Labour Start: Russia: Stop attacks on auto workers union & more

[Omaha Steve]

In this week's mailing:

* Russia: Stop attacks on auto workers union
* Zimbabwe: Riot police attack, arrest trade unionists
* Iran: Support for Farzad grows
* Norway: A board game for trade unionists

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RUSSIA: STOP ATTACKS ON AUTO WORKERS UNION

Alexei Etmanov, the leader of the Ford-Vsevelozhsk trade union and co-chairman of THE Interregional Trade Union of Autoworkers (ITUA) has been the target of two brutal attacks on November 8 and 13. An anonymous caller following the first assault contacted the union and warned Etmanov to stop his union activities or "we will take away your life". No one has been charged for the crimes and an investigation has been suspended.

The International Metalworkers Federation is calling for a worldwide protest and at their request, LabourStart has launched an online campaign here:

http://www.labourstart.org/etmanov

Don't forget -- our previous campaigns focussing on Russia have produced results. Let's show our solidarity by sending off thousands of protest messages today.

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ZIMBABWE: RIOT POLICE ATTACK, ARREST TRADE UNIONISTS

Zimbabwe has been dominating LabourStart's front page today with reports of riot police attacking protesting trade unions and union activists being arrested. Our full coverage is here:

http://www.labourstart.org/zimbabwe

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IRAN: SUPPORT FOR FARZAD GROWS

The campaign we launched last week in support of jailed teacher Farzad Kamangar has picked up thousands of supporters. As I write these words, 4,908 of you have responded to the LabourStart appeal. In addition, thousands of messages have been sent from the website of the Education International. Farzad remains under sentence of death and it's very important that you do what you can to mobilize your union's members and that we sustain the flood of protest messages from around the world:

http://www.labourstart.org/farzad

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NORWAY: A BOARD GAME FOR TRADE UNIONISTS

LabourStart's senior correspondent in Norway, Espen Loken, has informed us of the launch of an innovative trade union project -- a board game called "1. mai - Fagforeningsspillet".
Already a best seller with 2,000 copies pre-ordered before the game even reaches the shops, trade unionists in a number of countries have shown an interest in preparing translations into languages other than Norwegian. If you read Norwegian, do check out this link:

http://arbeidsliv.tiden.no/cgi-bin/arbeidsliv.storefront/NO/Product/144801

When the game becomes available in other languages, we'll let you know.

Eric Lee