Trade Union Action for Asylum Seekers’ and Migrant Workers’ Rights:

Planning Meeting: Monday 13th October 7pm at Scotia Works
( Leadmill Road , Sheffield city centre S1 4SE)

At the TUC conference last month 21 trade union General Secretaries (representing over 5 million workers) pledged themselves to support the right to work for asylum seekers. Migrant workers have joined unions in some of the most precarious service and agricultural sectors. The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which organises cleaners on the London Tube, recently defended its own members who were victimised because they had the “wrong” immigration status. In Sheffield branches of the T&GWU/UNITE union and the NUT teachers’ union supported a recent demonstration for the right to work and against deportations.

Asylum seekers and migrant workers have a wealth of global experience to offer the British trade union movement. In return, the British trade union movement can help counter the lies about these workers; it can support them in the fight for equal rights to workers born in this country; it can demonstrate that “an injury to one” really is “an injury to all”.

The South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG) has called an organising meeting on Monday 13th October 7pm at Scotia Works in Sheffield . We hope that this meeting can plan how trade unions can actively take up issues like asylum seekers’ right to work; opposition to deportations; how to make unions respond to the needs of migrant workers and other related issues that people want to raise. We want to plan action for later this year: possibly a demonstration, possibly something more imaginative!

We invite all trade unionists, asylum seekers, refugees, migrant workers and supporters in South Yorkshire to come with your ideas and enthusiasm to this open meeting. Spread the word….

PS The next regular SYMAAG meeting is Monday 10th November, 6.30pm at Scotia Works