Trade union members face growing violence

[Judi Lynn]

Trade union members face growing violence
Wed Jun 7, 2006 1:03 AM BST
By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Trade union members round the world face a growing risk of incarceration and violence for defending workers' rights, an international labour organisation said in an annual study published on Wednesday.

About 1,600 union members suffered violent assaults last year compared to the 704 tortured, beaten or injured in 2004, while the number of arrests doubled to 9,000, the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) said.
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"The (global) death toll was slightly lower in 2005 than the previous year, but we are nevertheless witnessing increasingly severe violence and hostility against working people who stand up for their rights," said ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder.
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The confederation said Latin America remained the most perilous region for trade unions and that there was a "climate of continuing impunity for the assassins and deliberate targeting of trade unions by armed groups" in Colombia.
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It noted moves last year by two Republican governors in the states of Missouri and Indiana to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, and criticised New York University for denying teaching assistants the same possibility.
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http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-06-07T000335Z_01_L04784344_RTRUKOC_0_UK-RIGHTS-LABOUR-ABUSES.xml&archived=False

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(You may remember _{Jeb Bush} has conducted his own war on collective bargaining rights in Florida for years.)