Two Union Members Begin Hunger Strike to Protest Ill-Treatment in Prison: Turkey

Trade unionists Başaran Aksu and Doğukan Akan have begun a hunger strike to protest the ill-treatment they are suffering in detention and to express their solidarity with the Doruk miners’ resistance. According to a union statement, Aksu was deprived of drinking water for 48 hours upon his arrival in prison and faced serious hygiene problems, while Akan has been subjected to restrictions. Held in a T-type prison in Süleymanlı (Akhisar), the two men denounce the lack of response to their appeals and assert that their situation is part of a broader crackdown on labor activism.

On August 27, 2025, Berkeley Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences lecturer Peyrin Kao launched an open-ended hunger strike to protest the use of technology in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The hunger strike, which lasted 38 days, demanded that the university acknowledge its role in Israel’s genocide and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, pledge to sever material or financial relationships with the US military, and institutionalize ethical standards aligned with international human rights law.

While Kao suspended his hunger strike because of health concerns, his demands highlighted the University of California’s long-standing entanglement with the military industrial complex. In May 2024, the UC system disclosed that they had $32 billion invested in assets that Palestine solidarity protesters called for divestment from. Research across UC campuses has received $5.6 billion from 2005 to 2022 from the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Atomics, Boeing, and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. From 2017 to 2022, UC campuses received 1,428 total military-funded research grants.

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/gaza-big-tech-campus-berkeley-google-amazon-microsoft-israel/

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#BDS #USA #universities #hungerstrike #palestine #apartheid #genocide #gaza #israel

Robert Maudsley: A Half-Century Behind Bars, Now on Hunger Strike

Robert Maudsley, jailed for 49 years, is on a hunger strike in Feb 2025. Prison took his TV, PlayStation, and books. His brother is worried.

#RobertMaudsley, #PrisonStrike, #WakefieldPrison, #InmateRights, #HungerStrike

https://newsletter.tf/robert-maudsley-hunger-strike-feb-2025-tv-taken/

Robert Maudsley, 71, has spent nearly 50 years in prison. He started a hunger strike in February 2025 after prison guards took his TV and games.

#RobertMaudsley, #PrisonStrike, #WakefieldPrison, #InmateRights, #HungerStrike
https://newsletter.tf/robert-maudsley-hunger-strike-feb-2025-tv-taken/

Today in Labor History March 31, 1927: Cesar Chavez was born. Famous for his role in leading the United Farm Workers and, now, even more infamous for his sexual assaults on women and girls in the movement, it should be pointed out that there were numerous other abusive and rotten aspects to his leadership style that affected both women and men. For example, in 1967, he launched his first of several purges of the UFW, ostensibly to remove Communists. However, there was no evidence of communist infiltration of the union and it was most likely a move to solidify his autocratic rule.

In the 1970s, he blamed “illegal immigrants” and “wetbacks” for UFW failures and launched the "Illegals Campaign" to identify illegal migrants so that they could be deported. His cousin Manuel Chavez established a UFW patrol, or "wet line," along Arizona's border with Mexico to stop illegal migration into the US. Actions such as these led to conflicts with many progressive groups that had previous collaborated with the UFW, including the National Lawyers Guild and the Confederation of Mexican Workers.

In 1977, Chavez became infatuated with the religious cult, Synanon and used Synanon’s “game” to punish union members and enforce conformity and obedience to his authority by subjecting members to harsh, profanity-laced criticism from the rest of the community.

He also expressed support for the brutal Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and specifically his declaration of martial law, which alienated Filipino members of the union, as well as many of the religious organizations that had supported the UFW. Ironically, Chavez had originally travelled to the Philippines in order to win back support of Filipino farmworkers. And, contrary to the official mainstream narrative, it wasn’t even Chavez who had started the UFW, or the Delano Grape Strike. Rather the 1965 grape strike had been initiated by Larry Itliong and the Filipino-led AWOC. The nationwide protest lasted five years and ended with the first union contract for U.S. farm workers outside of Hawaii.

You can read more about the Filipino roots of the farm workers labor movement here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2026/03/25/larry-itliong-and-the-filipino-roots-of-the-united-farm-workers-movement/

#LaborHistory #workingclass #CesarChavez #FarmWorkers #ufw #chicano #mexicanamerican #union #strike #boycot #filipino #hungerstrike #communism