To mark International Workers’ Memorial Day, Hong Kong Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) affiliate CSGWU will hold a public memorial event near the Central Government’s building, with one of their key demands to be for the Government to recognise karoshi (death by overwork) fatalities as workplace accidents.
All of the global federation Building and Wood Workers International BWI Peninsula-Malaysia affiliates will collaborate in a press conference/protest that will be held at a Kuala Lumpur construction site demanding justice for Nepali migrant workers who have died in Malaysia. BWI will publish a report on 28 April documenting eight fatalities and a further 20 injuries where no compensation has been paid whatsoever.
In Sabah Malaysia BWI affiliate STIEU is planning further activities to be announced shortly.
On 28 April global construction union federation Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) affiliate BWTUC (Cambodia) will hold a meeting at their head office with around 200 participants. They will then march together to the Ministry of Labor and deliver a letter demanding stronger protections for construction workers.
Turkish workers have a slogan to describe life under the current regime, says health and safety campaigner Asli Odman, “We don’t go to work, we go to war.” In a report issued ahead of International Workers’ Memorial Day on 28 April, the Health and Safety Labour Watch (HSLW) expert notes the three sectors with the highest number of deaths in 2018 were agriculture and forestry (457), construction (438) and transport (233). There were also high numbers of deaths in the metal (116), mining (66) and energy sectors (63).
HSLW says one of the reasons for the increase in deaths in these sectors in the previous year (2017) is the state of emergency and statutory decrees which made it impossible for workers, even organised workers, to defend their rights. Union density in Turkey dropped from 24 per cent in 1988 to just 4 per cent in 2013 according to the comparative OECD union density data. Global Industriall union figures show union density in the private sector had fallen to just 3 per cent by 2016.
Health and Safety Labour Watch
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Support Group for Families Seeking Justice
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BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including Swedish. [pdf]
BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including French. [pdf]
BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including Portuguese. [pdf]
BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including Spanish. [pdf]
BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including English. [pdf]
BWI has published an International Workers’ Memorial Day poster in several languages, including Russian. [pdf]
