Labor Updates (6/4/08)

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Indian Guestworkers Win Support of Thousands, Human Rights Awards: Nearly 9,000 people have sent letters to their Congress members urging their support for hunger striking Indian workers fighting human trafficking, reports the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. The email campaign - launched after the workers began their hunger strike May 14 – asks Congressmembers to hold hearings on worker allegations of human trafficking by their employer Signal International and to allow workers to stay in the US to testify against Signal. Workers also found out this week that they are this year's winner of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Domestic Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. The workers were nominated for the award because of their "courageous stand against what is essentially modern-day slavery in the world's richest nation," IPS director John Cavanagh said in a letter to the workers. ""We have also been inspired by your creative use of collective action and the powerful legacies of the human rights struggles both here and in India to seek justice - not only for the affected Signal workers, but for all victims of human trafficking and exploitative guestworker programs." Click here to participate in the email campaign and mark your calendar to join the workers at a rally outside the Department of Justice on Wednesday, June 11 at noon.