Tag: labor

Azerbaijan Cracks Down on Independent Trade Union Leaders

Even with growing repression and efforts to rally people around national pride, it’s getting harder to ignore the impact of declining living standards in Azerbaijan. And now, for the first time in a while, there are signs that class tensions are starting to come to the surface.

Low wages and the rising cost of living are pushing even well-educated professionals into financial uncertainty. Many have turned to second jobs in the informal sector—driving for ride-hailing apps or delivering food—just to stay afloat. With growing frustration over the government’s lack of action and no real political alternatives in sight, more and more people are starting to look toward labor organizing as a way forward.

What makes this shift especially significant is Azerbaijan’s long history without independent trade unions. During the Soviet era, unions were controlled by the state, and not much changed after the country embraced capitalism. Genuine, combative labor organizing has barely existed for decades.

But as economic pressure mounts, that might finally be starting to change. Aside from a handful of labour rights groups kept afloat by foreign donor funding through NGOs, the topic of workers’ rights remains almost completely absent from public discourse in Azerbaijan. Any serious attempt to organize around these issues is met with swift and often harsh repression from the authorities.

In 2022, that tension boiled over when workers employed by international courier and ride-hailing companies launched a series of strikes which is the first actions of their kind in recent years. These protests sparked the creation of the Labor Desk Confederation of Trade Unions, led by labour activist Afiaddin Mammadov.

But the growing movement quickly caught the attention of the regime. The strikes organized by this coalition in 2022 and 2023 led to the arrests of Mammadov and three other activists involved in the organizing efforts: Mohyaddin Orujov, Aykhan Israfilov, and Elvin Mustafayev. With the conviction of Orujov on 25 February 2024, all four activists have now been officially sentenced.

We will never stop fighting for workers’ rights

LabourStart has been around for more than 26 years now, which is extraordinary.

When we went live in the spring of 1998, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok didn’t yet exist.

Most unions didn’t even have websites.

We were seen as pioneers, and we helped lead many unions forward into a new age of instant global communications.

And despite all that has changed, one thing remains the same: Without unions, workers are vulnerable to exploitation and violations of their rights.

The fight to ensure that every worker in the world has the right to join or form a union — that fight goes on every day.

And LabourStart is there to help.

That’s why we’re running seven live campaigns now, helping workers in Eswatini, Serbia, Czechia, India, Taiwan, Poland and Georgia.

Two weeks ago I visited the striking workers at Evolution Gaming in Tbilisi, Georgia. Our campaign is showing them that they are not alone — that they have the support of thousands of individual trade union members, like yourself. And our messages to the company are sending a clear message, saying that we demand and expect them to respect workers’ rights, and to negotiate with the union.

When workers and their unions reach out to LabourStart for help, we always say yes.

And we charge them nothing. It’s a free service. It’s why we exist.

Your donations, large and small, make all the difference. They allow us to continue working day in and day out on behalf of workers who sometimes feel isolated, weak and vulnerable. We show them that their voices are being heard, and by working with fellow union members around the world, that we can win.

In the last few weeks, we’ve begun experiencing an extremely difficult financial situation at LabourStart. We’re reaching out to our union partners for help, and we’re hopeful that we will get through this. We’ve kept our expenses to a minimum and we’ve even cut back. Because of this, we need your donations more than ever before.

If you can donate, please click here to do so.

Together, we’re going to get through this difficult period — and we’re going to continue to fight side by side with the workers in every country where help is needed.

Thank you – and solidarity forever!

Eric Lee

LabourStart