The Olympic medals handed out at this summer's Olympic Games in London may be shiny and pretty on the outside but the inside story of the union-busting conglomerate that will manufacture the medals is ugly.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard says Colombia “continues its shameful distinction as the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist.” He says that withholding implementation of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is the “surest form of leverage the U.S. has to safeguard the lives and well-being of unionists in Colombia.”

Gerard’s comments follow Sunday’s announcement by the White House that it will implement the FTA beginning May 15.

The announcement by the White House this afternoon that Colombia has successfully implemented key elements  of the Labor Action Plan and that the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will enter into force on May 15 "is deeply disappointing and troubling," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes more electronic components than any other, is well-known for its large factories in China and their many severe labor rights violations. In an attempt to expand the market reach of brands it produces for, Foxconn has opened some factories in Brazil in the past few years, including one producing Apple products.  

But thanks to Brazil’s labor laws, industrial policy and its culture of unionization and collective bargaining, the Brazilian Foxconn workers may actually be able to afford one of the iPhones or iPads they assemble.

Auto parts workers at a maquiladora in Mexico who’ve been organizing to join an independent union got a big boost last week from cross-border solidarity. Nearly 8,000 workers in Ciudad Acuña (located in a Mexican border town south of San Antonio) labor for a company called PKC Group, which makes parts for Ford, Daimler Trucks, Volvo and other automakers. The workers’ organizing, and company efforts to silence them by hiring a company union and imposing a protection contract that prevents authentic organizing and representation, made news headlines and shook up company shareholders last week.

Trayvon Martin's shooting rightly provoked widespread indignation and outrage throughout America. Yet this weekend, our government could certify that Colombia has fulfilled its workers' rights obligations and allow the U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia to fully take effect.

That, says Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in a post at AlterNet, would be turning "our backs on the 30 trade unionists slain in Colombia last year and the six that Justice for Colombia reports have been murdered already this year."

The U.S. Department of Labor has added three products to the list of goods produced by forced labor, child labor or both. The list now includes 133 products from 71 countries, ranging from bamboo in Burma to zinc in Bolivia. Added to the list yesterday are bricks in Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Citing “repeated and well-documented violations of workers' rights” that the Honduran government has “utterly failed to address,” the AFL-CIO and the major Honduran trade unions are asking the U.S. government to act under the terms of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).

On April 4, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s tragic assassination, labor and civil rights group representatives will be in Berlin, Germany, at the Daimler shareholder meeting, calling on the automaker to back the repeal of Alabama’s recently enacted H.B. 56. The harsh anti-immigrant law legitimizes racial and ethnic profiling and has drawn criticism nationally and globally.

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center.

In Colombia’s coal mines, troubling health and safety risks combined with serious environmental and social justice issues create conditions reminiscent of mining in the early 20th century in the United States. The dangers mine workers—and local communities—face are real and frightening, say four mining safety and health experts from the Mine Workers (UMWA).