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"Trade union rights are human rights"
A monthly newsletter produced by the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities
No. 1/03
February 6, 2003
Contents
 Porto Alegre and Davos: Two Audiences, One Message
International Women's Day
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
Wage Protection: More Urgent Than Ever
Emergency Services Under Pressure
180 Million Jobless Worldwide
Some 7 Million Tourism Jobs Lost
Thailand on the Way to Ratifying Conventions 87 and 98?
Pointers
Feature: Belgian Label Gives Social Bonus
Porto Alegre and Davos: Two Audiences, One Message
"Globalization has no future without a social dimension." That was the message from Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Office (ILO), to those taking part both in the World Economic Forum in Davos and in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. The two events were held on 23-28 January. While optimism reigned in Brazil following the election of Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula) as the country's president, on a platform of fighting poverty, a poll published in Davos gloomily showed that the popularity of major companies is at its lowest since the depression of the 1920s. But the two meetings had at least one thing in common - they were both haunted by the spectre of war, due to the Iraq crisis.
The ILO Director-General attended sessions in Porto Alegre before travelling on to Davos. "The ideological fault-line of globalization," he said, "is its inability to respond to the problem of unemployment, which now affects a billion people worldwide." While in Brazil, Somavia had discussions with the new Brazilian President and assured him that the ILO stands ready to place its know-how and experience at the service of the programme to fight poverty.
Calling for a more social globalization, Somavia was supported in Davos by Tanzania's President Benjamin William Mpaka and the Finnish President, Tarja Halonen. They co-chair the ILO's World Commission of the Social Dimension of Globalization. "It is already too clear that poor economies, and the poor within all economies, will pay the highest price" for globalization, President Mpaka emphasized during a Davos session on social values and globalization. "That is not right, and that does not have to be the case."
Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and Willy Thys, General Secretary of the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) took part in both Forums. "The international trade union movement has a common message to Porto Alegre and to Davos," a global union statement declared. "Vision, political will and the necessary capacities must be brought together at the global level to attain development and to guarantee decent work for the millions of workers who today live in precariousness and poverty without prospects of a better future." The union declaration was endorsed by the Global Unions alliance - which groups the ICFTU, the Global Union Federations (GUF) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD - as well as by the WCL and the European Trade Union Confederation.
During a seminar in Porto Alegre on "decent work" and globalization, the union internationals condemned the globalization of inequality and neo-liberalism. "Globalization needs governance," they insisted. The international financial institutions should be restructured, poor countries' debts should be written off, decent work and international labour standards should be promoted. The participants also called for binding social regulation of the multinationals. Michael Sebastian, deputy director of the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV), participated together with his ACTRAV colleagues including Eduardo Rodriguez (ACTRAV Lima), Gerardo Castillo (ACTRAV Santiago), Enrico Cairola (in charge of the ACTRAV Programme at the ILO Turin Centre) and Marc Bélanger (ACTRAV Programme Turin).
A major international trade union delegation met President Lula on his arrival in Davos. Concerning the threat of war, the union declaration calls upon "all governments to make every effort to achieve, within the United Nations framework, a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis, to avoid a devastating armed conflict." At the same time, the declaration continues, "Iraq must comply fully with all the relevant UN resolutions, particularly regarding arms of mass destruction." This was probably the last time that the ILO and the unions could carry the same message to two different audiences at once. The organizers of the World Social Forum have decided to hold their next global meeting in India, on dates that no longer coincide with those of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
International Women's Day
On International Women's Day this 8 March, the ILO has decided to pay homage to women in the media who report on international conflicts or publicize human rights violations, often risking their lives in the process. According to the International Federation of Journalists, at least 70 journalists and media workers were killed in 2002, and women were among them. One was Maria Teresa Guzman, a Bolivian journalist killed on 10 April 2002 by a bomb that had been placed under her car. She ran the women's pages of the newspaper El Diario. Five days before that, in the Philippines, Benjaline Hernandez, a 22-year-old journalist and human rights activist, was gunned down by soldiers while she was investigating the peace process in the province of Cotabao. On the evening of 8 March 2002, Natalia Skryl, a Russian journalist aged 29, was savagely attacked by unknown assailants. She died of her injuries the following day. The police ruled out theft as a motive. She had been looking into the struggle between several potential buyers of a metalworking firm in Rostov-on-the-Don. The IFJ says 2002 was a year of "targeting", in which investigative journalists on three different continents met with their deaths because they intended to report on terrorism, corruption or criminal activity. The ILO has invited a number of women journalists to come to Geneva and tell their stories on Friday 7 March. Similar activities will be held in various ILO offices.
- Unions For Women, Women For Unions is the theme of the 8th ICFTU Women's World Conference, to be held in Melbourne (Australia) on 18-21 February 2003. Some 300 delegates from 97 countries are expected to attend this event, which will debate the main challenges facing the unions, the means of improving the situation of women workers around the world and the measures to be taken in order to increase women's role in strengthening the trade union movement. The ILO will be represented by Linda Wirth-Dominice from the Bureau for Gender Equality.
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
"Promoting safety culture at work" is the theme chosen by the ILO for this year's World Day for Safety and Health at Work. This event is a tripartite expansion of the commemoration day, organized each year by the ICFTU, for those killed and injured at work. Last year, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, announced that he had decided to make 28 April a world day for drawing attention to the vital importance of reducing workplace accidents and occupational diseases. According to Jukka Takala, Director of the ILO's SafeWork programme, about two million people are killed by their work each year. That is more than 5,000 every day. In a memo to the directors of ILO regional and area offices as well as the leaders of multidisciplinary teams, ILO Executive Director Assane Diop has called for local initiatives to be taken on 28 April, in cooperation with the social partners, in order to ensure the success of this event. In Geneva, preparations for 28 April are being handled by the SafeWork department, with the participation of the Bureaux for Workers' and Employers' Activities (ACTRAV and ACT/EMP) and the Communications Department. A special mailbox (SafeDay@ilo.org) has been set up to deal with all enquiries and to centralize information on local initiatives. Don't hesitate to contact us.
Wage Protection: More Urgent Than Ever
Nothing could be more timely than the decision to make Convention No. 95 on Wage Protection, adopted in 1949, the subject of an in-depth study that will be discussed at the International Labour Conference in June 2003. The sad truth is that the regularity of wage payments, which at one time gave cause for satisfaction (thanks not least to a Convention ratified by 95 countries to date), is now being seriously undermined. Tens of millions of workers around the world are being deprived of the fruits of their labour for months, even years, on end. This problem was highlighted in a recent issue of Labour Education, which focussed on pay. Wage arrears are now a real scourge. According to Russian government figures, for instance, arrears had reached more than 38 billion roubles (approximately 1.2 billion US$) by April 2000. At that time, the Russian State owed its teachers 628 million roubles. More recently, the figures have been revised upwards. Today, the wage debt in the public sector alone is put at 1.17 billion dollars. In Ukraine, total arrears in 2001 were 30 per cent more than the country's monthly wage mass. Five million workers in that country are no longer being paid regularly. In Moldava, payments are delayed by as much as two years. In Bulgaria, wage debt increased sevenfold between 1991 and 1996, then doubled again between 1997 and 1998. In Belarus, unpaid wages in 2001 accounted for 7.5 percent of the wage mass. Africa has also been hit hard by this phenomenon, to the point where one Labour Education contributor described wage debt as Africa's other epidemic. (SIDA is the French term for AIDS. French-speaking Africans now bitterly joke that the same initials stand for Salaire Impayé Depuis des Années - Wages Unpaid For Years). In Latin America, wage debt is also on the rise. According to the Brazilian government, wage arrears consistently account for the largest number of labour law violations. More than 50 per cent of all cases brought! Finally, unpaid wages in China run into billions of dollars. The question of wage arrears "cannot be treated in isolation from a context that combines a lack of social concern in economic adjustment and transition efforts, the fragility of democratic or newly democratizing systems, a weak tradition of dialogue and a distrustful, even hostile, attitude to the independent organized labour movement." So says Manuel Simón, Director of the Bureau for Workers' Activities, writing in the same issue of Labour Education. Other topics covered include the minimum wage and trade union approaches to ensuring a just distribution of incomes through collective bargaining.
One conclusion emerges very clearly from this issue of Labour Education - ILO standards on wage protection, minimum wages and equal pay are as relevant as ever. The urgent task now is to get them respected and applied. The discussion on the in-depth study to be tabled at the International Labour Conference this June will no doubt give delegates an opportunity to re-emphasize this need.
Emergency Services Under Pressure
As well as rising rates of crime, violence, accidents and terrorist attacks, emergency workers in the public services of many countries now increasingly face new problems caused by a deterioration in their working conditions. This emerges from a new report by the International Labour Office (ILO). Firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other public emergency service workers in many countries are affected. The report, which was discussed during the ILO's Joint Meeting on Public Emergency Services: Social Dialogue in a Changing Environment, held in Geneva from 27 January to 1 February 2003, says the increasing level of crime, accidents, false alarms and acts of terror, along with demographic factors, is placing new demands on workers in the sector. The ILO report shows that employment in the sector is increasing slowly and is only keeping pace with rising demand in a few countries. The situation is particularly favourable in the United States, where expenditure on police protection rose by 260 per cent between 1982 and 1999, while federal spending increased almost six times over. Thus, the number of police officers in the US grew from 724,000 to 1,017,922 over the same period. In the European countries, on the other hand, budgets and employment are being constrained. Fire service platoons in Germany, which used to have 22 staff, have now been reduced to between eight and 12.
180 Million Jobless Worldwide
After two years of economic slow-down, world unemployment levels have reached an all-time high. And the situation is unlikely to improve this year. In its recent report on world employment trends, the ILO estimates that the worldwide jobless figure has grown by 20 million since the year 2000, reaching a total of 180 million by the end of last year. Moreover, weak employment markets have completely wiped out the progress made in the late 1990s on reducing the number of "working poor". Women and children have been particularly hard hit. They often hold the jobs that are most vulnerable to economic downturns. Even greater insecurity awaits unemployed people who have to seek work in the informal sector, where unemployment benefits and social protection are virtually unknown.
Among the report's other main findings:
- At the end of 2002, the number of working poor, or workers living on $1 or less a day, resumed its upward trend, returning to the level of 550 million recorded in 1998.
- While the global economic slowdown and post September 11 developments increased unemployment worldwide, Latin America and the Caribbean were hit hardest, with recorded joblessness rising to nearly 10 per cent.
- To absorb new entrants into the labour market and reduce working poverty and unemployment, at least one billion new jobs are needed during the coming decade to get on track for the UN goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015.
Jobs outlook uncertain
By 2010, Asia will account for almost 60 per cent of the world's active population - and China alone for more than one-quarter. The percentage will also rise for other developing regions (sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean). On the other hand, the proportion of the active population living in the industrialized countries and the transitional economies will decline to about one-fifth. Consequently, most of the new jobs needed by then will have to be created in Asia (60 per cent) and sub-Saharan Africa (15 per cent).
Some 7 Million Tourism Jobs Lost
Political tensions, the economic downturn and unease among travelers have cause the loss of 6.6 million jobs in the tourism sector, and there are no signs of a recovery before 2005, according to an ILO report. To tackle this problem, the ILO will be holding a tripartite regional meeting in Bangkok on 13-15 May on the topic of employment in the tourism industry of Asia and the Pacific.
Entitled The Impact of the 2001-2002 Crisis on the Hotel and Tourism Industry, the report states that, during that period, the sector shed some 6.6 million jobs, putting one in every 12 of its workers out of a job. Among factors inhibiting a recovery, the report cites fear of new attacks against tourists, such as those in Bali and Kenya during 2002, as well as political developments in the Middle East and elsewhere, changing consumer travel preferences and the general state of the world economy.
In 2001, receipts from cross-border tourism dropped by 5.1 per cent at constant US dollar prices and the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide fell by 0.6 per cent. Worst affected were the Middle East and the Americas - particularly North America, where international tourist arrivals dropped by 6.8 per cent during 2001 as a whole, but by all of 22.6 per cent in the last four months of that year as compared to the equivalent periods in the year 2000.
In another observed new trend, tourists now prefer to stay closer to home. Experts agree on one point - the trinity of "sea, sand and sun" has gone out of style, as has the lure of exotic lands.
Thailand on the Way to Ratifying Conventions 87 and 98?
A training seminar for trade unions in Thai state enterprises was held in Pattaya on 19-22 January 2003 by the Bureau for Workers' Activities. In April 2000, employees of state enterprises regained the right to form trade unions and take part in collective bargaining, an entitlement that they had lost under the military regime in 1991. However, exercising that right in practice is still difficult in a sector threatened by a number of major privatizations, the more so as Thailand has not ratified either Convention 87 on freedom of association or Convention 98 on the right to organize and collective bargaining. The aim of the Pattaya seminar was to inform trade unionists about the contents of these two basic Conventions, with the particular aim of supporting their campaign for ratification. (The Thai government has several times indicated that it might be prepared to ratify Convention 87). Another ACTRAV objective in holding the seminar was to give the trade unionists better information about possible courses of action vis-à-vis the ILO in the case of violations of their basic rights. For information please contact ACTRAV in Bangkok, raghwan@ilo.org.
Pointers…
ILO Official threatened: The director of the ILO office in Pakistan has received e-mail threats. According to investigation under way these would be linked to the ILO campaign against child labour in the country, in particular in Sialkot and Lahore. "Seemingly, the man, who is sending the e-mails, wants to disrupt ILO's efforts to prevent child labour in these areas" an official from Pakistan's newly-established Diplomatic Protection Department said.
China: The ILO Director-General has approached the Chinese authorities with a request for the release of all workers' representatives currently detained and the withdrawal of charges against them where these relate to their activities in defence of workers' interests. These representations are in response to concerns recently expressed by the ICFTU after two Chinese trade unionists were charged with "subversion".
Burma (Myanmar): Members of the Workers' Group have voiced concern over the situation of Burmese migrant workers living in Thailand. According to some sources, the Thai authorities have placed restrictions on the issuing of new visas and the renewal of existing ones. Reportedly, migrants have been repatriated and the police have raided the premises of several Burmese democratic organizations, which had to close their offices. Among the organizations affected is the Federation of Trade Unions, Burma (FTUB).
Elections: The Governing Body, which will be meeting in March, will elect the ILO Director-General for a five-year term. The present Director-General, Juan Somavia, is standing for re-election. The Workers' Group has declared its support for his candidature.
Social protection: The launch of a worldwide ILO campaign for better social protection is scheduled for this March. Only one person in five currently enjoys an adequate system of social protection, so the ILO intends to promote various initiatives aimed at extending social coverage to as many people as possible.
Migrations: "Arab Labour Migration in the Context of Clobalization: Challenges and Prospects" will be the first item on the agenda of the 30th Session of the Arab Labour Conference to be held in Tunis on February 24 - March 3, 2003. The meeting will provide an opportunity to highlight the migration phenomenon within the region and allow social partners in Arab countries to discuss measures aimed at protecting migrants, preventing brain drain and facilitating the return of migrants to their countries of origin in order to contribute to socio-economic development plans in Arab countries. ACTRAV will be represented at this meeting by Ahmed Khalef. In addition a tripartite forum on migrant workers will be held in Douala (Cameroon) for Central African countries on March 3-7 and the Workers' Group will be holding a first consultation in May on preparation for the general discussion on migrant workers to be held during the 2004 International Labour Conference. For details please contact Luc Demaret, ACTRAV's focal point on migrant workers.
Domestic workers: As part of its action programme of action against forced labour, the ILO will be holding a consultation in Hong Kong on 16-19 February about protecting migrant domestic workers against the threat of forced labour and people trafficking. The ILO points to the major migration flows of domestic workers, most of them women, within Asia. Their destinations include Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong (China). Large numbers of domestic workers from Asia are also employed in Europe, the Middle East and America. Alliance-building (between trade unions and domestic workers' organizations) will be one of the topics covered by the consultation.
World Commission: The European Commission held a seminar in Brussels on 3-4 February in order to prepare its contribution to the ILO's World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. Several members of the World Commission took part in the Brussels event: Tarja Halonen (President of the Republic of Finland), Juan Somavia (ILO Director-General), Lord Brett (Chairman of the ILO Governing Body), François Perigot (President of the International Organization of Employers) and Surin Pitsuwan (Thai parliamentarian and former Minister of Foreign Affairs). On February 6 and 7, the Director General will be in Arusha (Tanzania) to take part in a regional consultation of the World Commission.
Integrating people with disabilities into the workplace: More than 37 million people in the European Union have a disability. The European Commission has designated 2003 as the European Year of People with Disabilities, in a bid to put the spotlight on the obstacles and discrimination encountered by people with disabilities and to improve their living conditions. The ILO wholeheartedly supports this initiative and, for its part, has just published an anthology of hints for employers on recruiting people with disabilities and retaining workers who acquire a disability while already employed. Entitled it can be ordered by clicking here. Meetings are scheduled with ILO constituents in Tanzania.
Child Labour: ACTRAV in cooperation with the ILO programme for the elimination of child labour (IPEC) is organizing a sub regional meeting in Cotonou (Benin) on February 10 to 13 to discuss the situation of child labour in West Africa.
Feature:
Belgian Label Gives Social Bonus
A "social bonus" - that is what a new Belgian law may offer firms that apply core labour standards. The legislation is a world first. Belgium's social label was officially launched in Brussels at the end of January 2003. Attending the event were Eddy Laurijssen, Director of the ILO Liaison Office in Brussels, and representatives of the Belgian social partners.
Each government is under an obligation to ensure that its country respects the Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) that it has adopted. But what happens when a firm sells, inside that country, goods that have been produced elsewhere? How, in the age of economic globalization, can we encourage respect for basic rights in our own countries but also in somebody else's?
Social label
Belgium has just suggested one answer to these questions. It has launched a "social label" that will be attached to goods sold on its territory from this spring onwards.
Supporters of the label say it will enable consumers to identify items that have been produced in accordance with the ILO's eight core Conventions on trade union freedom, collective bargaining, non-use of forced labour and child labour, and equality and non-discrimination regarding employment and pay. But there are already plenty of "corporate social responsibility" initiatives around - labels, codes of conduct, framework agreements and so on. So what is so different about the Belgian scheme? For a start, it puts the public authorities right back at the centre of things, at a time when the trend is often more towards diminishing the role of the State. "We're moving from a self-regulatory context, in which the multinationals set their own rules, to a context in which regulation by the public authorities becomes possible," explains a member of the labelling committee that Belgium has set up.
And indeed, the Belgian label does have legal backing, under a unique law adopted in February 2002. At least, it is unique so far. Other countries, notably Italy and Denmark, are now drafting similar schemes and the Netherlands are likely to bring in a code of conduct for Dutch firms soon. The label may even go European. A resolution by the European Parliament clearly raised this possibility, but the European authorities seem to be waiting for the experiment to spread to several EU member countries first. Belgium's ambitions extend even further. "The significant thing about our approach is that it explicitly recognizes labels that might be attributed on the same basis by other countries. This could make it possible to have an international social label, recognized by a large number of countries." So says Dirk van der Maelen, a Belgian parliamentarian who campaigned for the law, which officially came into force last October (2002).
How does it work?
The principle behind the labels is quite simple. Any enterprise that "puts products on the Belgian market" may apply for the social label. However, the firm must prove that both it and any subcontractors respect the eight ILO Conventions. It must also agree to be inspected by social auditing firms that will be accredited by the Belgian Ministry of Economic Affairs. Applications for use of the social label must be co-signed by the representatives of the workers in the enterprise concerned. A "committee for socially responsible production" has been set up, under the new law, to decide on requests for the granting of the label, on the control of its use, and on any complaints calling for the withdrawal of a firm's entitlement to the label.
In the finest traditions of social dialogue à la belge, the committee is made up of 16 members representing the government, the employers, the trade unions (the Belgian FGTB/ABVV has given one of its seats on the Committee to secure participation by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions - ICFTU) and non-governmental organizations for consumers and development cooperation. While unions are insisting on the presence of an ILO representative as an observer, they have also formulated a number of reservations about the contents, the purport and the control mechanisms for the label.
Social powerhouses
Regardless of whether the country in which the products were made has ratified the eight ILO Conventions (and Belgium is one of the 84 countries that have ratified all of them) it is the product itself that gains or fails to gain the label. To get the accolade, it absolutely must have been produced within the terms of the eight Conventions. "So the idea is to create, with the enterprises that sign up to the scheme, 'social powerhouses' for improved welfare," the Belgian label's supporters insist - even in countries that have not so far been noted for respecting people's rights. In fact, the law provides for technical and financial assistance to developing countries, so as to enable them to "respect the performance criteria for the granting of label."
Contrary to codes of conduct, which are for the most part drawn up unilaterally by the company concerned and have often been criticized for their "public relations" element and their lack of independent evaluation, the Belgian social label combines voluntary initiative with legal constraints. It also avoids breaching the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), since it does not ban any enterprise from doing business in Belgium, nor does it impose the label on anyone. It does, however, include a constraint that is absent from the codes of conduct: an enterprise that applies for and receives the social label and is then found to have cheated is liable to penalties that range up to 2.5 million Euro, and, for those in charge of the firm, up to five years in prison. On the other hand, a firm that complies properly has everything to gain. A recent opinion poll in Belgium showed that 22 per cent of consumers support "ethical products". According to some reports, "fair trading" is growing by 5 per cent a year in Europe and its sales already account for millions of dollars.
But effective verification is the yardstick by which the Belgian social label will ultimately be measured. "It isn't easy to set up checks that are both reliable and independent," the label's promoters say. "But if something worthwhile isn't 100 per cent achievable, it's still worth going for 60, 70 or 80 per cent." While the FGTB/ABVV and the ICFTU have welcomed the social label initiative, they have made a series of proposals to improve its efficiency ensure that it actually meet its objectives, failing that they may draw the conclusion that the social label was not such a good idea after all.
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