He wrote this message for healthworkers and campaigners marching on 18 May 2013 against privatisation and cuts to the NHS in London:

“I have a message for my colleagues in the UK: just fight for your rights and for the best health service you can. Health is the main issue for any community, along with education. These services empower society. When people have a good health service and a good education they can build their future. We’ve faced hard times in Bahrain recently. But despite the arrests and jail sentences, we’re still fighting for our health service, even though the government is targeting medics and humiliating us.

I believe that doctors and healthworkers here in Britain can win what they are fighting for through peaceful protest, and by continuing to organise and demand their rights and the rights of society itself.”

Activists from MENA Solidarity will be leafleting the protest on 18 May. Come and join us in Jubilee Gardens, Waterloo from 11.45. Download a leaflet version of this article here

What you can do in solidarity with Bahraini healthworkers:

•  Read more about the campaign in solidarity with arrested doctors, nurses and pharmacists in Bahrain here

• Pass this resolution through your union branch

• This union condemns the imprisonment of Ibrahim al Demistani, Hassan Matooq, Ahmed Ali Almushatat, Haleema Al Sabagh, Dr Ali Al-Ekri, Dr Ghassan Dhaif andDr Saeed Al Samahiji, and resolves to write to the Bahraini authorities calling for the immediate release of those still in jail, the reinstatement to their jobs of those who have been release, and for the release and reinstatement of all other political prisoners in Bahrain.
• This union further condemns the British government’s continued willingness to sell arms to Bahraini authorities despite the ongoing repression there. Since 14 February 2011, the British government has approved at least £16m of export licenses for military equipment to the Bahrain, including small arms ammunition, body armour and training hand grenades. We call on the British government to stop the export of military equipment to Bahrain.
• This union resolves to circulate details of the campaign for the arrested medics to our members and encourages them to take part.
• This union further resolves to send this resolution to our region / annual conference calling on the union to mobilise a national campaign to highlight the repression against healthworkers, other trade unionists and activists in Bahrain since 2011.

• Show your solidarity by sending a message. You can email menasolidarity@gmail.com or print out a sign from our website http://menasolidaritynetwork.com/bahrain2013 and take a photograph of yourself and your colleagues so that we can post on Facebook (www.facebook.com/menasolidarity) and Twitter (@menasolidarity) to show people in Bahrain support from healthworkers internationally for their struggle.

•  Put up leaflets and posters about the campaign around your workplace. If possible, make links with colleagues in the same departments and wards where the arrested Bahraini medics worked. If you aren’t a healthworker yourself, why not speak to union reps at your local hospital about the campaign?

The oil workers’ unions have been at the forefront of recent battles to stop the privatisation of the oil industry, and have also faced a barrage of attacks from Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

Unions in the US, UK and internationally have backed the campaign to drop the charges against Hassan, and campaigners in London are planning a protest at the Iraqi embassy on 20 May if he is convicted.

What you can do:

• Read more here on the campaign from US Labor against the War
• Sign the petition in solidarity with Hassan.
• Add your organisation’s name to the letter of protest to Nouri al-Maliki
• Join the protest at the Iraqi embassy on 20 May if Hassan is convicted. Sign up to the Facebook event here for details.

Pictures by Geoff Brown

النقابيين من مانشتر في بريطانيا يرسلون التضامن إلى اللجنة النقابية وعمال إيديال ستاندرد في مصر وقال جويف برون من اتحاد النقابات في المدينة “عندما سمعنا عن النضال زملاءنا في إيديال ستاندرد ضد الفصل التعسفي ومن أجل الحريات النقابية قررنا عن نرسل رسالة احتجاجية للشركة وسوف نبلغ أعضاء النقابات في مانشتر عن قضية عمال إيديال ستاندرد”

Trade unionists in Manchester, UK, send solidarity to the trade union committee and workers at Ideal Standard Egypt. Geoff Brown, from Manchester Trades Council said, “when we heard about the struggle of our colleagues at Ideal Standard against victimisation and for trade union freedoms, we decided to send a letter of protest to the company. We will also be informing our members across Manchester about the Ideal Standard workers’ case.”

• Send a message of solidarity to striking workers in Egypt via the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) efitu.union@hotmail.com, copies to menasolidarity@gmail.com
• Send a message of protest to Ideal Standard via ukcustcare@idealstandard.com demanding the immediate reinstatement of the victimised union committee in the Tenth of Ramadan factory. Read more here about the Ideal Standard workers’ struggle for justice.
  
• Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike, and condemning the Egyptian army’s recent intervention in the rail and port workers’ strikes.
• Invite a speaker from MENA Solidarity Network to your union branch meeting. MENA Solidarity has organised three delegations of UK and Irish trade unionists to Egypt since the revolution, most recently at the beginning of November 2012 (menasolidarity@gmail.com)
• Download a leaflet for your May Day events and union meetings: mayday_leaflet_egy2013

Hind Abdel Gawad, a trade unionist and revolutionary activist from Zagazig in Sharqiyya province, Egypt, talks about the challenges facing the workers’ movement in Egypt in a video message for Manchester TUC’s May Day rally, 4 May 2013.

Hind, who played a leading role in strikes by Information Centre workers before the revolution, visited London and Manchester in November 2012 to speak at the Unite the Resistance conference.

She describes the recent wave of attacks on workers’ strikes by the police and army, including the assault on striking workers at Portland Cement in Alexandria by police dogs, and the attempt by the army to conscript striking railworkers, but also relates how solidarity and organisation is building a stronger workers’ movement to lead the resistance. “Workers are bigger and stronger than the attacks of the regime,” she concludes.

What you can do

• Send a message of solidarity to striking workers in Egypt via the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) efitu.union@hotmail.com, copies to menasolidarity@gmail.com
• Send a message of protest to Ideal Standard via ukcustcare@idealstandard.com demanding the immediate reinstatement of the victimised union committee in the Tenth of Ramadan factory. Read more here about the Ideal Standard workers’ struggle for justice.
  
• Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike, and condemning the Egyptian army’s recent intervention in the rail and port workers’ strikes.
• Invite a speaker from MENA Solidarity Network to your union branch meeting. MENA Solidarity has organised three delegations of UK and Irish trade unionists to Egypt since the revolution, most recently at the beginning of November 2012 (menasolidarity@gmail.com)
• Download a leaflet for your May Day events and union meetings: mayday_leaflet_egy2013

Workers have been coming out every day for years to demand their rights from the businessmen who were protected by Mubarak’s government in the past and now by Morsi. We have the right to dream, like the rest of the Egyptian people, that our demands, which are an integral part of the revolution, will be met despite general indifference. The constitution was drafted without workers, and it fails to express our demands, or those of the poor in general. Instead of seeing our demands met, we face imprisonment, dismissal from our jobs, and the failure to legalise the unions which we have built of our own free will. Instead of the implementation of a maximum and minimum wage we find prices rising on a daily basis while our real wages shrink. Instead of offering work for our children, we find factories are closing, throwing their workforce onto the dole.

We, workers of Egypt, call on all the political and youth organisations, and centres concerned with workers and the case of the poor in general, to join the protest on 1 May at 1pm from Sayyid Zainab to the Shura Council in order to raise our voices and the following demands:

• Implementation of a minimum and maximum wage, with the maximum to be no more than 15 times the minimum. Wages to be linked to prices and the minimum to rise in line with the real rate of inflation

• Implementation of an urgent plan to tackle unemployment and offer permanent contracts to all temporary workers. The government must offer work to young people, and pay unemployment benefit equal to the rate of the minimum wage or find work for the unemployed. Workers to be allowed to re-open factories where the owners have closed them down and sacked the workforce.

• Promulgation of a law on trade union freedoms which guarantees workers’ trade union freedoms, ends intervention in trade union affairs, stops the victimisation of workers for trade union activities, cancels all prison sentences against workers for exercising their right to strike and abolishes all laws which criminalise strikes.

• Enforcement of court decisions returning corruptly-privatised companies to the public sector, re-nationalisation of companies which have abused workers’ rights since privatisation, injection of investment into these companies in order to get them working again. Rejection of all loans which will lead to the impoverishment of the Egyptian people, an end to the policies of increasing debt and increasing the burdens on the Egyptian people, and especially the workers. Cancellation of the QIZ agreement with the USA and Israel.

Signatories:

The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions – The Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress – The Co-ordinating Committee for Trade Union Rights and Freedoms – The Permanent Congress of Alexandrian Workers – Train drivers – Justice and Freedom Movement – “Our Country is our Right” Movement – The Popular Campaign to Cancel Egypt’s Debt – No to Military Trials – The Revolutionary Socialist Movement (January) – The Egyptian Centre for Social and Economic Rights – New Woman Foundation – The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights – Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services – Revolutionary Socialists Movement – Egyptian Popular Socialist Alliance Party – Egyptian Social Democratic Party – Constitution Party – Strong Egypt Party – Dignity Party – Egyptian Communist Party – Al-Tagammu’ Party – Socialist Youth Union – Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (under construction) – Egyptian Socialist Party (under construction)

What you can do

• Send a message of solidarity to striking workers in Egypt via the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) efitu.union@hotmail.com, copies to menasolidarity@gmail.com
• Send a message of protest to Ideal Standard via ukcustcare@idealstandard.com demanding the immediate reinstatement of the victimised union committee in the Tenth of Ramadan factory. Read more here about the Ideal Standard workers’ struggle for justice.
  
• Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike, and condemning the Egyptian army’s recent intervention in the rail and port workers’ strikes.
• Invite a speaker from MENA Solidarity Network to your union branch meeting. MENA Solidarity has organised three delegations of UK and Irish trade unionists to Egypt since the revolution, most recently at the beginning of November 2012 (menasolidarity@gmail.com)
• Download a leaflet for your May Day events and union meetings: mayday_leaflet_egy2013

They sent the following appeal for solidarity to the trade union movement in the UK as a labour court was set to consider a malicious prosecution of key union activists on 2 May 2013. 

“Our union = our freedom. Is this investment or colonialism?” A worker from Ideal Standard outside the factory during protests in April 2013

“The trade union committee at Ideal Standard Egypt appeals to the trade unions in the UK for solidarity in the face of abuse and oppression from our factory management. We dared to demand workers’ rights, payment of our allowances for hazardous work of LE300 (£30) and 28 days leave a year, as is our right according to Labour Law of 2007. In response management ordered the closure of the factory, sacked the trade union committee and prevented us from entering the factory since 3 March until today.

Our managers made malicious reports about us and issued proceedings in the Labour Courts on 2, 3 and 4 April but the case was postponed until 2 May. Workers took over the factory and continued production under their control. Production reached 85% of normal levels, but it was managers who cut off the gas supply to the factory on 5 April, demonstrating their bad faith.”

Signed: Hisham Mohammed Zaid (President) and Khaled Mohammed Zaid Ahmed, Ahmed Saber Ahmed, Ezz al-Arab, Mohammed Abd-al-Al, Ahmed Youssef, Hussein Khamis, Hussein Ragab, Mohammed al-Sayyid Mohammed (Committee members)

What you can do

• Send a message of protest to Ideal Standard via ukcustcare@idealstandard.com demanding the immediate reinstatement of the union committee in the Tenth of Ramadan factory
• Send a message of solidarity to the Ideal Standard workers via menasolidarity@gmail.com  or our Facebook page. Solidarity sign available to download here: ideal_standard_solidarity
  
• Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike
  
• Download this leaflet about Egyptian workers’ fight for social justice for your May Day events or union meeting: mayday_leaflet_egy2013

A national strike by Tunisian teachers in elementary schools on 24 April was solidly supported, according to the Secondary School Teachers’ Union’s Facebook page: 22 out of 24 provinces reported 80% or more teachers taking part in the strike. Thousands of teachers walked out in the second day of action this month in protest at poor conditions in schools and low pay for teachers. Read more on the background to the strike and what you can do in solidarity here.

One of the most moving moments during our visit to the World Social Forum in Tunis was to see the protest of mothers and families of the martyrs of Kasserine, wailing with grief as they held the pictures of their massacred relatives, and
asked for justice for the wounded and dead. At the WSF we spoke with Chady and Mimun from the Association Fidele pour les Martyres et les Blesses de la Revolution Tunisienne and we visited trade union leader, Mohamed Sghaier, in the town of Kasserine, who showed us the martyrs’ memorial and told us of the weeks of revolution.

The memorial to the martyrs in Kasserine

It was in the poor province of Kasserine in western Tunisia, that the revolution really started. Mohamed Bouazizi, a street seller, set himself on fire on 17 12 2010 in protest against increasing poverty and unemployment. His death lit a touch paper for an explosion of anger at the Ben Ali regime with widespread street demonstrations across the region, and increasing violent repression, with snipers shooting and killing demonstrators. The industrial town of Kasserine was at the centre of the protests and it was there at the Monguela roundabout in the poor quarter of Ezzouhour on 10th January at the funeral of young men killed, that a massacre of mourners took place which triggered protests across Tunisia and led to the fall of the dictator, Ben Ali on 14 th January 2011. Well over 20 people were martyred in Kasserine between 8 and 12th January. The youngest victim was a baby, Yakin Karmazi, who was tear-gassed. Huge numbers of people were injured, particularly young men, not only protesters but local people from the poor areas, for example women and children in a sauna. It is said that Ben Ali was about to bomb the Ezzouhour quarter when he fell.

The offices of the UGTT union federation in Kasserine, where many of the protests happened

It is now more than two years from the revolution and the association (AFMBRT) is campaigning for the rights to  justice of those killed (up to 400 in Tunisia as a whole) and injured. At the time it was clear that the snipers were not regular police or army, and it was suggested that they were from an elite militia associated with the Ben Ali regime. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and other NGOs joined the revolutionaries in condemning what happened at the time. The bereaved families and the injured have still not seen those who attacked them brought to justice. They feel forgotten and neglected by the Government. While immediate injuries were treated in hospitals, many of those
injured have complex and ongoing injuries which they want to have treated with expertise and are demonstrating at the Ministry of Health as they feel they have not been offered appropriate treatment. They campaign with the families of the bereaved for a full enquiry into what happened and to bring the perpetrators to justice. They were the revolution on the streets and deserve not to be forgotten.

On hearing of the strikes planned by NUT and NASUWT teachers in England from June 2013, Mohamed Hlaiem said, ‘It’s the same struggle and the same problems’

What you can do:

• Send messages of support for Tunisian public sector teachers to hlaiem.med@hotmail.fr (copy to menasolidarity@gmail.com or http://www.facebook.com/mena.solidarity
• Take a photograph of yourself and colleagues in your union branch using the poster designs below. Send to us or post on our Facebook page and we will forward
• Read more about recent strikes in the Kasserine region here, and a report on Tunisian teacher trade unionist Mohamed Sghaier’s visit to the UK in November.
•  Poster 1 and Poster 2

Members of the UCU lecturers’ union committee at Westminster Kingsway college in London send a solidarity message

Sasha Simic, Amanda Sebesteyn, Kambiz Boomla, Simon Assaf, Maggie Falshaw and Anna Livingstone (from top right) who visited the World Social Forum in Tunis at the end of March, sending a message of solidarity to Tunisian teachers for their strikes on 17 and 25 April

أصدر قادة عمال السكك الحديدية والنقل البحري والمواصلات بالأمس بيانا هاجموا فيه تعامل الجيش مع إضراب سائقي القطارات في مصر. فقد تم إرسال خطابات تكليف لسائقي القطارات للعمل في القوات المسلحة. يمكنكم النقر هنا لمعرفة ما يمكنكم عمله للتضامن مع عمال السكك الحديدية المصرية.

بيان بشأن إضراب سائقي القطارات في مصر:

ندين نحن الموقعين أدناه تعامل القوات المسلحة والحكومة المصرية مع الإضراب الذي قام به مؤخرا سائقو القطارات، ولاسيما محاولتهم كسر الإضراب عن طريق تكليف السائقين بالخدمة في إدارة النقل بالقوات المسلحة. لقد كان عمال السكة الحديدية في مصر ولزمن طويل في مقدمة النضالات من أجل حقوق العمال. ويذكر هنا إضرابهم الشهير عام 1986 الذي فضته الحكومة باستخدام العنف الوحشي، ولكنهم مع ذلك انتزعوا حكما قضائيا بمشروعية الحق في الإضراب.

ويبدو أن محمد مرسي، الذي جاء إلى الحكم بسبب الثورة التي أطاحت بمبارك، مصمم على اتباع نفس الوسائل التي كان ذلك الديكتاتور يتبعها في مواجهة سعي العمال إلى الحصول على أجور أفضل وظروف عمل مناسبة. ونحن من جانبنا نحيي رفاقنا في سكك حديد مصر ونطالب بالوقف الفوري لجميع صور إيذاء العمال المضربين.

الموقعون:

بوب كرو – الأمين العام لنقابة عمال السكك الحديدية والنقل البحري والمواصلات

بيتر بينكني – رئيس نقابة عمال السكك الحديدية والنقل البحري والمواصلات

ستيف هيدلي – مساعد الأمين العام لنقابة عمال السكك الحديدية والنقل البحري والمواصلات

أنجم ميرزا – قطاع لندن بنقابة عمال السكك الحديدية والنقل البحري والمواصلات

11 أبريل 2013