IFWEA - International Federation of Workers' Education Associations

News

22 February 2010
SEWA E-Newsletter No.25 - January 2010
SEWA's Membership at all time high. Queen of Bhutan visits SEWA artisans in Delhi. SEWA and Green Livelihoods. A visit to Iran

9 February 2010
Workshop on Asia Floor Wage Campaign, Bangalore, 18th-20th, Feb 2010
Activists involved in organizing/ supporting workers rights in the garment sector in India are cordially invited to a 3-day Training Workshop on Asia Floor Wage Campaign in Bangalore from Thursday the 18th of February to Saturday the 20th of February, 2010.

5 February 2010
Banana workers get whole industry to the table
After over a hundred years of harsh treatment, exploitation and damage to the health of generations, the men and women who work in the world’s banana plantations have achieved what nobody thought possible a few years ago. They have managed to bring all the players in the global industry – from plantation to supermarket shelf – around the same table to talk about the issues that matter most:

3 February 2010
PAKISTAN: HOME-BASED WORKERS STRUGGLE TO CLIMB OUT OF POVERTY
Razia Khatoon, 36, crouches over a huge wooden frame, her eyes squinting in the dimly lit room inside a squatter settlement in Orangi town in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. She deftly stitches one bead after another to embellish a semi-finished embroidered woman’s dress, stretched over the frame. She says she has no time for "small talk" as the "order" has to be delivered within the day. "If we don’t finish this by the evening, we may not get another order," declares Khatoon.

3 February 2010
UPDATE FROM THE LABOUR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH NETWORK (LEARN) 15th GENERAL CONFERENCE, PHILIPPINES
LEARN’s 15th General Conference started with an update by Aya Fabros from Focus on the Global South on the current economic situation of the Philippines in relation to the labour market, as well as the global economy. The second topic discussed was the study by SALIGAN (Alternative Law Center) pertaining to the decisions of the Supreme Court. The study found that cases which involved less than 5 workers, most often won at the labour courts while cases involving unions were most often were decided against the workers. This study will be used to motivate for legislative reforms in the implementation of labour justice.

19 January 2010
SOLIDAR members and their partners active on the ground
ACPP and Solidaridad Internacional are coordinating relief action in Jacmel (South East, the second most affected city in the country but isolated from humanitarian aid until last Sunday 17th January) with their Haitian NGO partner CROSE (Coordination Régionale des Organisations du Sud-Est) and ATEPASE.

15 – 17 March 2010
WORK MATTERS
The 28th International Labour Process Conference will be hosted for the first time in North America, for 15 – 17 March 2010. It will be organised at Rutgers University by an experienced team at one of the leading labour studies departments in the country. The 2010 event provides a great opportunity for diverse groups of labour-oriented workplace researchers from different continents to communicate and collaborate. We urge you all to attend and support the conference. The ILPC web site has all the information, as well as the call for papers and papers from the 27th conference. Visit: http://www.ilpc.org.uk

March 24 - 27, 2010, San Diego
United Association for Labor Education Conference 2010
The experience of work today is shaped by shifting forces that are at once geographic, economic, political and national. This is a conference for labor educators and labor movement activists who want to learn and share their efforts to act effectively in this rapidly changing arena.

9 -10 April 2010
GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS
THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR AND RESEARCH AND INFORMATION GROUP will be hosting the 2010 ILRIG-Rosa Luxemburg Cape Partners seminar, entitled ‘The Global Economic Crisis: Challenges and Possibilities for trade unions and social movements’ at Community House, Salt River, Cape Town, South Africa, 9 -10 April 2010. Activists and analysts will debate the causes of the current global economic crisis, why it took the specific form of a financial crisis, the responses by governments and the opportunities for alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation that these present. For more information, visit ILRIG website: http://www.ilrigsa.org.za

3 – 5 June 2010
HOW CLASS WORKS
The Center for Study of Working Class Life announced a conference, How Class Works – 2010 Conference, to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, 3 – 5 June 2010. The conference seeks to explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social realities. Presentations are welcome from people outside academic life when they sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the conference. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience. For more information, visit: http://uale.org

DECENT WORK FOR A DECENT LIFE CAMPAIGN
Support the DECENT WORK FOR A DECENT LIFE CAMPAIGN. This campaign focuses on employment creation, workers’ rights, social protection and social dialogue. It aims to build awareness of Decent Work amongst citizens, decision makers and key institutions and to ensure that Decent Work is placed at the core of development, economic, trade, financial and social policies at national, European and international level. The campaign is led by International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Global Progressive Forum, Social Alert and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and Solidar. For more information visit SOLIDAR’s website: http://www.solidar.org

INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN: WORLD CLASS CITIES FOR ALL
When a country prepares to host a high-profile international event, the country and its local government authorities aim to create ‘World Class Cities’ which:

will attract foreign investment;
have modern up-to-date infrastructure;
have no visible signs of urban decay;
have smooth traffic flows;
have no visible poor people or social problems.

The ‘World Class Cities for All’ campaign challenges this traditional approach to building ‘World Class Cities’ and creates a new, more inclusive concept with the participation of street vendors and other groups of the (urban) poor. The campaign will focus strongly on women and other vulnerable street vendors who are the first to lose their livelihoods and are the most invisible in most plans for ‘World Class Cities’. For more information about this campaign, visit: http://www.streetnet.org.za

Resources - Useful documents and information available for download or by order.

Globalisation Today

This booklet is for activists. Those of us who are struggling in our communities, homes and workplaces, in campaigns and in programmes of social justice. Those of us concerned with the future of the planet and relations between men and women.

Localizing and Transnationalizing Contentious Politics: Global Civil Society Movements in the Philippines

The book is published by Lexington Books (a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.) in partnership with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). Joel F. Ariate Jr., Zuraida Mae D. Cabilo, Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem, Ma. Glenda S. Lopez Wui, Ronald C. Molmisa, and Sharon M. Quinsaat are the contributors to the volume.

IFWEA DVD - Build Rights, Build Unions
Organising Workers In The Informal Economy - A Resource Pack for Worker Educators

Welcome to IFWEA

IFWEA is the international organisation responsible for the development of workers' education. It brings together national and international trade unions, workers' education associations, NGOs and foundations engaged in the provision of adult education opportunities for workers and the communities in which they live throughout the world.

IFWEA is part of the family of international democratic labour movement organisations. It has observer status with the ILO and UNESCO, maintains close relations with the International Trade Union Confederation and the Global Union Federations, and shares mutual membership with SOLIDAR in Brussels.

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Resources - Useful documents and information available for download or by order.

Welcome to IFWEA