Union Newswire

Unite, together with Amnesty International, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the wider international trade union movement, has been actively campaigning for the release of Mansour Osanloo, the Iranian Bus Workers’ trade union leader, and his union deputy, Ebrahim Madadi since their arrest and imprisonment two years ago.

A Cuban women who has been refused a visa to enter the United States on ten separate occasions, most recently because she may pose a “threat to the safety or national security of the United States” will be mixing freely with British government ministers and speaking at a Free the Miami Five fringe meeting organised by Unite the Union at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton next week.

Unite, the UK’s largest union, has today criticised the latest IBM proposals announced to the workforce. This follows a backlash by thousands of IBM employees because of its proposals to close the final salary pension schemes to future accrual for existing employees and alter the terms of its early retirement scheme.

Labour must use the six months before the general election to make a real difference to the lives of ordinary people, says Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite.