Organising for Social Justice

By ICFTU

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has launched a key report entitled 'Organising for Social Justice'.

The report centres on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, two key fundamental workers' rights enshrined in ILO Conventions 87 and 98.

Speaking on the occasion of the report's launch together with leaders from the European Trade Union Congress and the three Belgian nation union centres (FGTB-ABVV, CGSLB- ACLVB and CSC-ACV), Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), said, "freedom of association and collective bargaining are not a luxury but fundamental rights and the basis for sustainable and adaptable labour markets".

Despite this, the ILO report notes that in numerical terms, the level of ratification of the two core Conventions covering the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining means that a startling half of the world's workers remain unprotected by the conventions' provisions. Alarmingly, large countries as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the United States have still not ratified fundamental ILO Conventions on freedom of association.

The report looks at several areas in which this fundamental right is frequently flouted, including in export processing zones. "Workers attempting to organise are sometimes blacklisted, reprimanded or sacked. The catalogue of abuses in such workplaces is long. One example of this involves a Korean textile worker who was threatened at gunpoint by his employer to make him resign from his trade union", said Ryder.

Consistent with findings in ICFTU reports on export processing zones (EPZs), the ILO report highlights how a trade union-free environment is used to attract foreign investors and to gain commercial advantage over those countries or regions where workers' rights are respected. All too often, this is accompanied by exhausting work schedules and extremely poor health and safety conditions. In some cases, workers are even made to take amphetamines to counter exhaustion and hunger.

Tellingly, the ILO report underlines that freedom of association and collective bargaining do not hinder performance of individual enterprises or the economy as a whole. Similar conclusions have been borne out by World Bank and OECD research. In fact, all 3 international institutions have found that strong labour rights and protection for the right to organise are associated with higher formal employment.

"Public awareness and pressure from the international community, led by trade union organisations and institutions such as the ILO, has resulted to some degree of progress in the respect for fundamental workers' rights in EPZs. For example, Namibia's labour laws now apply to all parts of the economy, including EPZs and Turkey has abolished legislation that had effectively barred industrial action in these zones", said Guy Ryder, adding "many countries which have ratified the Conventions do not apply them in full, meaning that workers' are still deprived of their rights".