Workers of the World United

By Halle Joern Hanssen (*)

The message to the World Summit on Sustainable Development from trade unions across the globe is clear: Too much power has been handed over to the private sector and to market forces worldwide, and that must be rectified.

The trade unions are demanding a stronger role for the state and the public sector in national affairs; the cessation of initiatives to privatise essential social services like water, health and education; debt cancellation for developing countries; and the implementation of policies that will reduce global inequality as well as inequity within nations.

ICFTU (International Conbfederation of Free Trades Unions) chief spokesman Louis Belanger is also demanding legislation in support of labour rights in accordance with the ILO Conventions on labour standards and rights ratified by most governments worldwide.

He points out that while European multinational corporations adhere to legislation passed at home, when it came to developing countries they would disregard those same conventions, especially if they had not yet been written into law in the poorer nations.

However, governments, the private sector and NGOs in some of these very same developing countries also criticise the multinationals charging that their demand for labour standards is often nothing more than an economic and trade weapon against countries they want to punish.

Poverty eradication is another point at the centre of trade union policies and it must be linked to policies and actions in support of decent employment as the only route towards sustainable development labour claims.

In that respect, strong focus should be directed towards the conditions of 450 million agricultural workers in the world, who together with hundreds of millions of farmers, make their living from the soil and the land. This group includes permanent, temporary, seasonal/casual, migrant, indigenous piece rate workers and workers receiving in kind payment.

These agricultural workers, many of them women and children, are very poorly paid, have in most cases no rights and are left at the mercy of their employers. Every year some 170, 000 of them die from on-the-job accidents and disease, affirmed Peter Hurst of the Global Federation of Unions of Food and Agricultural workers.

When they try to organise, they frequently meet harassment and even prohibition. Most of them are very poor and for periods of the year they are unable to fully feed themselves and their families. At the same time they make up more than 40 percent of the total agricultural labour force and play a major role in feeding the world.

Another concern of the international labour movement are the 180 million child workers, most of them exposed to extreme and inhuman working conditions, left without any rights, any education, and having both their childhood and their future destroyed. The majority are in the agricultural sector. In Bangladesh alone, 5 million children work in agriculture.

However, many new and innovative approaches are being made particular in West Africa by the trade unions in partnership with industry, NGOs and others to rectify the situation and improve life for the same children so that the future may belong also to them.

Trade unions are considered important partners in civil society, but have traditionally held reservations against the emergence of some of the new partners within the same civil society. Now the tune is changing, and the trade union spokesman Louis Belanger confirms that trade unions need alliances with many other partners within civil society in order to be strong enough to have their political priorities accepted and implemented.

(*) Halle Joern Hanssen is chairman of the IPS-Board Executive Committee.