Nicaragua The growth of links be-

tween our region and The Nicaraguan health union FETSALUD continues apace following the recent successful visit by regional delegates to Nicaragua . Roy Emblan and Dr Sebastian Yuen from the George Eliot Hospital and Mark glover from Solihull LG branch spent 7 days in the country. The purpose of the visit was twofold, the two delegates from George Eliot were visiting health facilities with a view to establishing formal links between their selves and a Nicaraguan health facility . Having visited several they have agreed to twin with the Nilda Patricia Hospital And a formal agreement to that effect was signed. Mark was representing the region with the aim of meeting trade unionists and building on the links we have made with FETSALUD. . A full report of the visit has been circulated. FETSALUD will be sending a delegation to the UNISON health conference in April where they will be speaking at a Fringe meeting (organised jointly by the national office and ourselves). They will then visit the West Midlands for a few days to continue the conversations.

Visitors to the region have included Nick Crook National International officer Sam Mayer Labour behind the Label Mark Beacon ACTSA Hobsile from Swaziland Mark Lopez and Clemente Bautista activists from the Philippines Isai Priya Sri Lanka Solidarity campaign to whom a donation of £150 was made. The forum also organised a well attended meeting with Nueva Esperanza ,A locally based group who have for several years worked with a com-munity in El Salvador. The Region was again one of the best represented at this years National International seminar. Activities for 2015 The region have agreed to invite a Colombian Trade unionist to the region later in the year . It has been suggested that the region look at run-ning an international seminar jointly with another region (possibly East Midlands ) but this needs to be discussed further. In line with national priorities the region will continue its support and involvement in PlayFair Qatar Swaziland TTIP Colombia Philippines

PUBLISHED BY THE WEST MIDLANDS INTERNATIONAL FORUM SPRING 2015

INTERNATIONAL

In February Our region sent a delegation to Nicaragua as part of our continuing building of links with the Country. The delegation had two aims , one was to look at making direct links between the George Eliot Hospital and a Nicaraguan health facility and the other was to visit two projects currently being funded by UNISON , a Law centre and an activist development pro-ject of which this region is directly a part . Mark Glover (Solihull branch ) who had the latter task reports below , followed by Rob Emblan of George Eliot who gives his per-spective

On the 15th February 2015 I was lucky to rep-resent UNISON WM on a delegation to Nicaragua. As part of this trip I met with the National Ex-ecutive of UNE-FNT, who are the largest public sector Trade Union. The General Secretary of UNE-FNT, is Domingo Perez, who told me about the long relationship Unison has enjoyed with Nicara-guan Trade Unions, which goes back more than thirty years. Domingo was particularly proud of the support Unison provided during the 16 years of Neo Liberal rule (199-2006),

which saw Trade Union rights diminished and living standards lowered. This demonstrates the important role that Trade Unions have in promoting international solidarity, in order to help our fellow brothers and sisters in struggle. Not only material support but moral sup-port gave strength to these colleagues, which saw them through difficult times. For the last 4 years Unison has funded a Legal Centre and Domingo said this has helped strengthen UNE and given confidence to members knowing that if they join the union, they will receive effective legal representation.

I went to visit the legal office and meet with the dedicated staff, that work so hard and whom in-formed me they have a 90% case success rate. The legal office also provides advice in matters relating to child maintenance and custody proce-dures, and I was able to meet members who had benefited personally from this service, and hear their stories. I was also able to visit another exciting project that Unison are funding, which is a training scheme to encourage more young people and women to become Trade Union leaders for the FETSALUD health union. The scheme will involve a 3 step course, which in total, will involve 200 hours of learning. The intro-ductory stage focuses on communication skills, self esteem and how to explain why people should join a union. The next stage will improve assertiveness skills and focus on aspects of labour laws; and the final stage will be more spe-cialised and focus on areas such as HR and Health and Safety. It is hoped that by the end of this scheme there will be 90 trained leaders who will be distributed over 70 branches and will effect up to 10, 000 workers. Trade Unions in Nicaragua have a real role in so-

cial life and are not solely concerned with work-ers conditions and rights; they also have an in-terest as well in housing, education and social security. This is due to their conception as themselves as promoting direct democracy and they work closely with the Sandinista government.

What was apparent when talking with Trade Unionists was they had a real pride in the pub-lic services and social programmes that are offered. I reminded them that in the UK our own public services are coming under increased attacks by the government and right wing media, so it was refreshing to experience such positivity. I was genuinely touched by the warmth and solidarity that was offered by our Nicaraguan hosts, and I hope the friendship between UNISON and the Trade Unions there endures for at least another 30 years. There are many things we can learn from them as they are ef-fectively recruiting many young people, who go on to play a leadership role in the national, re-gional and local structures, and who I was for-tunate to meet. ROB ELWELL ON HIS PERSPECTIVE

Arriving in Managua, tired from the long jour-ney, amply fed during the flights, it was good to know that I was going to a room where I could unpack, wind down, shower, and grab some sleep before the day began.

Sleep, tired as I was, was fragmented, waking at around 3am, then around 5am, breakfast for 7 am, ready to go 8am. This was pretty much

the rest of the weeks start of day schedule

First stop, the FETSALUD offices in Managua, and a comprehensive presentation on the structure of the country and its health system. An impressive account of how a good struc-ture, cooperation and teamwork, with heaps of enthusiasm works.

The next day, punctuated by lunch in a newly developed project area. From here to Centro De Salud Pedro Altamirano, where for the first time, it was so clearly a different world, in a health system way. Technology deployed in key offices (4 PC’s in total) predominantly ad-ministration via hand written documents, or typewriter. Poverty and ruin, observed through the car window on route - earthquakes had turned Ma-nagua on its head.

Financial shortcomings of the hospital were evident in the lack of maintenance, reflected in decoration, fixtures and fittings, buildings and furnishings, regardless, the staff were efficient and motivated.

The information drive to keep the public aware of health issues is hard not to notice, hand-made signage, everywhere, is bright, image descriptive, to the point, with minimum of tex-tual content. A picture paints a thousand words.

I don’t actually recall, in the time spent in Nica-ragua, having noticed any significant stress, and technology dominated clutter that reflected care back home. It was people caring for people, ba-sics, like I said, without the stress and clutter of administrative excess.

There is always a sense of purpose and commu-nity spirit, at each and every location,

so essential in the caring business.

All the sites visited during my time here, the staff had the same drive and determination, a clear understanding of what they were about. The hand in glove cooperation of Unions and govern-ment reflected in an organised structure, from the tip of the organisational pyramid to the Brigadis-tas, volunteers, in the community at door to door ground level.

La

Chureca barrio was, for me, the most

significant indicator of the need for a good health service. The past history of this community is heart wrenching. A huge city refuse dump, where all manner of waste ended up, was the source of income and shelter for all those who lived here. Control of infection, unheard of. Barefoot scavengers

The improvement in living conditions, the recy-cling centre provides work, giving status and pride to the people, known as the poorest of the poor. The workers now have solid buildings to live in and facilities – a school and health centre.

Throughout the visit, it was noted that in order to improve care quality, equipment like defibrillators, minor surgery tools, ultrasound/Doppler ultra-sound scanners were needed.

Visiting the Nild Patricia Hospital - our twinning partner, was a pleasure. The workplace of Dr Kamila Mejia.(whose visit to the West Midlands last year initiated the twinning plan)

On the 22nd of February the Delegation signed the Twinning Framework Agreement, the end re-sult of a very busy weeks schedule.

Isai Priya from Tamil Solidarity recently spoke at our regional international

Forum . The region is affiliated to the campaign and indeed it was a regional branch who successfully moved a motion at NDC in 2012 which led to na-tional affiliation.

The key task now is to encourage branches to affili-ate (currently only 3 regional branches are affili-ated)

The forum agreed to donate £100 to the campaign.

“Tamil Solidarity is a grass-root campaign that stands up to all workers and oppressed people. It is the only campaign within Tamil community that links up the Tamil struggle with the workers strug-gle in Britain.

Since the beginning of the campaign, we have or-ganised or had a presence in all major protests and campaigns including Tiananmen Square Commemo-ration protest outside the Chinese Embassy and participated in protest against Israeli state terror. Please see our website, where reports of all the pro-test will be available (www.tamilsolidarity.org)

We are an international campaign with active sec-tions in India, Malaysia, Belgium and Sri Lanka.

Last year, we have successfully launched “Join the Union” campaign. There are almost 300,000 Tamils living in Britain, most of them in low paid public sec-tor jobs. Through this campaign we are raising awareness amongst Tamil workers the importance of joining the union and taking active part in the work-ers movement here. This is a long-time project but we can already see the changes. Each year, we or-ganise Solidarity Day that brings together different communities, campaigns, trade unionist and activist. In 2014, we have organised it with Day-mer Kurdish and Turkish organisation. This day was a huge suc-cess and the importance of united struggle was felt throughout the day.

TSC is proud of all the campaigns we have undertak-ing and profile that we build amongst Tamil Commu-nity and the trade union movements in Britain. How-ever, as with all grass-root campaign finance is our biggest obscure. In many cases, we had to turn peo-ple away on the basic of not enough resources. Member’s subscription and trade union affiliation are the main sources of income that we receive. We are appealing to all trade unionist to support the campaign by getting your branch/region affiliated to Tamil Solidarity Campaign. Ask one of us to come and speak at your branch. “

Please contactisaipriya@tamilsolidarity.org.

Www.tamilsolidarity.org

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary,(War on Want), said: “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”

Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and un-democratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.

. Here are six other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed:

1 The NHS

Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS.

The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. How-ever, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table.

2 Food and environmental safety

TTIP’s ‘regulatory convergence’ agenda will seek to bring EU standards on food safety and the environment closer to those of the US. But US regulations are much less strict, with 70 per cent of all processed foods sold in US supermarkets now containing genetically modified ingredients. By contrast, the EU allows virtually no GM foods. The US also has far laxer re-strictions on the use of pesticides. It also uses growth hormones in its beef which are re-stricted in Europe due to links to cancer. US farmers have tried to have these restrictions lifted repeatedly in the past through the World Trade Organisation and it is likely that they will use TTIP to do so again.

The same goes for the environment, where the EU’s REACH regulations are far tougher on potentially toxic substances. In Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used; in the US the opposite is true: any substance can be used until it is proven un-safe. As an example, the EU currently bans 1,200 substances from use in cosmetics; the US just 12.

3 Banking regulations

TTIP cuts both ways. The UK, under the influence of the all-powerful City of London, is thought to be seeking a loosening of US banking regulations. America’s financial rules are tougher than ours. They were put into place after the financial crisis to directly curb the powers of bankers and avoid a similar crisis happening again. TTIP, it is feared, will remove those restrictions, effectively handing all those powers back to the bankers.

4 Privacy

it’s feared that TTIP could be bringing back ACTA’s central elements, proving that if the de-mocratic approach doesn’t work, there’s always the back door. An easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trials are also thought to be on the cards.

5 Jobs

The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment.

6 Democracy

TTIP’s biggest threat to society is its inherent assault on democracy. One of the main aims of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow compa-nies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments.

ISDSs are already in place in other bi-lateral trade agreements around the world and have led to such injustices as in Germany where Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Here we see a public health policy put into place by a democratically elected government being threatened by an energy giant because of a potential loss of profit. Nothing could be more cynically anti-democratic.

There are around 500 similar cases of businesses versus nations going on around the world at the moment and they are all taking place before ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corpo-rate lawyers appointed on an ad hoc basis, which according to War on Want’s John Hilary, are “little more than kangaroo courts” with “a vested interest in ruling in favour of business.”

The scariest thing is we have no vote on itI can do is tell as many people about it as possible, as I hope, will you. We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) is an international solidarity campaign which was set up following the assassination of Arif Shah, the President of the Punjab Labour Federation by hired agents of the employers in 1995. That brutal act highlighted the harsh situation faced by the trade union movement in Pakistan. The British section of the campaign is based in Birmingham and a motion is going to the next Regional Council calling on the region to affiliate and sup-port this important campaign. CAMPAIGN PROGRAMME 1 Defence of trade unionists from the physical attacks of the employers and the state. 2 To defend the workers right to organise in unions 3 Stop the privatisation and economic plunder of state industries. 4 For a minimum living wage or unemploy-ment allowance for all.

5 For complete abolition of child labour.

6 The abolition of anti-trade union laws. 7 The abolition of fundamentalist laws against women and an end to gender exploitation. 8 Struggle for Women right to organise in all workplaces.

If you have any interest in international

issues or want to become a Branch

International officer contact me at d

aveauger61@hotmail .com

DAVE AUGER

Colombia continues to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist.

In its yearly report, the Colombian human rights or-ganisation Somos Defensores (We are Defenders), has recorded 55 human rights defenders being killed in 2014. In addition to the number of kill-ings, the report highlighted the enormous increase in death threats issued to defenders – there were 626 death threats issued in 2014 and the report notes the correlation between key moments in the peace process and a rise in threats made. This is as clear a demonstration as any that there remains violent opposition to the peace process in Colombia.

According to Somos Defensores the murder of human rights defenders has been relatively constant over re-cent year, with 55 killed in 2012, 78 in 2013, and 55 again in 2014.

Alarmingly it appears that in the majority of cases the authorities had been informed of threats having been made and in three cases people were killed whilst waiting for protection measures to be implemented by the National Protection Unit Regional Council recently agreed a motion which will commit the region to inviting a Colombian trade union-ist to visit the region later in the year and invite a speaker from Justice for Colombia (the campaign group set up by British trade unions ) to a Regional Council. In addition it was agreed to write to all branches call-ing on them to affiliate to JFC. If you want further information on Colombia and the dangers trade unionists face and how you can support them goto Www.justiceforcolombia.org .

: The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC), 65 Gristhorpe Road, Selly Oak Birmingham B29 7TD www.ptudc.org/