LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.

60 seconds on ... Christmas shopping

With the run-up to Christmas, retail workers are preparing to face a tsunami of abuse and even violence.  Unions representing shop workers in dozens of countries where Christmas is celebrated are campaigning to protect workers from over-stressed shoppers.Here's our take on Christmas shopping - and a very merry and kind Christmas from all of us at LabourStart!Support the show

60 seconds on ... Lee Cheuk-yan, jailed leader of Hong Kong's trade union movement

"60 seconds on ..." is a new podcast series hosted by LabourStart and aims to provide the international trade union movement with bite-size nuggets of information about important campaigns and news.  In today's episode, we focus on Lee Cheuk-yan, the jailed leader of the Hong Kong Trade Union Confederation, whose trial starts next month.  To learn more about the International Trade Union Confederation's campaign in solidarity with Lee, click here.Support the show

USA: Professor Yiran Zhang on care work

Professor Yiran Zhang is a prominent emerging voice in the field of labor and employment law, focusing on how care work is governed at the complicated intersection of informal labor markets, the welfare state, and the household. At Cornell’s ILR School, where she is also an Associate Faculty Member at Cornell Law School, she examines the rapidly shifting terrain of U.S. care-subsidy programs and what these changes mean for workers, families, and the law.Her scholarship, which spans top journals including Boston University Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, and Stanford Law & Policy Review, explores fundamental questions about gender, caregiving, and the very boundaries of what society counts as “work.”In this interview, Professor Zhang discusses her current research, the rise of paid family caregiving, and the new forms of worker organizing emerging in home-care labor. She closes with powerful reflections on why care workers, often overlooked, are central to the future of the labor movement.The interview was conducted by Joanne Lee, a LabourStart intern.Support the show

Netherlands: Union leader Pawel Rudzki, unfairly dismissed for his activism

Pawel Rudzki has not worked for the Albert Heijn supermarket chain for some two months now. An exemplary worker, never late, with a spotless record, he was bullied and lied about, given warnings he could not reply to -- and then summarily sacked. His union, the FNV, together with UNI Global Union, has been campaigning for his reinstatement.  It's the subject of a major campaign on LabourStart - click here to learn more and show your support.  In this interview, Pawel tells his story in his own words -- and ends with a message about the importance of solidarity.Support the show

Is this the Nobel Prize for the international trade union movement?

Today we spoke with Amalie Hilde Tofte from the trade union Styrke in Norway.  They're the sponsors of the annual Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights.  (LabourStart was a recipient a few years back.). Amalie told us about the background to the prize, some of the winners in recent years, and how one applies. We even learned who Arthur Svensson was.  Details about the prize, including the nominations form, are here.Support the show