British Embassy Staff Votes For American Union

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

After management at the British embassy in Washington, D.C., announced plans to cut wages and reduce benefits, workers voted to form a union with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees.  However, embassy management refuses to recognize their employees' union, claiming the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to foreign government workers. The workers held a one-day strike and have been wearing union pins to work. Unions in both the United States and Britain are supporting the worker activists: officials from Britain's Trades Union Congress met with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney met with the embassy's labor attache and has requested a meeting with the ambassador. "I'm rather surprised because the British government says it supports the freedom of workers to join unions to improve their lives, and I think this freedom should extend to their embassy staff," said Sweeney.