Something all Labour MPs could do this Christmas

North East MPs Dave Anderson and Sharon Hodgson have joined forces to support workers rights in Iraq with a well-supported Commons motion urging people to send their old mobile phones and chargers to the TUC which will send them to Iraqi unions.

The MPs said: "the new Iraqi trade union movement unites workers regardless of their religion and is seeking to help build democracy and peace in Iraq. Their growth in the last three years is one of the main hopeful developments in Iraq and they desperately need all the help they can get. Many people have unused phones and these can be put to good use. So please think of Iraqi trade union members over Christmas and send them your old phone with its charger. It won't take much to do it but can help make a big difference to people just like us who want the normal things in life – peace, jobs and democracy.

Please send used mobile phones (with chargers) to TUC Aid, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS."

Notes to editors:

1. TUC leaflet is at http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/iraqleaflet.pdf

2 Text of EDM 415: That this House is concerned that Iraqi Ministers,
through Decree 8750 of August 2005, have frozen the monies of unions,
including those affiliated to the Iraqi Workers' Federation, leaving
organisations which represent up to a million Iraqis and which are the
bedrock of a non-sectarian civil society unable to organise and play a
positive role both in the workplace and in wider society; fears that
some may create sectarian client unions; urges the British Government
to continue to make representations to the Iraqi government to lift
Decree 8750 and the continuing ban, first introduced in 1987 by Saddam
Hussein, on public sector trade union organisation; welcomes the
continuing efforts of Labour Friends of Iraq to encourage moral and
material solidarity with the new Iraqi labour movement; and backs the
Trades Union Congress (TUC) in its efforts to encourage British unions
and others to pledge monthly sums to fund Iraqi unions' basic running
costs such as printing the Workers' Unity newspaper and to encourage
people to send used mobile telephones and chargers to the TUC so that
they may be used by Iraqi union organisers.