Conference on Organized labour
Responses to the Conference Paper
Ha-Joon Chang
Cambridge University, U.K.
5 October 1998
Unions and the Promotion of Human Rights.
To me, labour unions are the only countervailing force to the highly organized interests of the capitalist class (I don't know whether the ILO uses this terminology, but...) in a capitalist society. And for that reason, they will have to play a critical role in defending issues like human rights. And this is in the end why many East Asian governments have been unwilling to allow "political" activities by trade unions. The argument they (and I believe governments in other parts of the world) use is that unions are "economic" groupings and therefore should not be allowed to engage in politics, but I think this is something that we need to attack.
That is, we need to argue that work constitutes such a fundamental element in human life that we cannot talk about politics without discussing work-related issues. These should include not just things like minimum wages, work safety, and respect for human rights in workplaces (beating, sexual harassments, lack of rest period, restrictions on workers going to toilets, etc.), but also things outside the workplaces that affect our ability to perform as a worker (e.g., public transport, crime, pollution, racial and gender discrimination, etc.), which many people regard as "political" issues beyond the legitimate mandate of the trade unions. In other words, we need to drive home the point that trade union activities cannot, and should not, stop at the factory gate or entrance to a building, because so much of our existence is related to our existence as workers, rather than some abstract "citizens", or consumers, or taxpayers, as conservative political thinkers and politicians like to see us as.
I hope these are of some use to you.
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