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Fiji union shutdown starts
Date: 28 May 2000
Fiji unions will probably shutdown the country next Wednesday after an Executive Committee of the Fiji TUC meetings on Tuesday.
Because Monday is a national public holiday in Fiji the whole country will be shutdown tomorrow.
Few people are now on the streets as they anxiously watch what is happening in the Parliamentary complex where the terrorists are still holding hostage the Prime Minister and other MPs.
The Secretary of the Fiji TUC, Felix Anthony, believes his telephone lines may now be tapped, his conversations with union supporters in Australia and New Zealand are now short and clipped.
However he said last night that the TUC Executive Committee has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday and though there had been no actual violence against unions or union offices there have been many threats issued.
The International Labour Organisation - which meets in Geneva this week - will raise the crisis in Fiji at meetings starting tomorrow.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has a representative in Geneva to raise the hostage crisis at the ILO.
Over the weekend an ACTU representative met with the British TUC to co-ordinate activity in support of the Fijian TUC and its membership.
The TUC in London called a meeting of Fijian community members on Saturday - to which more than 200 turned up - to discuss events in Fiji and what London unions can do to effectively isolate the Pacific Island.
The British TUC however will be looking to the leadership of the Australian and New Zealand trade unions because more than two-thirds of Fiji's trade is with Australia and New Zealand.
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