DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-CHINA: China, EPZs Listed as Major Violators of Workers’ Rights

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Apr 4 1998 (IPS) - China and the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) that have been mushrooming in developing countries have been identified here as major violators of workers’ rights worldwide.

Both the Asian nation and the free zones do not tolerate the formation of unions to articulate the grievances of workers, Bill Jordan, general secretary of the Geneva-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), told a three-day conference that ended here on Apr. 1.

“There are no trade unions in China, no kind of independent voice thatcould demand higher standards or fair wages,” he said. “As a result, many factories in China are run by the army, and the country has an extensive forced system of labour camps where the labour is unpaid.”

Jordan said any nation relying on paying wages to its workers, would have no chance of competing with China.

The conference, titled ‘Defending Workers’ Human Rights In A Global Economy’, also urged EPZs to allow workers to form trade unions.

“Governments are investing heavily in Export Processing Zones, and touting them as sources of cheap, mainly female, labour where unions are surpressed. Trade unions are denied access to the zones,” said Jordan.

“Workers who try to join or form unions face at best dismissal, and at worst persecution,” he said. “And the average wage paid to these women can be half of what mn get.”

According to him, countries with higher standards cannot hope to compete fairly with such export-processing zones. Whatever advantage they bring is only temporary. “The only real winners in this game are the transnational corporations who can move from a country as soon as the going gets too expensive,” said Jordan.

“This is a problem that will have to be tackled internationally by a workers’ rights clause,” he said. “A workers’ righ luse would help workers to join together in trade unions to protect themselves; and it would make it cler to every country and evry transnational corporation that exploiting workers was no longer economically viable.”

The ICFTU has 206 affliates in 141 countries around the world, representing 125 million workers. Two-thirds of its affliates are in developing countries.

Andrew Kailembo, whose ICFTU-branch office in Nairobi caters for 10 million workers around Africa, said EPZs were causing more harm than good to workers in developing countries.

“If you have a situation where workers cannot bargain on their conditions of employment benefits, where young women workers are not allowed to become pregnant, or where children of school-age are doing odd jobs, then there is no way we can fail to question such an arrangement,” he said.

“All of us know about violations of trade union rights in many of the export-processing zones, which 25 or more African countries have set up,” hesaid. “We are all aware of repression of workers in Nigeria, Sudan, Swaziland, Djibouti and Cameroon.

“We have also been following developments (labour unrest) in Zambia and Zimbabwe. None of the above paints a positive image of a continent where workers are the backbone of the economy. It looks like more and more, our governments are paying allegiance elsewhere and not to the citizens who elect them into office. This is very sad,” said Kailembo.

To ease worers’ plight, Kailembo urged Africa to take the lead in adopting the proposedworkers’ rights clause. “We would not like t see the fraile institutions of democracy threatened by forces of globalisation. Secondly, with the Bretton Wods Institutions advising us to effect trade liberalisation, our open markets risk being flooded by cheap imports,” he said.

Kailembo said Kenya’s tea industry was the case in point. “If a country like China is going to use prison labour or Burma (Myanmar) to use bonded labour to produce the same tea, which country is disadvantaged?”he asked. “It is certainly Kenya which will produce at high costs and will be outcompeted while China and Burma stand to gain from international trade. This is not the competitiveness we call for.”

“In fact, we stand to lose in international markets to countries that do not observe basic labour standards,” he said.

“Unless the global market is re-oriented, economic development will continue to benefit just a few powerful mulnationals. They will increase trade and investments but the ordinary person, let alone the countries in which they operate, will gain close to nothing in return,” said Kailembo.

He accused multinationals of coercing governments into putting in place legislation that favours their easy acquisition of profits and then locating their production elsewhere.

The conference called for the intensifying of networking in a bid to protect workers. Last year 264 trade unionists around the world were assassinated while carrying out their duties. The ICFTU has documented 4,264 cases of people being arrested or questioned last year, just for doing trade union work.

“Many were tortured. There were at least 7,626 cases of harasment, intimidation or death threats against trade union members. And tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs purely because of their trade union actitivities,” Jordan said.