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Labouring Without Rights
By
Ferial Haffajee
MOST COMMONWEALTH governments are signatories
to the core set of labour standards that can guarantee decent
work, but few are enforcing the measures.
“In our experience, governments are
being hypocritical,” says Annie Watson, director of
the Commonwealth Trade Union Council, adding “they are
signing up but not enforcing”.
A report by the Council to the Commonwealth
Heads of Government finds that non-enforcement is pushing
back trade union gains in many of its 51 member countries
only three Commonwealth member states are not represented
on the Council. A survey carried out earlier this year by
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions unearthed
trade union violations in 35 Commonwealth countries.
The core labour standards set out by the International
Labour Organisation include the freedom of association; the
right to collective bargaining; the outlawing and abolition
of child and forced labour and the end to gender and other
forms of discrimination. Nice commitments, but useless through
inaction.
“The Commonwealth is very weak at criticising
member governments,” says Watson to explain why violations
are so widespread. While the body had found its voice to denounce
the erosion of democracy in Pakistan and Zimbabwe, other violations
of rights often went uncriticised. “Take Swaziland,
for example. There is no freedom of association there, but
it’s hardly ever mentioned.”
Globalisation with its attendant flows of
investment capital into the developing South has also added
to the culture of non-enforcement, says Watson. If governments
are trying to attract new investments, they often promise
not to enforce labour laws.”
In addition, enforcement weapons – like
effectively staffed inspectorates; working labour law systems
and strong unions – are often notable only by their
absence, says the CTUC. Its submission to CHOGM adds that,
“We would like to see Commonwealth technical assistance
being made available to assist Commonwealth governments meet
their commitments to make the implementation of core labour
standards a reality.” Assistance is necessary not only
because of the anaemic enforcement mechanisms available to
unions, but also because labour organisations are losing members
and power.
Increasingly, production is fracturing and
workplaces getting smaller and smaller. This trend makes it
difficult for unions to organise because it’s always
easier to campaign and sign up members on bigger shop-floors.
Developing countries are splitting more than
before into first and second economies: first economies of
development and high-end service sectors with second economies
where work is increasingly informal and vulnerability is high.
It is in this second economy that the CTUC
is focusing its work: in Zimbabwe, it is encouraging links
between the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the informal
sector; in Bangladesh and the rest of Southern Africa, the
council is active in pushing to squeeze child labour out of
the production chain and simultaneously lobbying for the basic
labour rights of clothing and textile workers. Its slogan
is: “Children out of work and into school; adults into
work.”
While economic reform has seen developing
countries secure higher growth rates in some regions, the
fall-out has been severe for trade union and labour rights,
says the CTUC report. As state enterprises have been sold
off, workers have lost their jobs as the work for life ethos
of parastatals has hit the dust. Workers are, however, now
beginning to fight back.
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