Human.Rights@Work

Human.Rights@Work
"Trade union rights are human rights".
A monthly newsletter produced by the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV)

Respect for fundamental workers' rights, trade union involvement in poverty alleviation efforts in developing countries and extended social protection will figure prominently among the priorities of the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV) during this biennium 2002-2003. ACTRAV activities and programmes will be fine-tuned at a global meeting for ACTRAV staff to be held on 8-12 April at the ILO's international training centre in Turin.

Reflecting the concerns of the ILO in general and those of the Workers' Group in particular, persistent violations of workers' rights worldwide will figure prominently on the agenda of the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV). ACTRAV will be launching two major programmes to support local trade unions in Belarus and Colombia in their efforts to promote respect for freedom of association and, in the case of Colombia, to protect the lives of trade unionists. According to ILO and trade union reports, more than 160 trade unionists were killed in Colombia in 2001. In the first weeks of January this year, three union leaders were assassinated, one has been reported missing, and one was kidnapped. In Belarus, the government announced new measures, including a freeze of the check off system for union dues, which are threatening the very survival of independent trade unionism.

While the rights situation will globally remain at the centre of ACTRAV activities, including in countries where positive signals will need to be confirmed, namely in parts of the Arab world, ACTRAV also foresees increased openings for trade union influence in programmes aimed at poverty alleviation and at integrating social aspects into the global economy.

The potential participation of trade unions in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers initiated by the international financial institutions (the World Bank and the IMF now ask the national public authorities and trade unions to assess the level of poverty of a country, define the poverty reduction targets and set up a specifically-funded policy programme centring on those key targets for the PRSPs), the introspection commenced at the World Trade Organization (Mike Moore, the WTO Director-General, has recently consulted a number of ‘external' personalities with a view to seeking ‘creative' responses to problems faced by the WTO. Among those personalities is Leroy Trotman (Barbados), worker member of the ILO Governing Body), and the development of the UN-sponsored Global Compact and International framework agreements between global unions and multinationals, all represent potential opportunities for social dialogue and input by trade unions in the future shaping of globalization, as well as new areas for work by the ILO.

Similarly, the new World Commission on the social dimension of globalization, set up by the ILO, will also call for special attention and involvement by the Workers' Group. ACTRAV works in this field will be part of the follow-up to the International Symposium on "Strengthening Workers' Participation in the United Nations System and Impact on the Bretton Woods Institutions" which was held in Geneva in September last year.

In addition, ACTRAV-sponsored educational programmes will focus on the need to extend social protection, namely in trade union efforts to reach out to unprotected workers in the informal economy and to vulnerable groups such as women, migrants and youth. A project on "poverty alleviation for unprotected informal economy workers through trade union- cooperative joint action" is being implemented by ACTRAV together with the ILO cooperative branch (COOP).

The ACTRAV Symposium scheduled during this biennium will be held in 2003 and will be devoted to the situation of and prospects for workers in agriculture (there are an estimated 450 million waged agricultural workers worldwide, and their numbers are growing in all regions of the world. They account for 40% of the global agricultural workforce of more than 1.1 billion. 20 to 30% of the waged workers are women, and child workers also form part of the labour force). Among other things, the Symposium will take stock of the results of the campaign for ratification of the Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention (No.184) adopted at last year's International Labour Conference.

Acting as an interface between the ILO and trade union organizations, ACTRAV is contributing to the strengthening of trade union organizations. Results achieved during the last biennium include contribution to an increasing number of collective agreements signed by trade unions, ratification of ILO Conventions and improvements of services offered to members by union organizations. In a number of countries trade unions were instrumental in promoting positive changes in labour legislation on the basis of core labour standards.

Davos, New York and Porto Alegre
Efforts to promote core labour standards and the ILO's Decent Work agenda will be made by ILO Director-General Juan Somavia as well as by senior trade union leaders who will attend both the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum, which are both taking place from January 31 to February 4, in New York and Porto Alegre (Brazil) respectively.

The World Economic Forum which gathers annually top leaders from business, government, civil society, academia and the media has met since 1971 in the Swiss resort of Davos. It will meet in New York exceptionally this year "in a move that signals its members' determination to tackle head-on the extraordinary challenges faced by the world after the attacks of 11 September". The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre was launched last year by groups, including trade unions, who are critical of the ill-effects of unbridled globalization. "Another World is Possible" will be one of the Forum's main themes.

At this year's New York meeting, "Reducing Poverty and Improving Equity" will be one of six core themes related to the overall Annual Meeting theme "Leadership in Fragile Times: A Vision for a Shared Future". In Porto Alegre, a World Forum on "Labour and trade unionism" will take place and will be followed by a march organized by the Brazilian trade union, CUT.

In a joint statement published by the ICFTU, ITSs, TUAC, the WCL, and the ETUC, the trade union movement said it " is carrying a united message to Porto Alegre and to New York". "Trade unions are part of civil society just as they are part of industry. In order to be relevant to our members, we must be willing to engage in dialogue with employers for whom workers toil, just as we are ready to negotiate with them, while, at the same time, working together with others in the community. Our role is to advance and defend the interests of workers by building alliances with those who share our views, and through debate and argument with those who do not. That is the reason for our simultaneous presence in both of these forums", the statement stressed.

Social Davos in Lyon?
"The dynamics of change and the protection of workers" was the theme of the second France/ILO Symposium held in Lyon on January 17-18. It focussed on the trajectories followed by individuals during their working lives, on changes in direction and breaks in those trajectories, and on the policies which can cope with the various phases of workers' life.

Addressing the meeting – which gathered labour experts, union leaders and employers' representatives from various countries –, France's Labour Minister Elizabeth Guigou called for such symposiums to be institutionalized as "social Davos" to counterbalance the annual World Economic Forum. "In Davos, politics and economics prevail in the debate. In Porto Alegre, you will find those opposed to globalization and the Davos and Porto Alegre groups do not talks to each other. There is a need for a space for dialogue", she said. "Social and economic aspects cannot be separated", insisted ILO Director-General Juan Somavia in Lyon.

The idea of holding a series of symposia on the subject of "the future of work" emerged from a meeting between the French Minister of Employment and Solidarity and the Director-General of the ILO, and was subsequently incorporated into the framework for collaboration between France and the ILO. The aim is not only to provoke a high-quality international dialogue on changes in work and employment and their impact on social protection and worker security in the industrialized countries, but also to stimulate exchanges between the academic and political communities and the social partners. The ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities was represented in Lyon by its Director, Manuel Simón.

Trade Unions at the World Summit for Sustainable Development
Almost ten years have passed since the Rio Conference on Environment took place. At this Conference in 1992, the Agenda 21 was outlined and trade unions have since increasingly integrated sustainable development into their priorities. At the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in September 2002 (Rio + 10), the trade unions are determined to make their voices heard on many of the environmental questions, as sustainable development often starts at the workplace. A large trade union delegation is in New York to take part in the final preparations for the WSSD, which started on January 31 and will continue until February 8.

Lucien Royer, representing the ICFTU at this "prepcom" explained that the meeting is "part
of the process to vigorously promote and integrate a social dimension into the proceedings of the WSSD. The ICFTU is striving for an open and inclusive conference and is committed to the eradication of poverty and social exclusion through employment and the protection of basic human and labour rights."

The inclusion of youth in the process of sustainable development is one of the priorities of the ICFTU, and as such is a focal point for the WSSD.

• Integration of the Social Dimension into all aspects of sustainable development.
• A focus on workers and workplace-based strategies for sustainable development.
• Attention to employment and social transition programmes.
• A recognition of the close link between public and workplace concerns.

April 28: Workers' Memorial
Preparatory work has started at the ILO for this year's International Commemoration for People Dead and Injured at work to be held on April 28. This day has been observed for a number of years by the trade union movement in an effort to promote awareness for issues related to health and safety at work. Last year, at the initiative of its Bureau for Workers' Activities, the ILO organized for the first time a tripartite event at its Geneva headquarters. Speaking at that gathering, ILO

Director-General Juan Somavia said he would make April 28 a special ILO Day, adding that he will also support the trade union demand to make this day an International Day decreed by the United Nations. According to figures compiled by the ILO, it is estimated that more than 1.3 million people die at work in a year, and that 160 million people are suffering from work-related diseases.

"Remember that most of the people killed in the terrorist attack on September 11 at the World Trade Centre were workers", says Jukka Takala, head of the ILO Safework department, "and remember that we have the equivalent of a World Trade Centre tragedy everyday, with 3,000 people losing their lives on the job worldwide!" he adds. Details on the health and safety situation worldwide will be published in the next issue of Labour Education which will be made available ahead of April 28.

ILO and the IFIs: a glimmer of hope
There has been a number of positive developments in the international financial institutions in recent years. In particular the new emphasis on poverty reduction, empowerment and country ownership of economic reforms within the Bretton Woods institutions has been seen as a significant step forward. For the last two years the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been using what they call the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) process to pursue these desirable objectives. The PRSP represents a change on two fronts. First, the overall objective of economic reforms has switched from an excessive concentration on economic stabilisation to a more balanced concern for economic, social and equity issues. Second in theory the PRSP creates the potential for representatives of civil society, including trade unions and other groups, to be involved in the identification of economic and social problems and the design of policies to resolve such problems. This approach has replaced the old Washington driven, and narrowly conceived, structural adjustment programmes.

Unfortunately the tentative evidence available concerning the implementation of this PRSP process indicates that this potential for participation and country ownership of reform programmes is not being fully utilized. In an attempt to promote more tripartite involvement the ILO reached agreement with the World Bank to cooperate in the PRSP process in a number of countries. One of the countries selected is Nepal where the ILO has been working intensively with the National Planning Commission, Finance Ministry, employers and trade unions to ensure the PRSP reflects the ILO Decent Work agenda. One of the objectives has been to move beyond the standard criticisms of development policies advocated by the international financial institutions towards an alternative strategy, or at least some key parts of an alternative strategy. In the case of Nepal the ILO has prepared an integrated strategy covering the following policy fields: macroeconomics, employment, social protection, social dialogue and rights at work.

The ILO recently presented policy policy recommendations in these various fields to a meeting of senior policy makers in Kathmandu. The participants included representatives of the National Planning Commission, Finance Ministry, Labour Ministry, the national employer association, the three main national union centres, representatives from the donor community and national academics. The feedback was positive. The only aspects that proved contraversial were ILO recommendations concerning the reintroduction of producer subsidies in the agriculture sector and suggestions to slightly relax fiscal policy. It will be interesting to see over the coming months the impact of the ILO on the final PRSP in Nepal and the extent to which the IFIs allow the ILO to really influence policy. At present there are at least some hopeful signs.

Labour and the New Partnership for Africa's Development
Efforts by trade unions to devise a common approach to the New Partnership for Africa's Development and to the prospect of a new regional arrangement that will replace the Organization for African Unity (OAU), will be at the centre of a three-day meeting in Dakar (Senegal) on February 18-20. The meeting, which is sponsored by the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV), will be attended by 25 African trade union leaders and representatives from the Organization of African Trade Union Unity and from the African regional organization of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

The conclusions of the meeting will be presented to the Heads of State meeting due to take place in Dakar in April 2002. Trade unions are expected to seize the opportunity to press for recognition as legitimate stakeholders and partners in development in the region by governments and the new regional economic-political body.

The new partnership for Africa, is principally a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and at the same time to participate actively in the global economy. The new partnership is coming on the heals of yet another bold initiative by the African leaders to create a union of African states to replace the present OAU.

Joint initiative by workers and employers in Asia
A two-day workshop on the promotion of voluntary mediation took place in Bangkok on January 24 and 25. It was a first-ever joint initiative in Asia by the ILO Bureau for Employers' Activities (ACTEMP) and the Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV). Its purpose was to give senior officials in employers' and workers' organizations a better understanding of "facilitative mediation" and to help build better relations between social partners. Participants represented workers and employers organizations from Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand and Vietnam. "In the subregion there are many examples of tensions building up as a result of labour disputes and grievances not being addressed as speedily as warranted by the situation", says a background note to the meeting. "Voluntary mediation focuses on win-win solutions to problems and is therefore the ideal way of developing better relations", it adds.
As a follow-up to the workshop participants will be expected to run programmes in their respective countries and devise national plans to promote voluntary mediation locally.

ILO waves "red card" at child labour
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is teaming up with the football world for a global campaign aimed at showing the red card to child labour. The ILO "Red Card" initiative was launched to coincide with the kick off of the 2002 African Nations Cup football tournament which opened in Mali on January 19. The final will take place on February 10 in Bamako, Mali's capital.

"The new campaign against the use of child labour is symbolized by the red card handed out by referees for serious violations of rules on the soccer field,"the ILO said in a statement. While Africa is home to 80 million of the world's 250 million child labourers, some 30 African nations are among the 115 countries to have ratified the ILO's most recent labour standard. The first two states to have ratified the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No.182), adopted in 1999, were the Seychelles and Malawi.

The campaign was formally launched at a signing ceremony on January 18 involving President Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali and co-sponsors from the African Football Confederation (CAF) and the organizing committee of the African Nations Cup. Guillaume Attigbe, worker deputy member of the ILO Governing Body, represented Bill Brett, Chairperson of the ILO Workers' Group at the launch.

"Now working hand in hand with the world's most popular sport, we hope to galvanize the global campaign against child labour with this potent symbol – the red card that means you're out of the game," ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said in the communiqué.
After Africa, the campaign will spread to Latin America, Asia and Europe. The World Cup will take place in Japan and the Republic of Korea in June this year.

New areas for ACTRAV Child Labour Project
After dealing with national trade union centres in various countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the ACTRAV Child Labour Project is now planning to reach out to new geographical areas through cooperation with ICFTU's Asia and Pacific Regional Office (APRO).

As a first, APRO will make use of ACTRAV material at a workshop in Singapore at the end of March 2002. The organization is expected to become one of the main entry-point for the Child Labour Project in that region.

The ACTRAV Project's seven booklet folder helps explain how trade unions can fight child labour through their own policy-making, action plans and different kinds of campaigning. Booklet one is a guide to the concept, the next one is developing union policies and action plans. These two are followed by detailed information on how to do fact finding, campaigning, collective bargaining, and use the ILO standards and its tripartite structure to combat child labour.

The ACTRAV project has also developed a guide to the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), which can be used as a practical briefing to campaign for the Convention's ratification and implementation.
The aims of the APRO workshop in Singapore are:
• To identify the problems and challenges on the child labour issues in respective countries.
• To share information and experiences of trade unions in their activities to fight child labour.
• To form an ICFTU-APRO child labour project networking team which members will be from seven project countries: Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Mongolia.

The ACTRAV Child Labour Project is funded by the Norwegian Government through the Foreign Ministry, and its main aim is to strengthen trade union capacities by developing their own policy, action plans, different forms of campaign materials and other forms of political actions and campaigning in the global struggle against child labour. (For details contact Tor Monsen, monsen@ilo.org)

Social dialogue to the civil aviation's rescue
From the workplace to the international level, social dialogue and cooperation between social partners and governments will be central to address the crisis affecting the civil aviation industry. This was the unanimous view expressed by participants at an ILO tripartite meeting on civil aviation which took place in Geneva on January 21-25. Delegates called for comprehensive worldwide standards to improve airline security, protect employees and employers and restore consumer confidence in the industry. The cyclical downturn which was already felt before September 11 and the terrorist attacks have resulted in the loss of approximately 400,000 jobs worldwide affecting all segments of the air transportation industry.

Among the priorities expressed by the Workers' Group at the meeting were measures to help the industry back to stability and retain the skill of its workforce. Workers' Group representatives acknowledged that the industry had to face structural change, but insist that those changes should be managed and that solutions should be global. The tripartite meeting called for a series of measures to be taken to help the industry overcome the crisis. While it insists on respect for freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, it called on governments to provide support (including funding) for security and insurance costs to avoid labour conditions and jobs cuts from being the main focus for adjustments. A number of key demands by the workers' group dealt with health and safety issues for civil aviation employees, many of them being integrated in the final document approved by the tripartite meeting. The chair of the Workers' Group was George Ryde from New Zealand and the secretary was Shane Enright from the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).

• Air Afrique: Affiliates of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and representatives of fraternal organizations who were taking part in the tripartite meeting have called upon the management of Air Afrique to return to the bargaining table and resume negotiations for a social plan. A Conference of Heads of State of 11 African National in ownership of the airline decided to close it down on January 10, 2002, endangering at least 4,000 jobs. The trade unions also called on the owning nations to lift military rule in the company whose staff and material were requisitioned. The unions noted that tension between management, the military and workers' representatives and harassment had dramatically increased.

The challenge of youth employment
Youth unemployment in Asia and the Pacific will be the key topic of a three-day tripartite regional meeting to be held in Bangkok on February 27-March 1st. The meeting – jointly sponsored by the ILO and the Government of Japan – is a concrete follow-up to the recommendations made recently by the High-Level Panel on Youth Employment Network composed of the United Nations, the ILO and the World Bank.

According to ILO estimates, 66 million young people are searching for work but cannot find any with about 80 per cent of them in developing countries and transition economies. Youth are nearly twice as likely as adults to be unemployed. In many countries the ratio is higher. Young people are often the last hired and the first fired. They are less likely to be protected by legislation. Disproportionately large numbers of young workers are exposed to long-term unemployment, engaged in precarious employment or limited to short-term work. As a result, many young women and men are economically inactive, as they either do not enter or drop out of the labour force.

• Latin America - trade union guide: The ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities, the ILO InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability (IFP/Skills) and the ILO Interamerican research and documentation centre (Cinterfor) have jointly produced a trade union guide on youth and employment. This effort is one of the initiatives linked to the establishment of the youth employment network. The guide, which takes the form of six booklets, helps identify the scope of youth unemployment as well as strategies to address the problems. This trade union guide constitutes a practical and unique tool for trade union training programmes as well as a source of information.

Promoting freedom of association in Belarus
A new trade union project – sponsored by ACTRAV and implemented by Belarusian trade unions – will be launched on February 5. The project is financed by the German government and aims at promoting freedom of association and assisting trade unions in improving their capacity to act as an independent force towards democracy and socially responsible economic transition. Criticized several times by the ILO supervisory bodies for blatantly violating fundamental workers' rights, the government of Belarus is showing no sign of softening its stance on trade unions. Calls for dialogue by trade unions have been ignored so far and new measures have been taken in an attempt to undermine their financial basis. The ACTRAV-sponsored project is designed to strengthen the research, information and training capacity of the Belarusian independent trade union movement. ACTRAV will closely cooperate with the International Trade Union Movement, that has been calling for a solidarity campaign to support the trade unions in their struggle to stay independent despite the tremendous pressure they experience from the government and President Lukashenko's administration.

In Brief...
• Mission to Venezuela: A direct contact mission will visit Venezuela in February. The mission will look into labour legislation following a number of criticisms from the ILO Committee of experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has also expressed criticism at legislative provisions concerning the elections of trade union leaders.

• Tripartite forum on multinationals: A forum on the tripartite Declaration of principles concerning multinational enterprises and social policy will be held in Geneva on March 25-26. The purpose of the meeting is to stimulate a process of ongoing dialogue and to exchange practical experience among government representatives and workers' and employers' organizations, particularly from multinational enterprises, on how to apply and promote the principles of the tripartite Declaration in today's context.

• OECD Guidelines to Multinational Enterprises - a Users' guide: The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (TUAC- OECD) has just produced a Users' Guide to the OECD guidelines on MNCs. The guide, which has been produced with support from ACTRAV/ILO, is intended to help trade unions worldwide in using the newly revised OECD guidelines, in order to secure and protect workers' rights.

• Social dialogue in Costa Rica: An action plan to strengthen social dialogue in Costa Rica is the subject of a new publication produced in the framework of the project known as "Prodiac" which seeks to promote tripartism and social dialogue in Central America as part of strengthening democracy in the region. The publication which is a joint effort by the project's team, the ILO Bureau for Workers Activities and the multidisciplinary team in Central America, presents analysis of social dialogue in Chile, Colombia and Panama as well as Costa Rica.

• Publications for Latin America: A new series of publications in Spanish have been produced by ACTRAV. They deal with Freedom of Association, the 50th Anniversary of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, Collective Bargaining and ILO Convention 184 on safety and health in agriculture. For details on these publications please contact us (actrav@ilo.org).

• Maternity protection campaign: The Public Services International (PSI), is distributing a maternity protection kit in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian) in a campaign aimed at promoting ratification of the new ILO Maternity Protection Convention (183) adopted in 2000. The kit, which was produced with support from ACTRAV, as well as a PSI brochure on breastfeeding are available on the PSI website: www.world-psi.org

• Guide to poverty reduction strategy: In September 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund announced that all their loan programmes targeting the 80 poorest countries in the world would thereafter be based on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), which provide for involvement of civil society (including trade unions) in the formulation of development strategies. Aware that some unions from developing countries will not have the resources to wage an intensive campaign on PRSPs, the ICFTU has produced a guide providing information on the consultation process to trade unionists in the countries concerned with a view to their participation in it. This publication, called "Guide to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers" is available in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian from the ICFTU in Brussels. (Press@icftu.org).

• ILO and Nigeria: ILO Director-General Juan Somavia called for the release of union leaders in Nigeria who had been detained in the framework of a general strike in the middle of January. The ILO Bureau for Workers' activities followed closely developments in the country.

• ACTRAV in Indonesia: Helping workers and their organizations in Indonesia's changing and difficult environment has been a key role of a project which the ILO Bureau for Workers Activities began in 1999. The project is supported by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development. It aims to assist the development of independent unions and to promote effective structures for handling industrial relations. The partners in the project are primarily sectoral level unions. The main focus of the project is a major training programme for workplace level union representatives. The project has established a basic website on which education resources are stored including in Bahasa, the main local langage. This may be of interest to unions involved in cooperation activities in Indonesia. The English link on the page contains an English summary of the contents of the materials. The site address is www.un.or.id/ilo/bahasa/actrav.htm

• Triumph in Burma: Swiss lingerie group Triumph International is to pull out of Myanmar (Burma) because of a "public debate" over working conditions that have been condemned by the International Labour Organization, a company statement said on January 28. The ILO in November 2000 called on its members -- governments, unions and employers -- to reconsider their ties to Myanmar because of the persistence of forced labour.

• EU Social Clause: The European Union has added a special incentive "social clause" to its Generalized System of Preference. This would add significant increases in the preferential margins offered to deveveloping countries exporting to the EU, providing they are able to provide proof of compliance with ILO Conventions on Freedom of Association (No. 87), on the right to collective bargaining (No. 98) on on the prohibition of child labour (No.138). In practice, this means that information provided by the ILO supervisory bodies will be used to determine whether or not a country is eligible for the additional benefits offered under the "social clause" incentive.

• ILO/EU Working Party: Plans for the setting up of a joint ILO/EU Working Party on Social Dialogue will be discussed by representatives from the two sides at a meeting in Brussels on February 14.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)