Tomorrow Is Another Day

In the words of a famous, if fictional, slave-owner.

As to the real thing, more or less, Stuart Jordan writes:

Sign this open letter to Brendan Barber here, and join us for the picket on the 5th December.

Dear Brendan Barber,

We are writing to protest the fact that the TUC is hosting the Associated British Foods AGM on December 5th 2008 in its Congress Centre. As you probably know, ABF is the owner of Primark, a business that makes its multi-million pound profits through paying poverty wages in the UK and by exploiting sweatshop labour abroad.

It is particularly embarrassing for trade unionists in the UK to see the supreme body of British trade unionism benefit from Primark's profits, particularly as the AGM coincides with the No Sweat speaker tour which features a delegation from National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh.

This time last year, Primark was sourcing clothes from a factory chain in Bangladesh that was at the centre of workers' struggle over failure to pay Eid holiday bonuses, which amounted to a few pence. Primark's links to the Nassa Group was exposed in an earlier Sunday Mirror investigation that uncovered the appalling conditions suffered by these workers. Some of the workers are forced to work 14 hour shifts for as little as 4p an hour. Several reported being beaten for working too slow. Recent industrial disputes have been met with severe state repression. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Export Association has recently called for an industrial police force to combat growing worker's militancy and there are reports that several factories are now under virtual military occupation. Workers have been killed by the army and police during strike days and many more have been killed due to the appalling levels of health and safety in the garment industry.

In this sense, a portion of ABF's profits come as a direct result of the merciless violence with which the Bangladeshi state enforces its anti-trade union laws and at the direct expense of our brothers and sisters in the NGWF. We hope that you will do all you can to stop the forthcoming AGM in the spirit of international workers' solidarity. If it continues to go ahead then No Sweat and the NGWF will be calling on trade unionists in London to join a picket on the morning of the 5th December outside the Congress Centre on Great Russell Street.