TUC AND MOBILE PHONES FOR IRAQI TRADE UNIONS

Early day motion 2248, tabled 24 May 2006 by David Anderson (Labour). Signed by 47 members.

That this House notes that unions representing workers in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan face incredible challenges in defending working people and rebuilding democracy and that one of their requests for solidarity to be shown by British trade unionists is in the provision of mobile phones, which are crucial for any union organiser but especially in Iraq, where travel can be dangerous and landlines are not sufficiently reliable or widespread; further notes that mobile phone handsets are expensive to buy in Iraq and that buying new ones could eat up scarce union resources, but that the Iraqi trade union movement has identified a way of easily converting old European mobile phones for use in Iraq; and congratulates the TUC on launching an appeal for unions, their members and concerned members of the public to pass on via the TUC their used mobile phones and chargers to the Iraqi trade union movement as an act of solidarity.

Signatures by party: Labour 34, Liberal Democrat 7, Conservative 2, Plaid Cymru 2, Social Democratic and Labour Party 2.