News Briefs
Labor leaders decry attacks on trade unionists in Zimbabwe, Iraq
Jun 5, 2008 4:54 PM
In early May, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, the respective president and secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), were arrested, interrogated for six hours and jailed on the reported charge of “inciting people to rise against government.” AFT President Edward J. McElroy protested to Robert Mugabe, the country’s president, calling it a “deplorable incident” that “is part of a long pattern of injustice against Zimbabweans, many of whom are teachers and trade unionists seeking to exercise their political rights.”
In a related development, Raymond Majongwe, the secretary general of the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, was arrested after attending the bail hearing of the ZCTU president and secretary general.
Meanwhile AFL-CIO President John Sweeney wrote to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, blasting Iraqi government interference in trade union elections. al-Maliki’s appointed election supervisory body is not allowing all unions to stand for election and is excluding all public sector workers from voting, acting under anti-labor laws promulgated by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Calling it a hindrance to “workers’ fundamental rights,” and “a direct affront to democratic values,” Sweeney wrote, “The AFL-CIO calls upon your government to take immediate steps to adopt a labor law which will bring Iraq into compliance with [International Labor Organization] core labor standards before trade union elections are carried out.”
AFT News, May 22
AFL-CIO News release, May 20
