Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this report.

Mexican independent union leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to brief, educate and express urgency to congressional leaders on the labor struggles and issues they’re currently facing in Mexico. Members of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) have remained in Mexico City’s main square (Zocalo) for the past six months, demanding justice over the administration’s war on unions. The government fired the SME’s 44,000 members in October 2009 and over the past two years, the fight over the privatization of electricity and the repression of one of Mexico’s oldest and most democratic unions has escalated. The briefing shed light on this ongoing struggle and the need for U.S. solidarity.

Today, all of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselves—family members, union brothers and sisters—or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding.

We’ve brought you several stories on high seas piracy, especially in the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and described how the Seafarers (SIU) and global maritime unions are responding, including the “Save Our Seafarers” (SOS), anti-piracy campaign to push governments to do more to protect sailors and ships.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council today praised the role workers and independent trade unions are playing in the popular mobilizations against corrupt, oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

More than 2,000 workers in Bahrain have been dismissed from their jobs since late March, apparently for  participating in or supporting pro-democracy demonstrations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

This is a cross post from International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) online.

In this interview, Anthony Jones, the resident representative of the ITUC and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) in Haiti, highlights the urgency of placing decent work at the heart of Haiti’s reconstruction program after the devastating earthquakes in January 2010. He also insists on the importance of training to support the Haitian trade union movement.

Across the world, working men and women celebrated the historic vote June 16 by the UN’s International Labor Organization creating a new global rule to protect domestic workers. Now the work begins to make sure countries implement the rule, known as a convention, and make protections for domestic workers a reality.

Today’s the deadline to show your solidarity with working mothers who cut and process the flowers we send on Mother’s Day.

For the first time in history, the world’s two biggest sports events—the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics—are being held in the same country, within two years of each other. This month, hundreds of workers and activists met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, site of the events, to launch a campaign to ensure that all the workers involved in the construction of facilities and manufacturing of event products work under decent conditions.

The union movement around the world and in the United States is calling on the government of Bahrain to lift its state of emergency and halt its the all-out attack against union members.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reports that thousands of workers have been dismissed for taking part in trade union activities in support of the peaceful calls for greater democracy and reform. More than 750 union members and half of the leaders of the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions (GFBTU) also have been dismissed from their jobs.