Kazakhstan: Hands off the unions!

 

By Turkish Flame

Eric Lee writes: 

Another independent union is under threat in Kazakhstan, a country notorious for its anti-union policies and persecution of union leaders.

A local authority filed a lawsuit to suspend the Trade Union of the Fuel and Energy Industry Workers, with more than 4,000 members in the oil, metallurgical, energy and other industries in eight regions of Kazakhstan.

The authorities filed this lawsuit on the initiative of a number of oil and gas companies.

In recent years, Kazakh authorities have intensified pressure on independent unions by prosecuting and sentencing union leaders on politically motivated charges.

This pressure has seriously weakened the union movement in Kazakhstan.

Not for the first time, Kazakh trade unionists are appealing for global labour solidarity.

We have just now gone live with an online campaign sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation, IndustriALL global union and the Central Asia Labour Rights Monitoring Mission.

I'd like to ask you to do two things:

1. Please click here to support their campaign for workers' rights

2. Please recruit one other person -- a family member, a co-worker, a friend -- to also sign up to this campaign.

Let's send thousands of messages today, from all over the world, to the government in Kazakhstan with our very simple message: hands off the unions!