On June 16, 2011, Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers was adopted by the International Labour Conference. Within a year of this historic event, Uruguay became the first country to ratify C189 on June 14, 2012, followed by the Philippines on September 5, and Mauritius on September 13.

The Fijian Government has expelled an ILO delegation that was in Fiji at its invitation to investigate complaints about labour rights abuses. The Fijian government, a military dictatorship, has a longstanding record of rights’ abuses and ruling by decree.

Workers and their 3 unions at the Spanish-based NH Hotels chain have called a national strike for September 21 to contest massive outsourcing and dismissals. NH Hotels chain has some 400 hotels in 26 countries.

Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, has called on the Cameroon Government to ratify ILO Convention 129 on labour inspection in agriculture. De Schutter, who was in Cameroon on an official visit at the invitation of the Government, says in his preliminary recommendations, “ the situation of workers on large plantations deserves special comment”.

This year, the International Day of Struggle Against Monoculture Tree Plantations (September 21) falls on the eve of the Eleventh Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (India, October 1-19). The World Rainforest Movement is circulating an open letter to national governments urging them to take a firm stance at the Conference against the devastating expansion of these plantations.

Trade union tenacity and fear of having to open the books for an economic expertise broke Nestlé's resistance to a wage increase at the Nescafé factory in Orbe.

As the next round of the highly secretive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations are set to take place in Leesburg, Virginia from 6-15 September, the Washington based lobby group Just Foreign Policy is raising funds for a reward to go to Wikileaks if they are able to leak the negotiating text. Wanted: Dead or Alive (and preferably dead) secret text which will remove the democratic rights of citizens to decide their own economic futures.

Spain's national union centers CC.OO and UGT along with civil society organizations are escalating the fight against the Popular Party's savage social policies with a national march on Madrid September 15. The mobilization is organized through the Social Summit formed in July which brings together over 150 organizations.

Women workers packing ice cream at Unilever's Inmarko factory in Omsk (Siberia) struck for 3 days in May demanding union recognition and a return to direct employment - and won.

Unions internationally are urging support for the Global Week of Action on Swaziland organized by the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, which has called for international solidarity. For four decades since indendendence, the Swazi monarch has ruled under emergency laws and 'counter-terrorism' legislation which ban political parties and severely restrict democratic and civic freedoms.