In the last three weeks, two high-level delegations of trade union leaders from around the world were blocked by Israeli authorities from entering the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank). The general secretaries of two global union federations -- Ambet Yuson from Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI) and David Edwards from the Education International (EI) -- were there, leading the delegations. BWI and EI's affiliated unions have a total of 45,000,000 members and these include affiliates in both Israel and Palestine. This week we interviewed Ambet and David together and heard their stories -- why they were going to Palestine, who invited them, what they were going to do there, and how they faced hours of interrogation and false accusations before being sent back into Jordan. The interview ended on a determined note from both leaders to continue to fight for the rights of all workers and to show our solidarity wherever and whenever it's needed.

Learn more about EI's experience at the Israeli/Jordanian border here. And read about BWI's experience a week later here. LabourStart's full coverage of Palestinian labour news can be found here.

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Tomorrow (23 January) will see trade unionists and other citizens of Minneapolis shutting the city down in protest at the actions of Donald Trump's ICE thugs. People won't go to work, they won't shop, their kids won't go to school. Chelsie will be in the thick of it and in this short interview we talked about what's happening in Minneapolis, the role of the unions and her thoughts on how people elsewhere in the world might show their solidarity. It's an inspiring story and deserves a large listenership -- please share this widely!

Check out the website of the Minneapolis labor unions here.

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In this short interview, we talked with Pamela, who is the IFJ's head of communications, about the IFJ's recent report on the number of journalists killed around the world in 2025 (128 that we know about).

We discussed why this number keeps going up, the role of ongoing wars, the problem of impunity, what the IFJ and its affiliated unions are doing and what ordinary people around the world can do.

Here are some useful links:

• IFJ safety fund
• IFJ UN Convention Q and A
• IFJ web site

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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!

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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