The first issue of Solidarity, the newsletter of the Unions Aotearoa International Development Trust, is available below. This issue focuses on some of the work UnionAID partners are doing with dalit workers in Tamil Nadu and Burmese migrants on the Thai border.
The UnionAID project works closely with the Madurai Women’s Development Resource Centre (also supported by NZAID through Christian World Service) which has achieved remarkable success over many years in supporting and inspiring Dalit women to organize collectively and to form sangham and women’s micro-banks. As well as being a leader of the Tribal Agricultural Women’s Union, Kaleeswari is also President of the Tribal Women’s Federation and her local sangham. At a meeting with UnionAID union delegates said that the greatest benefit of the projects has been pride and confidence. A DVD on the MWDRC, “Now We are Fearless” and education kit are available from Friends of MWDRC, wdrc.friends@delta.net.nz (Cost $25).
My name is Kaleeswari and I live with my family in a small village on the lower hills of Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu in South India.
There are 32 families in our village and we are all poor and own no land to grow our own food.
We work for higher caste people, collecting and selling wild grass, berries, honey, gum, nuts and herbs. We also collect and sell firewood.
Our village has many health problems and many children die before the age of five due to malnutrition.
In India 85 children of every 1000 die before the age of five. In NZ only 6 out of every thousand children die before 5 years of age. Indian children die of diseases that can easily be prevented by clean water and enough good food.
We felt that no one cared about us because we are untouchables.
But now things have changed.
Untouchables must not let even their shadows touch others. Dalits (“crushed underfoot”) as they prefer to be called, exist at the bottom of the ancient Hindu caste system. Dalits have to do the work no-one else will do; the dirty jobs like scavenging for rubbish, cleaning toilets, and handling dead bodies for cremation. Most Dalits and Tribals have no land of their own and often work for landowners as bonded labourers. Very few can read or write and they face abuse, violence and discrimination despite legal rights in the Indian Constitution.
I am President of the women’s committee, or sangham, and we meet regularly to discuss and make plans to solve village problems.
We learn about basic rights and the government services which can help them.
We organise rallies and protests to demand equal wages, education for children, health care services and clean drinking water.
We have also formed a woman’s bank so we don’t have to borrow at high interest rates from money lenders. We now have a voice and we are changing our lives.
Burmese migrant workers in Thailand have been learning about their rights in UnionAID project training delivered by our partner, the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma.
19 training courses were held during 2008 to plantation workers in the Phawphra district where seasonal migrant workers have been subject to violence and trafficking. In total more than 1100 workers attended the training at 19 different locations.
The training courses included:
A workers rights pamphlet was also produced in several languages and work was undertaken to develop a database of information on workers and their factory conditions and risks.
The FTUB has reported:
A new three year UnionAID project with Burmese migrant workers will have a strong focus on leadership training for women. The project has been approved under the NZAID KOHA-PICD programme which will mean that $4 will be paid by Government for every $1 contributed by UnionAID.
The project will provide leadership training, labour rights education and resources to Burmese migrant workers. In particular the women workers will gain the skills and knowledge to enable them to advocate and organise around employment issues and needs, in order to improve living and working conditions for themselves and their families.
The project will also plan and develop an occupational-based training centre for women workers opening in 2010.
Solidarity will report on this project in more detail in future issues.
Saw Min Lwin is the project leader of the joint UnionAID –FTUB project in Mae Sot, Thailand. Min is well known to many unionists in Wellington because he spent six months here in 2003.
Min is also the International Human Rights Director of the FTUB and has played a key role in gathering evidence of forced labour in Burma in support of the case to the International Labour Organisation over many years.
The FTUB work in Mae Sot is a testament to his commitment and organizing skills. This includes our joint project and an FTUB school for children of migrant families.
The strong support from unions and union members for UnionAID has been very exciting and encouraging.
There is clearly a strong identification with our objective of helping workers in our neighbouring countries in the Asia Pacific.
And our two projects, in Tamil Nadu and in Thailand, already provide clear evidence of the benefits which can result from a relatively small investment.
This quarterly newsletter is one means of letting you know what we are doing, what benefits our projects are providing, and how we are spending the money which you are donating. I take that responsibility very seriously.
Kiwi Solidarity Members are collectively giving almost $1,500 a month for project funding. That is a tremendous start, and I hope that all 400,000 union members in New Zealand will consider giving a small monthly amount to help fund our work.
A little money goes a long way in developing countries, and for our KOHA projects, such as Tamil Nadu and Thailand, the Government matches every dollar we raise with four dollars.
Already, generous foundation grants from several unions, totaling almost $60,000, are providing us with a vital financial base with which to build our organization.
But we are going to be mean and lean with administration. Staff support is currently being provided by the CTU and volunteers, and our objective is to continue to ensure that all individual donations are applied to project work.
I am very proud that, through UnionAID, the NZCTU has taken up this challenge.
Ross Wilson
Executive Chair
UnionAID
Six young community leaders from Burma are at Victoria University for 6 months under a UnionAID project jointly funded by NZAID.
The programme is divided between English language tuition and a specially designed course in development studies.
The young leaders will also get first hand experience of life in New Zealand as they are staying with union hosts, and they will be spending time in a variety of Government agencies, NGOs and workplaces.
They are very impressive young people who have already played a key role in community development activities in their own country, and the knowledge and experiences they gain here will help them play an important role in Burma’s future.
Several unions have agreed to host the young leaders to experience union work at a workplace level. They are willing to speak to union groups and at conferences. Arrangements can be made through Eileen Brown at the CTU ph 04 802 3813 or
eileenb@nzctu.org.nz.
The programme will continue in 2010 and 2011.
More than 30,000 Dalit workers in Tamil Nadu have formed local unions over the past 2 years as part of the UnionAID project with the Tamil Nadu Labour Union. 164 local unions work together under TLU leadership and 10,600 of the members are women.
This is a tremendous achievement by workers who have historically been oppressed, abused and exploited by upper castes.
The TLU also reports a huge list of achievements for the project, but probably the most impressive is the sense of pride and confidence which their collective work has given them.
The project has also helped them with leadership training and the development of communication and organising systems. A particular focus on the role of women and leadership and gender training has ensured a prominent role for women in a culture where women have had few rights.
Working together the union has developed their cooperative employment ventures, established micro-banks, organised representation and campaigns to local and national government on a range of issues.
But perhaps their most enduring achievements will be the changes of attitudes which the education work is bringing. At this stage this is mainly among union members and their families with gender training, but the confidence that collective action is bringing is changing other relationships as well.
The current UnionAID project will continue over the next three years with support from NZAID through the KOHA-PICD funding programme.
(See Kaleeswari’s story on page 2 for more information on Union AID‘s work with the TLU.)
Thanks to all our supporters in the union movement UnionAID has got off to a great start since the launch on May Day 2009.
UnionAID is unique among overseas development agencies in putting workers’ rights at the centre of our work.
Generous financial support from both unions and members will mean that we can develop new projects as well.
Our projects help vulnerable workers in developing countries to organize as unions and take their own action to improve life for their families.
Unions have a long tradition of international solidarity.
Providing funds for education and training work is a modern way of expressing that solidarity.
Union centres in other developed countries, including Australia, have development agencies, and now with UnionAID we have joined them.
We are small by comparison but, with support from unions and union members, UnionAID will grow steadily over the next few years.
