Solidarity

Why labor movements still matter:

The IUF is requesting international support for a campaign to free three imprisoned trade union leaders in Eritrea. Tewelde Ghebremedhin, Chairperson of the IUF-affiliated Food, Beverages, Hotels, Tourism, Agriculture and Tobacco Workers Federation and Minase Andezion, secretary of the textile and leather workers' federation, were arrested by security police on March 30 and remain in detention. According to their information, Brothers Ghebremedhin and Andezion were arrested in the offices of the National Confederation of Eritrean Workers, the national trade union center. On April 9, police arrested Habtom Weldemicael, who heads the Coca-Cola Workers Union and is a member of the food and beverage workers' federation executive. According to some reports, Weldemicael was urging workers to consider industrial action to defend the catastrophic decline in workers' living standards. As far as the IUF has been able to ascertain, the three are being held incommunicado without charges beyond the constitutionally mandated 48 hours within which arrested persons must be brought before a magistrate. Reports indicate that they are being held in a secret security prison in Asmara.

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