News on Fremantle's attack on Labourstart

Following on from Thursdays post

Here is some more info from Barnet UNISON
As you will know. LabourStart have been promoting our campaign at the request of UNISON HQ.
The response has been incredible and has demonstrated the power of the internet to support trade union members across the world.

LabourStart have never been threatened........................not until now!
Fremantle ( yes Fremantle a 'Not for Profit' organisation) threatened them last week with legal action. They have a different spin as to how their cuts have affected our members and were unhappy to see the real story exposed. When the legal threats did not work, Fremantle went to LabourStarts ISP and complained.
The ISP gave LabourStart notice to take off the campaign by Friday 7 Sept at 12 or be closed down. LabourStart were unable to get an assurance from the ISP that they would close them down so yesterday reluctantly on Friday 7 Sept at 12 noon they took down the campaign..........................
However the campaign has not gone away.........within minutes it was alive and and now very angry...............
I am proud to introduce you to.......
http://www.wewillnotbesilenced.org:80/
This link is being circulated worldwide as I am typing.

I am sure those reading this BLOG will be adding it to their favourites and forwarding it on.
So, our campaign to restore the Single Status (Equal Pay) terms and conditions stolen from our low paid women care workers continues........................
We have another issue which ALL Trade Unions can not ignore and that is attempts of employers to silence dissent, something that is at the heart of a democracy.
Our Branch is already receiving messages of support and condemnation of the sacking of Andrew and the atttacks on LabourStart...details of these messages will be published over the next few days.
BELOW IS A MESSAGE FROM ERIC LEE FROM LabourStart
"The campaign we launched a little more than a week ago in support of low-paid workers in care homes in north London has generated more support than any other campaign we have ever done.Already, well over 8,100 messages have been sent to the employer. This is even bigger than our 2005 campaign in support of the Gate Gourmet workers, which was a much more widely publicized dispute in the mainstream media.As we mentioned in this week's mailing to our subscribers, the employer reacted swiftly and brutally -- first threatening us with a libel action in the English courts and then sacking a union rep.And then on Thursday, in an unprecedented move, the employer (Fremantle Trust) contacted our internet service provider and demanded that they shut down the campaign or else face a lawsuit themselves.We were contacted by the legal department of the internet service provider and told that we had until noon on Friday to close down the campaign or else the entire LabourStart site would be shut down.We worked very hard over those 24 hours to attempt to get our provider to back down, and had the full support of Unison (Britain's giant public sector union, whose members are at the center of the dispute) but were not successful in doing this before the noon deadline on Friday.As a result, at 11:59 yesterday we were compelled to shut down the campaigns.But -- we instantly revived the campaign in nine languages on a different server, in a different country, with a new name that reflects our feeling at this time.
The new site is called "We will not be silenced!" and is located, appropriately enough, at http://www.wewillnotbesilenced.orgIf you have not yet sent off your message of protest to Fremantle, please do so from the new page.Please also inform all your lists and every trade unionist you know to use the new site to send a loud and clear message to this employer.If Fremantle Trust were unhappy to receive 8,000 emails, how are they going to feel about getting thousands more in the next few days? Because that is exactly what is going to happen.We will not be intimidated, we will not be bullied, and we will not be silenced. The campaign continues.Enjoy your weekend.Eric "