the Prime Minister of Australia went to Europe and the United Nations to boast how well the government was helping refugees, the real situation for thousands of refugees in Australia is very different. In the two Pacific Island concentration camps, refugees are still being subjected to Australia’s repression. In Nauru, refugees have set a protest camp that is now approaching 200 days, while in Manus the refugees are resisting moves to be forced back to their home countries. Within Australia, there are almost 30,000 refugees stuck in the bureaucratic nightmare of a ‘Bridging Visa’ where their study and work rights are severely restricted, they cannot get family members to join them and they are not allowed to leave Australia. A major refugee forum will be held in Melbourne on the 1 October 2016.

In the week of the funeral of ex Israeli leader, Shimon Peres, hailed as a ‘man of peace’, the reality is that life for most Palestinians is still one of occupation and repression. A recent report has detailed that since September 2000, Israeli authorities have arrested over 100,000 Palestinians. Many Palestinians are detained but never charged because of the law of ‘administrative detention’. Some Palestinians, like Akram al-Fassisi, have been detained under this law many times. For many Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails, hunger strikes are the only alternative left to fight for their dignity and justice.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the huge US military communications base at Pine Gap in central Australia. This base is only one of many US military installations on Australian soil which integrate Australia’s military into the USA global military network. Anti-war activists from all around the world converged in late September and early October in the town of Alice Springs for an anti-militarism conference. A series of events and actions against military sites occurred before and after this conference to highlight the reach of these military facilities.

Five dismissed Honda workers have been on a hunger strike for that last week in New Delhi to protest against their treatment and for the reinstatement of dismissed workers. They have now been joined by hundreds more workers who are staging demonstrations in support of these hunger strikers in the face of arrests from police. Over 100 plant level union representatives have visited the workers in an ongoing show of solidarity. This widespread support is a reflection of the unsatisfactory conditions that many workers endure in the growing industrial belts of northern India and comes on the back of the huge general strike earlier in the month.

The long running case against labour right activist Andy Hall concluded this week when a Thai court found him guilty of criminal defamation and violating the Computer Crime Act. Andy’s research focused on the mistreatment of workers, mostly migrant workers from Burma, employed at the Natural Fruit Company, in Prachuap Khiri Khan province. The court imposed a suspended four year sentence as well as a substantial fine. Cases like Andy Hall’s are a clear indication of the difficulty that workers and labour activists find themselves in under the current military dictatorship.

Free all political prisoners in Thailand!
Abolish 112! No to military dictatorship