Selection of Workers' Contributions to the Conference Debates

Mr. TROTMAN, Workers' delegate, Barbados; Worker Vice-Chairperson of the Committee on Safety and Health in Agriculture of the 88th session of the International Labour Conference (2000), member of the Governing Body of the ILO:

I have the honour to address this Conference on behalf of the Worker members of the Committee on Safety and Health in Agriculture. We are very pleased that we have been able to work on an instrument which affects some 50 per cent, or more, of the working population and which touches every country in our ILO family.

Very frankly, I do not believe that anyone wants to hear long speeches any more. I will, therefore, limit myself to endorsing the sentiments of the Reporter and to saying that they accurately reflect what has transpired. I will also make a few comments intended to set the record straight.

I regret that I cannot be even more brief than that, but Mr. Makeka, as usual, has prompted some comments, which justice would demand I make at this time. I do not wish to speak about the matter of determination by consensus, as opposed to by majority, because this is a matter which is part of the ongoing discussions at the level of the Governing Body. This issue will be addressed at a later time.

I disagree, however, and I believe that our entire group disagrees, with the suggestion that the content of the draft report — and in our first reading of the Convention — makes too many demands on employers. We believe that the demands are just and reasonable. They are basic and fundamental demands and, therefore, governments, and indeed employers, should have no difficulties addressing these matters. If, from time to time, we have addressed some sector-specific areas, that is not very different from what we were able to do with those Conventions which we used as reference points. I hope that it would not be considered to be opening up an avenue of unclear demands, if we ask for simple things, like toilet facilities, for our workers in the agricultural industry. By the way, we had great trouble in getting such facilities for the members.

In short, our group does not share the view of those who would seek to deny or to prevent the creation of new standards. We accept that we must guard against the impractical, and that we must reach conclusions based on the circumstances of a modern day global society. However, at this point, our position differs from those of many others. Others would have us surrender our markets to the few who emerge as the biggest and the fastest, and sometimes the least fastidious. They would have us surrender our land, especially today, which has the best scenery and soundest environmental capacity. Then, they would seek to suppress the just expectations of our people and argue that human expectations within their globalized jungle must be brought into a paradigm which will forever maintain class, privilege and poverty.

In the recent debate which we have had on safety and health in agriculture, we have sought to challenge that paradigm and to ensure that agricultural workers enjoy conditions of work, and a working environment which are no less human and respectable than those which other workers obtain as a matter of course.

We are mature and we are realistic. We understand that the nature of the work will create some differences in detail. However, we insist that the principle of similarity must be observed. We have had some problems both from the employers and from some governments with regard to the treatment of various basic and fundamental amenities and facilities, which relate to the upholding of human dignity. We wish to serve notice that those matters have to be revisited. There is no need to embarrass anyone present.

Also, we have to revisit the matter of how workers and employers can effectively work together to monitor and maintain sounder safety and health facilities, in areas where the numbers of workers at an establishment may be very small, and the resources may not permit joint safety and health committees. We will, therefore, revisit the question of roving inspectors. We have indicated that the special conditions of the piece-rate workers need to undergo further, more detailed discussion, since we consider this kind of work to be a particularly hazardous sphere of endeavour for agricultural, as indeed for other workers. We have to examine how to protect workers from harmful chemicals and pesticides to a greater extent than we may have done in the previous reading.

We acknowledge that the Employers, and indeed some Governments, have reasonable areas for some concern. We have joined the Employers in some instances to ask the Office to review some aspects of the work that we carried out during the first reading. We think that whatever the views may be regarding the debate of future Conventions, Employers and Governments ought to be able, now and in the year 2001, to find that we can easily agree upon this Convention and the Recommendation — as we did in the matter of child labour.

We join with those who have given thanks to the Office for the work which it undertook in preparation for this Conference. There is no need for us to go into details, since we have already done that at the Committee level. It is merely left for us to again publicly thank all of those from the Employers' and Government groups and those on our side, who have supported this effort. We look forward to the support, not only from these people, but from the entire family within this tripartite body, thereby achieving a level of human dignity for agricultural workers which they deserved and indeed expect.