Bargaining For Life

By Kay Parris

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has hit transport workers in many countries particularly hard, leaving trade unions with an urgent fight on their hands.

One survey at a truck stop in South Africa, where over 10% of the population are living with HIV/AIDS, showed 75% of the drivers tested were HIV positive.

For transport workers, HIV/AIDS is an industrial issue. The same basic concerns that unions have fought around for decades - long hours, lack of rest facilities, discrimination, unfair dismissal, lack of investment in health and safety - are now exacerbating the scale of HIV infections, economic hardship, suffering and death.

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) has been campaigning for 10 years for recognition of HIV/AIDS as an industrial issue and supporting unions in countries in their attempts to include the issue in collective bargaining. Unions in Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya have been partially successful. The ITF uses the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS as a starting point for negotiations.

(Transport International. issue 12, July 2003)