|
|
Strategic Objective No 1: Standards and fundamental principles and rights Operational Objectives: 1a. Standards and fundamental principles and rights at work Trade unions' participation in monitoring the follow-up of the Declaration and the application of ILO Conventions has increased at regional and national levels. Projects in this field have been financed from ACTRAV regular budget as well as by Danish, Spanish and Norwegian donors. Theses activities included training on ILO control mechanisms and dissemination of information, namely through new ACTRAV web pages dealing with the promotion of fundamental conventions and the follow-up of complains on violation of Freedom of Association. During the last six month, these web pages have been visited by around 49.000 users. In Nepal, after the completion of a DANIDA funded project, national trade union centres became instrumental in persuading the Government to ban Kamaiya System (Bonded Labour) and to introduce a number of rehabilitation measures. Furthermore, three ILO Conventions, No. 29, 105 and 182, were submitted to the Parliament for approval largely due to the efforts of the trade unions. Trade unions in Pakistan were successfully engaged in social dialogue, making use of an ILO forum, with the Chief Executive of the country and were able to lift the ban on trade union activities in the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). At the same time, May Day as a public holiday, which was abolished by the earlier Government, was restored with effect from 2001. Trade unions organizations in Benin, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have updated their training programs concerning fundamental workers' right, with particular emphasis on collective bargaining strategies. Cooperation with International Trade Secretariats was strengthened in this area through technical assistance provided by specialists in ILO Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs). In Latin America, this aim was served by ACTRAV two one-year projects in the Postal and the Metallurgic Sectors. A trade union Internet information network created in Russia and Belarus was vital in assisting the Belarusian trade unions in 2001 to organise a global solidarity campaign against the violation of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 by the Belarusian state authorities. The project laid a foundation for activities to reinforce freedom of association in Belarus culminating in several activities to bring awareness of the importance of ILO core Conventions in Belarus. In the CEE project activities were conducted under the Dutch funded project which reinforced collective bargaining and action against discrimination in employment and occupation. In particular, attention was paid to collective bargaining at industrial/branch level. There was also support in 2001 to a Central and Eastern European regional workshop on basic core Conventions. 1b. Child Labour One of the most important channels for influencing policies in order to fight child labour is a tripartite structure in which trade unions play a central part. The projects "Developing National and International Trade Union Strategies to Combat Child Labour" and "Action Against Child Labour through Education and Training", funded by the Norwegian donor, are both aimed at strengthening the ability of trade union organizations to combat child labour. Recently, cooperation with national trade union organizations and teachers' organizations worldwide has increased in order to develop policies and action plans in this field. In India five national trade union centres and four teachers' organizations are jointly working towards the elimination of child labour, by sharing experiences and information. Cooperation among trade union organizations on the child labour issues takes place in a number of other countries, namely in Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka. In order to encourage workers and trade unions to make specific contributions to the child labour issue, a training folder "Trade Unions and Child Labour" was developed and published in April 2001 in cooperation with trade union organizations throughout the world. In Colombia, three projects on combating child labour were drafted in cooperation with CUT, CGTD and CTC trade union organizations. An on-going project on child labour, carried out in cooperation with the Latin American regional workers' confederation ORIT/ICFTU and financed by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), contributed to the social awareness raising on child labour. It helped placing child labour as a key issue on trade unions' agenda, both at the regional level and within ORIT/ICFTU national affiliates. A significant impact on teachers' awareness on child labour was achieved through a project financed by IPEC in cooperation with the Education International. The project, financed by the Government of Norway, made it possible to raise awareness on child labour issues among rural workers' organisations in Central America which have started working out policy documents and work plans in this field. 1c. Normative action Trade unions involved in respective programmes and projects have significantly enhanced their knowledge of the "core" as well as more specialized standards. This knowledge has been used to make successful representations to Governments for the purpose of International Labour Standards (ILS) ratification, and, in cases of failing application, to initiate ILO complaint procedures . For instance, in terms of DANIDA sponsored activities, trade unions in Nepal, Cambodia, Uganda, South Africa and India have approached respective national and local authorities in order to improve workers' rights. Special attention was paid to ILS awareness raising among rural workers. The project on Promotion of ILO Standards for rural workers' organizations, financed by the Government of Norway, has contributed to this goal through a number of seminars and workshops on various ILS, in particular the ones related to the agricultural sector in Honduras, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Sub-regional consultations organized under the project made it possible to inform the delegates of the 89th session of the International Labour Conference about the draft convention on Health and Safety in agriculture as well as to assist them in preparing their contributions to the draft. Technical assistance provided to the rural workers' organizations in Honduras helped them to draft a proposal for a new law covering the agricultural sector. After consultations with relevant parties, the final proposal will be presented to the Parliament. In the Dominican Republic and Guatemala technical assistance was provided through ILO Multi-Disciplinary Teams to prepare proposals for the revision of the Labour Code. In Russia, trade unions have presented their own draft of the new national Labour Code. This version of the Labour Code, based on International Labour Standards, was drafted with technical assistance from the ILO. The unions succeeded in compelling the Parliament to consider their proposal despite considerable initial opposition from neo-liberal circles.
Strategic Objective No 2: Employment Operational Objectives: 2a. Employment policy support ACTRAV has been cooperating with international trade union organizations to develop and broaden trade union arguments for reforms in the global economy. As a result, proposals recently made by the international trade union movement in regard of reforming of the international institutions that govern the global economy have become more comprehensive. During 2000-2001, such proposals have been made in the field of poverty alleviation, elimination of international debt, reform of the global trading system, and expansion of access for exports from developing countries. Employment promotion has been addressed in both general and specific ways. In a general way, it enabled trade unions to influence national legislation and to take part in tripartite discussions on employment issues. In a specific way, technical assistance projects helped workers' organisations to establish cooperatives and develop other forms of income generating activities as was the case in India and French-speaking Africa in terms of DANIDA sponsored activities. In the CEE countries, the need for promotion of economic research and training is being met by strengthening trade unions experts' capacity to face adverse economic and social effects of transition in the context of accession to the EU and the globalization. This implies building capacity of trade unions to make meaningful proposals for a balanced economic and social policy at the national level, and to better defend the interests of their members through collective bargaining. These issues have been successfully addressed through two major projects in the region: "Strengthening of Workers' Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe" , funded by the Government of Netherland, and "Strengthening trade unions' capacity for information management in the Baltic States", funded by the Government of Finland. A regional Latin American seminar was carried out under a project funded by the Government of Spain, on Employment, Decent Work and Labour costs in Peru with the aim to analyze different employment policies in connection with the labour cost issues. Under the same project a bipartite seminar on Productivity and Wages was carried out in Mexico. With the financial support of the ILO Regional Office, next September a bipartite sub-regional seminar on small and medium enterprises and the generation of employment will take place in Argentina for the MERCOSUR countries. After a joint project with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation RENGO, the two trade union centres in Guinea, (Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guinea (USTG) and Confederation nationale des travailleurs de Guinea (CNTG), have introduced the subject of "productivity improvement" in their workers' education programmes. In Mongolia, in response to a request from the Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions (CMTU) the ILO has conducted in May 2000 an orientation seminar on cooperative enterprise operations. Followed by a study visit to the Philippines in November 2000, it allowed CMTU leaders to better familiarize themselves with the operation of workers' cooperatives. At its recent Executive Committee meeting, the CMTU has decided to establish its Coop Promotion Centre in the first half of 2001 and to set up saving and credit cooperatives in Ulaanbaatar, Tuva and Selenge provinces. 2b. Knowledge, Skills and employability Under a project funded by the Government of Spain and in coordination with CINTERFOR, activities were carried out in Brasil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina and Dominican Republic aimed at improving workers' vocational training programmes and strategies towards economic integration process in the region. Long distance training courses are ongoing prepared by ACTRAV Turin Centre on training trainers and vocational training for MERCOSUR trade unions organizations. A sub-regional seminar has taken place and a manual on Youth Employment has been prepared. In terms of a joint project with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation RENGO, the two trade union centres in Guinea have introduced the subject of "productivity improvement" in their respective workers' education programmes. 2e. Gender promotion and employment Integration of women in the Technical cooperation programmes has been a priority issue cutting across all the activities. While, in some cases, it was deemed appropriate to establish women specific activities, the TC projects in general sought to maximize the active involvement of women workers and to include gender and equality concerns in all of them. Good progress has been noted not only in the gender specific projects, like the one for rural women in South India, but also in "mainstream" projects, for example in Cambodia. Nearly all other projects reported that women participation, although not satisfactorily, had improved throughout project implementation. The project "Workers Education assistance to strengthen trade union action on Women Workers in view of Child Labour in selected South East Asian Countries", funded by the Government of Belgium and covering Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, was aimed at empowerment of women workers so that they could work for improvement in their working conditions and participate in the trade union work at all levels and in the society in general. At the end of the project, the national trade unions have established focal points and structures capable of carrying out activities to enhance the status of women and to combat child labour. The core activities of this project consisted of developing training materials in the local languages on a variety of subjects including the translation of relevant labour standards (Conventions No 87, 98, 100, 111, 103 and 156); developing appropriate curricula for workers= education programmes on gender; conducting train the trainers programmes and organizing campaigns to sensitize the rank and file on gender and the ill effects of child labour. In Thailand and Vietnam women now occupy thirty percent of leadership positions in the trade unions. Recently, the textile union in Indonesia (TSK) held for the first time a women=s conference which was quite successful. National case studies on gender and collective bargaining carried out in Brasil, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela and Uruguay in close cooperation with trade unions will provide an important data base for trade union action on this issue. They are funded by ACTRAV, ILO Offices in Buenos Aires, Chile, Lima and the ILO Regional Office. Continuing support through technical assistance is given to the Andean Trade Union Co-ordination Body (COMUANDE) to strengthening their capacity and participation in the Andean Labour Counsel. Assistance has been provided by the Specialist in Workers Activities and the ILO Lima MDT. A sub-regional seminar was carried out in Costa Rica to strengthen trade unions organization's secretariats on women issues in Mexico, Central America and Dominican Republic in the framework of a Spain funded project activities. Under the Rural workers organizations project; funded by Norway, an agreement was reached to strive to achieve a 50% women participation in all activities of rural workers' organisations. The project has included gender promotion in all its activities. Under a Dutch project, support was given to gender training on non-discrimination in employment and building of networks as well as technical advice in regional surveys and participatory research in the CEE region. In terms of DANIDA sponsored projects, national trade union centres in Yemen and Kuwait, namely General Federation of Trade Union of Yemen (GFTUY) and Kuwaiti Trade Union Federation (KTUF), have established new women's committees within their structures. Similarly, in Bangladesh, women trade union leaders from 11 federations have set up an informal committee called Bangladesh National Committee for Women Workers' Development (BNCWWD). Since then a number of women have been elected into the Executive Committees of their respective unions.
Operational objectives: 3a. International labour standards In the Arab states region, after a number of Technical Cooperation projects, trade unions at the national and the regional level have decided to include a module on occupational safety and health based on the relevant ILO Conventions in all their programmes. Under DANIDA sponsored projects seminars have been carried out in the Caribbean concerning ILO Conventions and up-grading of national legislation on safety and health in St. Vincent/Grenadines, Guyana, Suriname and Jamaica. In Latin America, international and regional trade union organizations started providing their affiliates with up-to-date information on Social Security Indicators through a new Web Site. This Site is an important tool for trade unions in strengthening their affiliates' analytical capabilities for discussions and policy-making at national levels. 3b. Action against hazardous conditions Under the Dutch project in the CEE region specialised sub-regional seminars were conducted in the Baltics, Central Europe, Ukraine/Russia and for the metal industry in Bulgaria/Macedonia. A seminar on OSH and the environment and information management was held in Riga in February, 2000, for the Baltic trade union confederations (Dutch and Finnish projects). The seminar contributed to strengthening the knowledge base in the area of OSH and provided trade unions' experts with training on how to use information technology to gather, process and analyse information. The other OSH sub-regional seminars in Central Europe, Ukraine and Bulgaria highlighted the basic standards and followed up on the information gathered in the OSH participatory research conducted in the sub-regions to help give the national trade union centres additional information to develop national strategies on occupational health and safety. In March 2001, a specialised seminar was held in Moldova on OSH in agriculture for agricultural unions in CEE and CIS region to discuss OSH and policies to follow up on the forthcoming Convention on agriculture, adopted at the June 2001 ILO Conference. 3c. Improved working and employment conditions for vulnerable groups Improving social protection and occupational safety and health for workers has been included in several activities. The informal sector DANIDA sponsored projects in Asia and Africa achieved good progress with regard to these two aspects, and the accomplishments of the rural women workers' project in India were remarkable. Seminars have been carried out in the Caribbean to raise awareness among trade unions of HIV/AIDS in the workplace as a critical issue to be dealt with on a tripartite basis. 3d. Scope of social security systems National seminars were carried out under a Spain funded project on social security systems in a large number of countries in Latin America. ACTRAV website pages on Social Security are constantly up-dated to promote discussions among trade union organizations. In four countries covered by an ILO/DANIDA project on trade unions and the informal sector (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal), trade unions have established associations catering for certain groups of workers in the informal sector, such as vegetable and fish vendors. The establishment of these associations was the first attempt by trade unions to work with the workers in the informal sector in the above-mentioned countries. 3e. Economic and social insecurity A sub-regional seminar was held in October, 2000, in Croatia on social security and impact of the Informal sector. It was jointly financed by the Dutch project and ACTRAV with technical support from the ILO Social protection sector which covered both the above objectives. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have undertaken broad restructuring of social security over the past decade. They have established new social insurance schemes to finance health care, expanded social assistance to address rising rates of poverty, set up schemes providing unemployment benefits and, in some cases, placed new limits on maternity benefits and child care. One of the greatest areas of change is pensions, where countries are seeking to reduce scheme costs and make benefits more individualized and earnings-related; and some countries are pursing this goal through privatization. The seminar focussed on two major facets of reform, the restructuring of pensions and the extension of coverage to workers who lack protection. These issues were selected because of their great significance to trade unions and the important role which they can play in influencing policy reforms in these areas.
Operational objectives: 4a. Recognition of social dialogue All of the activities conducted in the three fore-going Strategic objectives were centred on the assumption that social dialogue has a fundamental role to play as an instrument of democracy and respecting rights of work, and is an integral part of the capacity building of ILO trade union constituents. 4b. Institutions of Social Dialogue Training activities were carried out in collaboration with trade union organizations to strengthen their capacity for collective bargaining with important results achieved in Peru among other countries. A series of workshops, courses, meetings and training activities have been carried out under the Spain funded project and ACTRAV regular budget activities with the aim of strengthening trade unions capacity in the domain of social dialogue. Technical assistance has been provided to improve workers participation in tripartite fora. In several countries trade unions' structures have been strengthened and new secretariats established within national trade unions to follow social dialogue issues. Seminars on social dialogue were held in Colombia. As a result, a tripartite body was established, which later approved the minimum wage in the country. In Venezuela technical cooperation was provided to establish a dialogue among trade union organizations concerning trade union's electoral process. Training activities have been carried out to strengthened trade unions' capacity in providing new services to their affiliates. These activities were funded through ACTRAV's regular resources, MDTs, ILO Offices and projects. Preparation and planning of all activities were carried out using a participatory strategic planning method. 4c. Stronger parties to social dialogue Each activity sponsored through technical cooperation was aimed at strengthening the representation, capacity and services of the parties to social dialogue through workers' education. The various seminars helped to give specialised information on the various strategic objectives to the constituents. Progress in institution building and thus strengthening the trade unions for social dialogue, was evident in nearly all the projects. The strengthening and consolidation of trade union structures and the enhancement of workers' education infrastructures have been the main theme in most of the projects. For instance, under DANIDA sponsored projects, it took place in Mozambique, Mongolia, Cambodia, Uganda, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India. Important membership increases, and thus the enhancement of union representativeness, were noted in Uganda, Cambodia and rural workers' organizations in India. Enhancement of workers' participation in tripartite dialogue, improved labour relations and increase in the number of collective agreements concluded were reported in many projects. Some of the projects were addressing this aspect directly and made good progress, for example in Egypt, Nepal and the South Pacific. Other projects, while focussing mainly on institution building, also reported a rise in concluded collective agreements, increased and more qualified participation in tripartite commissions/committees, and new demands for improvements in obsolete labour legislations (Uganda, Mozambique and South India). In CEE and CIS countries, attention has been given to developing the capacity of constituents to become better equipped to take part in the various networks which have been developed in the Central and Eastern European region (trade union rights, workers' education, women's networks). In 2000 and 2001 specialized training was given to the constituents in the field of information and communication technology use in trade union activities. New important results are expected from the Millennium Review Project (Ford Foundation) which was recently launched and which involves ILO-ACTRAV, ICFTU, ITS and TUAC. In terms of the project extensive activities will be carried out in order to develop a database to register information on trends in trade union density, to deepen the analysis of trade union work vis-a-vis informal and unprotected labour, and multinational companies. The project involves as well production of a research paper on trends on women's involvement in trade unions, including membership data and information on participation in decision-making structures. The project will produce a report on strategies and experiences for promoting involvement of migrant workers in trade union structures and strategies. An overview report will cover current international trade union structures and organizational methods, and options for changes in them to support greater effectiveness, democracy and inclusiveness in trade union organizations at the international level. Although it is normally not an explicit objective in the above-mentioned projects, many of them, through joint activities, promoted trade union unity. Namely, it has been the case in Mozambique, Uganda, French-speaking Africa and Cambodia. In most countries the projects provided useful platforms for enhanced cooperation among national centers. |
ACTRAV
Technical Cooperation Activities in 2000-2001:
Some Results