[LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps

[Art Moses]

            It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the
campaign.
 
But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters
from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. 
 
My thoughts would be maybe start it with: 
 
"BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300
letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging
him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and
fundamental labour and human rights.
 
"The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International
Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour
laws passed by the Liberals violated. 
 
"Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign
and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell
government to comply with the ILO ruling.
 
"In early May.
 
"Speaking on behalf of the unions.
 
Art
 
 
 
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On
Behalf Of Roseanne Moran
Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM
To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL
RIVIERE
Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps
 
Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of
those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind
up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be.  The
urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release
and get sign on if possible.. read on.
 
At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our
unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I
will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am
on holidays if that is okay.
 
We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the
issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal
spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the
message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now
hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase
one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing
the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the
labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to
be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part
of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the
labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we
can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't
get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is
scheduled to go out on Wednesday.
 
In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our
unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as
phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC
government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about
the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and
the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the
international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write
up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get
the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether
LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose.
 
I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a
note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. 
 
Until then,
 
Roseanne.
 
 
PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and
Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section
this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604
631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy
CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave.,
Vancouver V5Z 1A1
Phone 604 873-8988
 
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