ILC INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER NO. 82
A dossier of weekly information
published by the International Liaison Committee for Workers and Peoples
June 8, 2004
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To contact us:
ILC International Newsletter
International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples
87, rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010 Paris, France
PRESENTATION:
As we have done for the past eleven years, on the occasion of the
yearly conference of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the
International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples will hold its
conference in Geneva for the defense of ILO conventions.
Indeed, the ILC, which fights everywhere for the defense and respect of
labor rights around the world, could not be indifferent to the defense
of the ILO norms and conventions, especially now, in regard to
conventions 87 and 96 in Iraq, so that unions being organized there by
the Iraqi workers are fully recognized.
It is why the highest importance is being given to the complaint lodged
by the Federation of Workers Councils and Iraqi Unions (FWCUI) and the
Union of Unemployed Iraqi Workers (UUI) with the Commission on Freedom
of Association of the ILO. The official recognition of this complaint by
this commission indicates that in fact, the ILO recognizes these two
unions as legitimate unions, since ILO regulations forbid the acceptance
of complaints that are not lodged by recognized labor unions.
For all those working in favor of labor rights in Iraq, it is a very
important step forward, an element of support for their fight. (see
pages 7 and 8 with the first list of signatures received by the ILO in
support of the complaint.)
Included in this issue is a contribution from the ILC "For the
return of the systems of conventions of the ILO" as well as an open
letter addressed to the delegates and members of the ILO Workers' Group
attending the 92nd session of the International Labor Conference.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
p. 1: Presentation
pp. 2-3: Contribution for the 11th European meeting: "For the
return to the system of ILO conventions"
pp. 4-5-6: *Defense of ILO Recommendation 150: Open letter to the
members of the Workers' Group attending the 92nd session of the
International Labor Conference of the ILO
* An appeal by organizations for the defense of unionists from Pakistan
* Subscriptions
pp- 7-8: "International Campaign Against the Occupation, For Labor
Rights in Iraq" supporting the complaint lodged by the Iraqi
unionists
Support the fight of the ILC
Subscribe to the ILC International Newsletter
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FOR THE RETURN TO THE ILO CONVENTION SYSTEMS
A contribution for the XIth European Meeting for the Defense of ILO
Conventions in Geneva on June 12, 2004
It seems necessary for us this year to take up a certain number of
questions that had arisen in previous years on the occasion of the
General Assembly of the International Labor Organization in Geneva and
that, in our opinion, had registered some positive results from the
actions we took.
We have had reason to be concerned over these past years that the system
of the ILO Conventions is being abandoned progressively in favor of a
more flexible system which came into being in 1998 with the adoption of
the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the ILO.
The preparatory documents for the 92nd International Labor Conference of
the ILO have just been published. Among them is the report established
by the "Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization,"
which drew our particular attention.
This Commission, constituted by the Board of Directors of the
International Labor Bureau in November 2001, met repeatedly in Geneva
and indicated in their report that they drew on exchanges with Kohler,
General Manager of the IMF; the General Manager of the WTO; and
Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank.
Their objectives were defined as follows: to put forward recommendations
for a "just and integrated globalization" -- for "new and
equitable world governance" that integrates the universal values
and human rights (and new national and regional governances). These
recommendations are "to involve all actors: governments,
parliaments, enterprises, members of the civil society, union
organizations, international organizations."
A just "globalization", an "equitable world government
that integrates universal values and human rights?" Does this
correspond to the work of the ILO, to the system system of Conventions
operating since the constitution of the ILO in 1919?
Let us go back in time: The ILO was created after World War I
(1914-1918). The nations of the world had arrived at the conclusion that
there could not be a real peace in the world without social progress and
unless a strong network of social security covering workers and their
families was set up.
The good will of those involved could not prevent the war of 1939-1945,
with all the consequences that everyone knows. Since 1945, the pre-war
protagonists returned to the work carried out before 1939 in order to
give new impetus to the ILO, with the goal of rebuilding in the most
harmonious way a world in which wars would be completely banished.
The emergence of new Nation-States born of the liberation of peoples,
the end of colonization and all that existed pre-war gave the ILO new
responsibilities. On the occasion of the yearly General Assembly that
unites all member states of the United Nations (the ILO is a specialized
member of the UN), the use of pre-war procedures continued by the
development of tripartite Conventions (elaborated by the representatives
of States, employer organizations and workers' organizations) had the
objective of being ratified by the governments.
Let me remind you that the tripartite conventional procedure consists of
elaborating conventions regulating social protection, social security,
hygiene and security on the job, protection of women and child laborers,
minimum wages and a whole set of conventions that permitted the
development of a substantial social protection structure.
When a Convention is created within ILO processes, through an entire
technical and specialized service, every member state of the ILO, each
Nation-State, is invited to ratify the aforementioned Convention. What
this means in practice is that the State concerned agrees to include the
terms of the Convention ratified in Geneva into its own laws on social
legislation and its own labor codes. The international setting of the
convention then becomes a national setting applicable to all salaried
employees residing in the aforementioned Nation-State. This permitted
the development of 176 ILO Conventions covering all domains, thereby
underscoring the important work carried out by the ILO.
The sine-qua-non condition is that the Conventions must be ratified by
each member State. If they are not ratified by a member State, they are
not applicable. One could say they are simple recommendations. But the
importance of the procedure resides in the fact that the Convention,
even when not ratified, has the merit of existing and that it allows
labor organizations in a State not covered by the Convention to
ostracize that particular sector of the State that refuses to ratify the
Convention, and obtain the support of other international labor
organization to put pressure on their respective governments and get
them to ratify the Convention in question, so that the Convention can be
inscribed in the national rights and laws.
But this procedure, which has a coercive nature, no longer corresponds
to the exigencies of the world economy today -- of what one calls
"globalization" under the aegis of neo-liberalism, and the
intensive drive toward flexibility of the labor force that we know
today. Furthermore, for the purpose of "globalization," the
ILO procedure granted far too much importance to the Nation-States,
which nowadays have become an obstacle to the extension of
globalization.
That is the reason why the ILO, under the pressure from large
multinational corporations that transcend the authority of
Nation-States, is engaged upon another route, that is to say, it is
abandoning the too-coercive conventional procedure for a far more
flexible system that in the end will be contained in what is today
called the ILO Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The United States played a decisive role in pushing for the abandonment
of the conventional procedure to the benefit of what one can call a very
platonic declaration of principles. For the first time since the
existence of the ILO, a U.S. president, Bill Clinton, travelled
personally to Geneva in 1998 to defend this new orientation of world
politics: the creation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which
replaces the conventional procedures of the ILO.
Let us recall that this declaration on the fundamental rights is a
simple reference to several ILO Conventions already ratified by the
majority of member countries, with the exception of the United States.
It relates to
- freedom of unions and union protection
- the right to organize and collective bargaining
- forced labor
- equality of remunerations
- discrimination in employment and professions
- the minimum employment age
The purpose of the Declaration of Fundamental Rights integrates the
seven aforementioned conventions. What has been achieved? This new
orientation opens the way for reshaping the ILO, where multinational
corporations, on the one hand, and non-governmental organizations, on
the other, act as a sort a counter-weight and will apply themselves more
and more to the functioning of the institution in a new structure.
The place accorded to this new process at the upcoming assembly of the
ILO in regard to the Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization
confirms that a step has been taken in setting up this new structure.
We repeat that this Commission report has been produced with the
involvement of representatives of multinational corporations such as
Toshiba and the Rand Corporation and in collaboration with the IMF, the
World Bank and the WTO. This belongs, as the report indicates, to the
multilateral system of the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and
the WTO so that "globalization becomes a positive strength for all
humanity," a "just and integrated globalization" ... in
the setting up of a "new world governance."
It is now about getting a "reform of the multilateral system",
a better realization of universal human values and rights."
We now see that we have emerged from a previous international order,
founded upon the existence of a Nation-State, into a new Cosmo-political
order, founded henceforth on individuals, with the Nation-State having
become an obstacle to the neo-liberal globalization -- and founded upon
a new flexible procedure for establishing and monitoring labor rights.
It is now about "universal values and human rights," of
individual rights without any coercive value. It is no longer about the
recognition of the existence of antagonistic social classes, with labor
and employer representatives that sit at the ILO. It is no longer about
the collective rights of workers, codified in national legislation and
in the existence of Nation-States, and leaning on the conventional
system of the ILO.
This "just and integrated globalization" requires a "new
world governance" to reinforce "national governances" --
and this "involves all actors of the civil society."
This "civil society" is an abstract notion given that social
classes constitute real society, well differentiated with antagonistic
interests. This civil society that constitutes the "new
governance" includes enterprises, representatives of multinational
corporations, the NGOs, labor organizations (about which one hears
denials of their role as representatives of special interests of the
working class, while every effort is made by the powers-that-be to
associate the trade unions into the development and implementation of
the policies for a "just globalization").
In fact as we now see it, the Charter of the Fundamental Rights is a key
component of the development of world neoliberalism and, naturally, of
the abandonment of the conventional procedure of the ILO, withdrawn from
the concerns of workers in all countries, who are left without social
protection and an efficient and effective tool that would permit them to
pressure their governments.
All reports presented these last years to the ILO on the consequences of
globalization and coincidentally the report presented by Juan Somavia
last year "to be liberated from poverty through work" draws a
dramatic balance of the new world situation:
- 1.2 billion human beings live on $1 dollar per day; 1.6 billion on $1
to $2 dollars a day
- 20% of the population, that is to say, 86 million people are
illiterate
- 115 million children of school age do not attend school
- In 2000 one child out of six, five to 14 years old, works, that is to
say 211 million children
- 186 million people are employed "under intolerable
conditions"
- 111 million people are employed in dangerous occupations
- 500,000 women die every year from the consequences of pregnancies or
childbirth
- 799 million human beings endure malnutrition
- 335,000 work-related accidents end in deaths per annum
- Two thirds of women in developing countries work in the informal
economy (84% in sub-Saharian Africa), are "unaccounted for"
and "workers in the informal economy are not recognized or
protected."
Globalization has dragged humanity towards a real chaos. Africa has
become a devastated continent, and all of Asia is threatened. The old
Europe itself, its different nations, are menaced by dislocation, a
veritable upheaval under the aegis of the European Union with its
neo-liberal policies that threaten to dismantle all the rights conquered
after the liberation.
The frenzied de-localization promoted by the multinationals, and the law
of the marketplace has entailed the destruction of rights. The free
zones, an informal economy has developed. reducing whole populations to
veritable slavery.
These delocations, or offshoring, today threaten the United States.
Also even among the group of employers' organizations, some need a
social organization on a world level if only to attenuate or eliminate
the abnormal competition that exists through the social practices that
are applied in the area of production in numerous countries throughout
the world. The social conditions are firstly the exploitation of women
and children in industries such as textiles, shoe and clothing
manufacture. These are now even posing serious employment problems in
countries as highly industrialized as the United States.
This debate began on the occasion of various conferences that we
organized. We noted with satisfaction that numerous comrades who, up to
the present, had not understood the problems and the dangers that
resulted from the neo-liberal orientation, were then able to realize in
their respective countries, go into action and put pressures in place to
return to the starting point, that is to say a far more efficient policy
of the ILO.
What can one do in the face of this organized chaos? Isn't it urgent to
return to the foundation of the ILO since its origins?
This is what the ILO Preamble states:
"Whereas, a universal and durable peace can only be founded on the
basis of social justice:
"Whereas, working conditions imply injustice, misery and
deprivations for a large number of people that generate so much
discontent that peace and universal harmony are in danger and
understanding that it is urgent to improve these conditions for example:
in regard to working hours, the fixing of a maximum length of the work
day and the work week, the recruitment of the labor force, the struggle
against unemployment, the guarantee of one salary ensuring conditions
for adequate existence, the protection of workers against general or
professional illnesses and work accidents, the protection of children,
teenagers and women, old age and disability pensions, the defense of the
interests of workers employed abroad, the affirmation of the principle
"For equal work equal salary", affirmation of the principle of
union freedom, organization of professional and technical education and
other analogous measures.
"Whereas, the non-adoption by any nation of a really human work
regime is an obstacle to the efforts of other nations desiring to
improve the fate of workers in their own country.
"The contracting parties, led by feelings of justice and humanity
as well as by the desire to ensure a lasting world peace and in order to
reach the goals announced in this preamble, approve the present
Constitution of the ILO."
Isn't this preamble of a burning actuality? Isn't it necessary to return
to the conventional system that is supported in this preamble, that the
ILO has elaborated over the years through its 176 conventions?
These 176 conventions that codify the concrete collective rights have
served as points of support for the labor movements in developing
countries and in nations as highly industrialized as the United States.
Shouldn't we discuss the need to mobilize againand activate all
organizations to return to the principles that the ILO has had since its
creation, that is to say return responsibility to the Nation-States,
today diluted in a neo-liberal global movement that can only drive to
destruction humanity as a whole?
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An Open Letter to the Delegates and Members of the ILO Workers' Group
attending the 92nd Session of the International Labor Conference of the
ILO
In June 2003 a delegation of the International Liaison Committee,
mandated by an international conference against the war and for the
defense of public education (which drew militants from 21 countries),
met a representative of the ILO Workers' Group in Geneva and submitted a
letter with an initial list of signatories regarding the proposed
revision of ILO Recommendation No. 150. The following letter permits us
to continue this exchange.
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
You are going to participate as a member of the Workers' Group in the
92nd session of the International Labor Conference of the ILO.
As you are aware, this general assembly has as the fourth point on its
agenda the examination and vote on a new Recommendation that would
replace ILO Recommendation 150 of 1975, annexed to ILO Convention 142 on
the enhancement of human resources.
It is obvious that today workers and peoples are the victims of a very
vast offensive against their social and democratic conquests, that the
sovereignty of peoples is at risk in the name of
"globalization", that is to say in the interests of powerful
financial and industrial groups. All rights conquered by the centennial
struggle of workers and peoples are threatened.
In this context it is important for the labor movement and its
organizations to appreciate whether the new recommendation submitted
carries improvements or at least the guarantees equal to the text
currently in force or if, on the contrary, it brings about new social
losses.
A process started in 2000 in the name of deregulation
The debate on the revision of Recommendation 150 was opened at the
time of the 88th session in 2000. One reads in the introduction to the
report titled "Training for employment: social inclusion,
productivity and employment of youth" that launched the debate at
the ILO, the reasons and the objectives of the revisions:
"It [Recommendation No. 150] reflects the dominant planning model
at the time of its adoption and does not grant any place to factors such
as the demand and the needs of the labor market. It provides little or
no orientation on a lot of questions that are today at the heart of the
reforms of political systems undertaken by member States: policies,
governance and regulatory setting of training; the role of parties other
than the State taking part (private sector, role of social partners,
civil societies) in the formulation of policies and the offer of
training; possibilities and diversification mechanisms of the financing
sources for training: conception of mechanisms and methods adapted to
targeting programs on specific groups; abandonment of the training
concept for the acquisitions of "qualifications" for the
profit and development and recognition of "qualifications"
that cover a whole range of knowledge tied to work, technical knowledge
and human qualities; increased need to focus training activities on the
preparation of independent workers and casual labor."
Such ia program - which allows for the unavoidable development of
unemployment and casual labor, and which places itself openly under the
sign of flexibility, of the end of qualifications and privatization --
could only conclude that "Recommendation 150 is outdated."
As soon as this process was started, the ILC provided information and
arguments for reflection about the dangers to the labor movement of this
process of revision.
In June 2003 a delegation of the ILC, mandated by an international
conference against the war and in defense of public education which
gathered militants from 21 countries, met a representative of the ACTRAV
to convey its fears regarding the reduction in qualifications.
The draft recommendation introduces new notions in the normative texts
of the ILO concerning professional training in particular (point 3 of
the draft), on education and lifelong training, on employability and
expertise. It establishes for the "social partners" (and
therefore the union organizations) the formulation of orientations that
must ensue from the revisions. It is therefore important to measure the
consequences to workers and their organizations.
Lifelong formation: perpetual job insecurity
The draft specifies (point 3):
a) The expression "education and lifelong training" includes
all activities of acquirement of knowledge undertaken throughout a
lifetime in view of development of expertise and qualifications."
To understand what is at stake it is important to take a closer look at
the report of the debates at the 88th session (in 2000), whose findings
are mentioned among the "applicable instruments of the ILO:"
It says: "The world is greatly changed; centralized savings have
yielded to market domination, information technologies are scattered,
the organization of labor evolves and the atypical work patterns are
progressively substituted for stable employment."
The end of "stable employment" and the development of
"atypical patterns" of work (all sorts of insecure
contracts-CDD, interim, qualification contracts, the development of
underestimated unemployment in official statistics, casual labor, that
is to say by definition eluding all manner of reglamentation) elevated
to the rank of strategy: that is what motivates the new strategies
regarding training.
The question posed is that of labor contract and the cost of labor. One
knows that governments and international institutions (such as OECD, the
European Union or the World Bank that have always made lifelong training
a major element of their orientations) have not stopped calling for
"structural reforms of the labor market" where the objective
is to suppress one by one the collective guarantees of the labor codes
for the benefit of unlimited flexibility.
It is not the government that seeks to impose such counter-reforms. The
labor contract would tend towards the notion of "activity."
Contracts of indeterminate length would disappear. The workers would
have to give up steady employment and have to adapt to periods of
unemployment, be at the ready to change employment, including paying all
or part of their training (that is co-financing), and to accept
everything that presents itself, including the salary that would be paid
to them. This is for example, the core of the recent "Task
Force" report for employment of the European Union.
Point 2 of the draft is not indifferent to the fact that it repeats word
for word the terms of the Charter of Cologne of the G8 (1999) that is
mentioned over and over again in preparatory reports and debates,
"Continuous training: objectives and aspirations." 1
Let us cite it: "The realization of lifelong education and training
is founded on the explicit engagement of governments to invest in and
reinforce education and training at all levels of the private sector, to
train salaried employees and people, to develop their aptitudes and
their careers."
Following this same logic, one notices that lifelong training covers a
"lifetime" and that the recommendation covers the training of
"aged workers" (point 5) at a time when counter-reforms on
retirement increase, leading to a reduction of the level of pensions and
a lengthening of the time of contribution.
Whereas the recommendation of 1975 made reference to professional
training as helping employees "to develop and use their
professional aptitudes for their own interest and in accordance with
their aspirations while taking into account the needs of society"
(point 4), to the objective of "full employment" (point 15),
to "collective conventions" (point 7), to the
"acquirement of higher qualifications leading to promotion"
(therefore an increase in salary) (point 15).
All these notions disappeared completely from the draft submitted to the
92nd session, replaced by fuzzy objectives ("secure quality
jobs" and the "development of a durable economy" point 4
of the draft.)
"Employability" and skills: individualization
The instruments to measure lifetime training would become skills and
"employability" (point 3 of the draft). For over 15 years
capitalists and governments and international institutions such as the
OECD have disseminated these notions as replacing those of qualification
and classification and the right to work and a real salary, at a time of
a marked flexibility of the labor market.
The fact that the ILO inscribes in its norms that henceforth become the
instruments shared by labor organizations and bosses as the base of
their "social dialogue" (a notion tending to supplant
collective negotiation) is what is at stake for the adoption of the new
recommendation. The fact is that for example, the European Conference of
Trade Unions (ETUC) signed a " frame of actions" with the
European employers that allows the European Commission to have a
completely free hand to dictate its recommendations on the subject in
the member States of the European Union.
As point 3 of the draft stipulates, the term "skills" covers
the knowledge, the professional aptitudes and the know how mastered and
put into practice in specific context." It is clear that the only
judge of these skills is the boss, that by definition these are criteria
of individualization predominate and that "specific context"
one could be judged competent on Monday and no longer on TuesdayFor the
employee to give permanent proof that he or she is "competent"
without that having any institutional value.
In this context, the role of qualifications (founded on titles and
diplomas recognized by public authorities and valid everywhere) is more
and more relative. Employability does not give anyone the right to
anything, especially not to a job; it is up to the individual employee
to maintain himself/herself in a state of finding or accepting a job
where the number is increasingly limited and insecure. It is always the
boss who judges whether the employee is employable, according to
profitability criteria.
It is up to the individual to take advantage of the opportunities of
education and training to find a decent job and keep it, to progress
within the company or while changing employment as well as adapting to
the changes in technology and the conditions of the labor market"
as stipulated in the draft recommendation (point 3).
Does it mean that if the employee remains unemployed it is because he or
she has been unable to take advantage of labor market conditions?
Numerous social struggles were necessary to limit competition between
employees that bosses wanted to impose for their benefit. Employability
is marching backwards: it will become increasingly difficult to
negotiate collective bargaining and salary increases for union
organizations.
It seems to us the triptych "lifelong training, skills and
employability" are employers' instruments of "management of
human resources" in order to impose individualization of social
connections in opposition to collective guarantees and insecurity and
anything else that workers should refuse to endorse.
The role of the State and public services
One can search unsuccessfully for a notion of public service in the
draft: the only time it makes reference to the "public system"
is in point 17, only to recommend "the inclusion of the guarantee
of quality in the public system and to promote the development of the
guarantee of quality in the heart of a market deprived of skills and
evaluate the benefits of education and training." This implies that
market regulation is assigned to the State.
Referring to point 5 again: "The members should (a) recognize that
education and training are right for all and in cooperation with the
social partners, to endeavor to ensure the access of all to lifetime
education and training."
No one can seriously believe that public service would be strengthened:
the notion of public education, guaranteed and financed everywhere in
accordance with the principle of equality throughout the nation is not
only not evoked, but the "right" in question opens the way in
the name of cooperation with social partners, to all manner of
privatization.
The responsibility given to the State concerning education is
particularly minimalist (point 6). It is first about the
"responsibility in the matter of education and training prior to
employment" that "includes basic obligatory education
comprising the mastery of fundamental knowledge and mechanisms of
reading, writing and mathematics and the adequate use of information and
communication technologies." Governments and employers looking for
ways to reduce public expenses and considering in consequence that one
requires too much of schools, will have nothing to say about such
limited objectives.
The question of validation of experience and skills is developed in the
draft recommendation. After having said that (point 9) "the members
would have to: find approaches to non-formal education and
training" it adds (point 12) "Some measures should be taken to
promote along with the social partners, the development, setting up and
financing of a transparent mechanism of assessment, validation and
recognition of the titles and qualifications, including the recognition
and validation of experience and skills acquired previously, in a formal
or casual manner"
Is it about delivering recognized, complete diplomas, that offer
undisputed qualification, whose value is guaranteed and recognized by
the State, taking into account in collective bargaining or move toward
an individual "booklet of skills" a sort of worker's booklet
as existed at the dawn the labor movement? Let us recall that at
present, in numerous countries, qualifications are based on titles and
diplomas given or recognized by public powers. To see what is at stake,
it is useful to recall what was said in texts prior to the ILO.
Regarding point 4 of recommendation 150 currently in force, it is
required that the training programs be "in conformity with public
training systems."
Point 24 says: "(1) Initial professional training and the
perfectioning that allows the acquisition of recognized professional
qualifications should, where possible, be governed by general norms
fixed or approved by a competent authority after consultation with
employer organizations and the workers concerned. (2) These norms should
indicate:exams and other means of confirmation of the results acquired
certificates sanctioning professional training successfully
completed."
If we go back one more time to the 1939 recommendation declared:
"The qualifications required at the end of term exams for technical
or professional studies should be fixed in a uniform manner for each
profession and certificates given following these exams should be
recognized countrywide."
In conclusion:
We are attached to the normative role of the ILO: the conventions
and recommendations played a considerable role in support of the labor
movement, for the inclusion in national legislations and work codes of
the right to organize, to collective bargaining, to health, to social
security, to education, to the setting up of public services.
The present project to revise recommendation 150 goes against progress
and the protection of workers. It is a step backward.
One could say it is a simple recommendation and that convention 142
would not be altered. But who can deny what governments and employers in
all countries will do to further deregulation, which is what they will
have obtained through the recommendation?
We therefore consider that the worker delegates should reject this new
recommendation.
We ask the office of the ACTRAV to receive a delegation before the vote
in order to be able to present our arguments.
********************
PAKISTAN
Urgent Support needed for COLORKING Printing Press Workers
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF)!
I would like to briefly introduce the All Pakistan Trade Union
Federation.
The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation is a National Trade Union Centre
in Pakistan, affiliating 240 trade unions of public and private sector
industries and commercial institutions. The informal sector unions,
brick kilns and general labourers are also a part of federation. It is
struggling hard for the uplifting of the working and living conditions
of working class as well as against the child and bonded labour; it is
also struggling against all kinds of discrimination against women.
With the help of All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, COLORKING Printing
Press Workers formed a union on April 10, 2004. The Management of
COLORKING terminated 25 workers, including union office bearers. The
workers of the factory and the leadership of APTUF are facing brutal
attacks by the employer and threats from the religious fundamentalist
group, closest friend of the employer. The factory owner, with the
collaboration of police, registered false FIR {First Investigation
Report) on June 12, 2004 against the union office bearers, and two of
them have been arrested on June 13, 2004 by the police without any
investigation.
To stop the violation of ILO Convention 98 and 87, against the inhuman
attitude of management of COLORKING Printing Press and to support the
struggle of workers, we request you to kindly send the solidarity
messages to All Pakistan Trade Union, on Email Address: <?color><?param
0000,0000,00FF>aptuf@brain.net.pk<?/color>; <?color><?param
0000,0000,00FF>rubinawwo@nexlinx.net.pk<?/color> Fax #
92-42-6686519
Our demands are the following:
- Immediately release the arrested office bearers
- Reinstate all terminated Workers
- Recognize COLORKING Printing Press Workers Union
In solidarity,
Gulzar Ahmed Chaudhary
General Secretary
All Pakistan Trade Union Federation
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