VISIT TO UK OF IRAQI TEACHERS' UNION

EDM number 903 in 2006-07, proposed by David Anderson on 19/02/2007.

That this House congratulates the Trades Union Congress and the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) on their decision to host a fact-finding visit by 10 representatives of the new Iraqi Teachers' Union, in co-operation with the General Federation of Iraqi Workers, during which they were based in Birmingham and London, observed the work of the NASUWT and received intensive training, visited workplaces and met members of other trade unions including Community, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the National Union of Teachers, as well as parliamentarians; notes the comments of Mahdi Ali Lefta, the head of the delegation, that `These people who attack education, attack schools and teachers have nothing in their heart but hate and violence and they want the destruction of Iraq...They have no sense of humanity'; further notes the inspiring comments of Ali Ahmed Sindal, aged 63, a school inspector, who spent four years on death row under Saddam Hussein, that `We are optimistic that all these things will be ended within one year, two years, three years...Then we are expecting a new life, a better life'; commends unions such as the NASUWT for providing vital training and support to the new and free trade union movement in Iraq so that it can stand on its own two feet and contribute to building civil society and democracy in Iraq; and hopes that more such visits can be arranged.

This motion has been signed by a total of 46 MPs, 2 of these signatures have been withdrawn.