Bahrain smashes Service Sector labor – staffing shortages cause F1 worries…

Union Leaders Arrested in Bahrain Crackdown
Jane Slaughter – May 26, 2011

As the Arab Spring movements for democracy swept the Middle East, the tiny oil kingdom of Bahrain saw repeated demonstrations in its own version of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In the kingdom’s Pearl Roundabout, union members were among those calling for constitutional reform. They’ve held two general strikes.

The government, with support from neighboring Saudi Arabia, cracked down violently, arresting and beating suspected protesters and firing more than 1,300 workers, including 12 of 15 officers of the oil union. Twenty-one political and human rights leaders are being tried in as a group in military court, charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government. The government wants to bring oil union leaders in front of the same court, where the death penalty is on the table.

Authorities are looking at photos from the marches and telling employers to fire people they can identify, targeting workers from the majority Shia Muslim population. AFL-CIO Solidarity Center staffer Shawna Bader-Blau and Greg Junemann, president of the Professional and Technical Engineers union (IFPTE), went to Bahrain May 10-12 to meet with members of the beleaguered General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions.

Labor Notes: What was the Bahrain labor movement like before the protests? Shawna Bader-Blau: It was the most activist and progressive labor movement in the Gulf, the unique gem of the labor movement. It’s horrifying to watch it attacked and threatened with being dismantled. Bahrain’s union federation has 25,000 members in 65 workplaces out of a workforce of 600,000. Of those, 400,000 or so are migrants, mostly from South Asia. The federation fought for migrants being allowed to join the unions and run for election.

They have unions in oil, telecom, aluminum, hotels, Gulf Air, ship repair. All of those have seen a majority or near majority of their leaders fired. The public sector doesn’t have organizing rights but they have “societies.” The entire leadership of the teachers’ society was arrested. One top leader of the nurses’ society appeared on TV in what appeared to be a forced confession.

There is a ferocious campaign in the state-run media, naming individual union leaders, showing pictures of people who demonstrated, with a circle around their faces.…more