Photo: Rojava Solidarity Sydney/Facebook
Australian groups participating in the international campaign for freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned for 22 years in Turkey, held a webinar on April 16.
Guest speakers were Clare Baker from the Unite Union in Britain, former Icelandic member of parliament Ögmundur Jonasson, Australian historian John Tully and Kurdish-Australian journalist and former trade union organiser Mansour Razaghi. The webinar was introduced and chaired by Sarah Hathway, an organiser with the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association.
The webinar began with a short video showing highlights of the campaign in Australia to date, which included rallies, a car cavalcade and even a “Free Öcalan” sky banner pulled by a plane over Perth in Western Australia.
He had come from far north Queensland to Sydney to play football and obtained paid employment as a builders’ labourer.
The work was notoriously lacking in safety measures, the amenities on site almost non-existent and the wages poor.
He joined the union only to discover that those who tried to do something about improving wages and conditions on the job were soon dismissed, not only with the support of the union leadership but often at their instigation.
He joined the rank and file organisation which, in an excellent example of daring to struggle, eventually overthrew the previous, corrupt, leadership of the union.
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The need to digitally transform â by taking actions such as streamlining and automating business processes, managing data across the organization and overseeing remote workers â is only greater in the face of COVID-19 developments. John Tully, SAP
All facets of our lives changed when COVID-19 hit. Face-to-face interactions became digital. Commutes evaporated. Restaurants closed. Schools shuttered. Travel ceased.
But not everything was paused. In the oil and gas industry, some trends only accelerated.
For instance, when prices plummeted at the pandemicâs outset, many analysts predicted ongoing shifts would reach a standstill. The logic was that low hydrocarbon prices would delay digital transformation strategies in the energy industry.
The Unite Union has been instrumental in getting the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) to support the Free Ocalan Campaign. The webinar is organised by Australians For Kurdistan, Rojava Solidarity Sydney, Solidarity With Rojava Network (WA) and Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society.
Baker spoke to
Green Left a week out from the webinar.
Why is it important for the trade union movement to take up the campaign to free Abdullah Öcalan?
The trade union movement has a long and proud history of supporting the struggles of workers and oppressed people around the world, we have fought for the rights of Palestinians, of trade unionists and social activists in Colombia, for the repressed people’s of Western Sahara, trade unionists in Myanmar and Belarus, and against the oppressive policies of right wing governments such as that of [Jair] Bolsonaro in Brazil. This history also includes campaigns to release political prisoners such as the Cuban 5, [Luiz Inacio] Lula [da Silva in Br
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