Open
World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
Decisions Adopted at the 9th Conference for the Defence of the ILO Conventions and Worker Organisations' Independence.
We, activists in the working class movement and trade unionists from
27 countries, convened here in Geneva (Switzerland) the 16th of June 2002
in a conference for the defence of ILO conventions and for worker
organisations' independence, organised by the International Liaison
Committee of Workers and Peoples,
Repeat that the International Liaison Committee of Workers and
Peoples, in organising this conference for the 9th year running, has never
had the intention of taking the place of existing worker organisations, or
national or international trade unions, represented at the ILO, or of
acting in their stead
Its aim is to encourage an exchange of experience, information and
initiatives in order to help build a common resistance front, to withstand
the international deregulation attacks on working conditions which
jeopardise the ILO conventions that have taken over more than 80 years to
set up.
We therefore consider it our duty to fraternally address our
conclusions to the ILO delegates, because it appears to us that they
concern the issues that the whole labour movement is faced with.
We submit them for open discussion and assessment so that we can all
together find the ways and means of defending the ILO conventions and the
independence of worker organisations which is closely linked to them.
We Call For an International Campaign "For Peace - Against
War"
We have heard successively Nambiath Vasudevan, General Secretary
of the Blue Star All Employees Federation and co-ordinator of the Bombay
Trade Union solidarity committee, and Rubina Jamil, president of the All
Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF).
They informed us of the common appeal launched by Indian and Pakistani
Trade Unionists to the workers of the world and all the organisations who
refuse the inevitability of a murderous fratricidal war process that the
peoples of India and Pakistan are being forced into. Ex Yugoslavia, the
Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone in Africa went through this same
process yesterday.
" We consider this appeal as ours and call for organising a
world-wide campaign for endorsement and support. It is clear that the
war-mongering declarations of the political leaders on both sides of the
Indian-Pakistani border these last days, have placed peoples in the
sub-continent and in India and Pakistan especially on the edge of the
abyss. Attacks against innocent people by fanatics led by religious hatred
as they occurred in Karachi (Pakistan) and Gujarat (India), provoking mass
slaughters, fires, plunder and inhuman actions are another element of
explosion.
We had already declared that we firmly supported peace because war is in
the benefice alone of those who produce and sell weapons for wars and
armies.
History has taught us that in the name of austerity, exploited masses and
workers are called to accept sacrifices, to sacrifice their freedom, their
democratic rights and trade union rights, as well as their past gains won
through hard struggle, to become cannon fodder, while employers will be
free to plunder and rob us.
Trade unionists coming from all over the globe, we refuse and will act in
the labour movement in our own countries against the war-mongering
hysteria of governments."
We consider this appeal as ours and call for organising a world-wide
campaign for endorsement and support. A reminder of the foreword to the
ILO constitutional chart: "Since universal and lasting peace can
only be based on social justice: since there exist working conditions that
imply such injustice, misery and deprivation for a large number of people,
that this stirs up discontent which is a threat to peace and universal
harmony".
We decide to launch immediately an international campaign, for
peace - against war, in every country, on the basis of the Indian and
Pakistani unionists appeal.
We have been informed of the International Worker Solidarity Committee's
decision to send support to the Gurajat workers through the Bombay trade
unions.
In what situation are we holding this 9th meeting?
The institutions which consider themselves as the organisers of the
global economy, admit it.
As this World Bank report for instance, which explains: "the
objectives for millennium development" established by the United
Nations "will not be attained."
This report states among other things that the number of people living
in extreme poverty in Africa has even increased. In sub Sahara Africa, the
authors of the report expect the number of persons living in extreme
poverty to increase by more than 45 millions from now till 2015. In South
Africa, an official report establishes that nearly 10 million people have
had their water and electricity cut off because they could no longer pay
their bills and 2 million have been turned out of their lodging for the
same reason.
In Russia, over the last ten years, life expectancy for men has diminished
by ten years.
In the United States, more than a million and a half jobs have been axed
over the last eight months since September 2001. And the Bush government,
as it pushes through the "Fast Track" procedure (aimed at giving
full power to the President for all "free trade" matters), which
would immediately apply to the FTAA signature, pursues its anti labour
movement and trade union policy as it proceeds to accelerate the axing of
jobs and the destruction of whole sectors of industry.
After China's entering the World Trade Organisation, 60 million people in
the country risk loosing their jobs in the immediate future. The last
International Monetary Fund report insisted that the Chinese government do
away completely with any form of protection afforded to workers being
sacked or about to be. (Report of the 24th July 2001)
In Europe, nobody contests the fact that massive unemployment is not only
stationary but that precarious jobs are on the increase each year, while
whole wedges of labour legislation, job status, collective bargaining
agreements, social insurance systems and retirement pensions are simply
shelved in the name of "liberalisation of the labour market".
All the speakers at the conference testify to the fact that the problem
facing the world, facing each country, is the all out effort to get
through these " work liberalisation" policies of deregulation,
lowering the cost of wages, getting rid of all the limits - whether they
be legal, statutory or based on collective bargaining agreements - to free
exploitation of salaried workers.
The ILO, which has during its 80 years of existence, set up standards
and conventions which establish at international level and in each country
the basis on which the labour movement has been able to found its combat,
must it also be drawn into the deregulation spiral ?
At the basis of the ILO, in its constitutive chart it is written : "the
non-adoption by any nation of a really human labour regime is an obstacle
in the way of other nations who try to improve the lot of the workers of
their own country."
This principle is now to be replaced by another "principle":
"respect in world trade of the comparative advantage of countries
with the lowest production costs", in other words of countries,
who have managed to force in the lowest wages, to dismantle all social
insurance and labour legislation while threatening democratic freedom,
basis on which these social rights were won and defended.
We have heard the report from the Liaoyang (China) delegation
We have heard the report made by Cai Chongguo for the China Labour
Bulletin. He explained the disastrous conditions created by the on-going
reforms for the working class. June one figure: Officially, the Labour
minister has registered a 20% increase of death cases due to accidents at
work. We call attention to the conventions, which at ILO level, constitute
the most concrete form of defence of democratic freedom rights: convention
N° 87 stipulates workers right to build and belong to independent trade
union organisations and convention N° 97 which stipulates the right to
collective bargaining..
These conventions are less and less respected as the last annual ICFTU
2001 report, shows: according to this report 209 trade unionists have been
assassinated or have disappeared during the year 2001 (50% more than the
preceding year) ; about 8 500 have been arrested, 3 000 wounded, more than
10 000 have suffered from harassment and nearly 20 000 have been sacked
because of trade union activity.
The conference was informed in particular of the case of China. After the
election of the official Chinese trade union to the ILO administration
board, we received the contribution of the general secretary of the Hong
Kong Confederation of Trade Unions which explains why this election
concerns the labour movement the world over.
The workers of this country are facing severe repression. The delegation
that went to Liaoyang gave the following report on the situation where the
workers have been on strike for more than two months, several of them in
prison at the present moment: "the Liaoyong workers' demands are
simple: they claim back payment for wages owed and their compensation dues
for being sacked. They demand payment of their unemployment benefits. They
have been thousands, tens of thousands, out on demonstration several
times. They have elected delegates. Up till to-day the municipal
authorities ' reply has not budged: they have refused to negotiate with
the demonstrators ; on the one hand putting things off, on the other
arresting leaders who have been freely elected by the workers. Five
activists - the five from Liaoyong - are being brought to court for "organising
illegal demonstrations". They are waiting for the case to come to
court. They are: Yao Fuxin (arrested the 17th march); Pang Qingxiang
(arrested on March 20th); Xiao Yunliang (arrested on March 20th); Wang
Zhaoming (arrested on March 20th; Gu Baoshu (arrested on April 16th,
released since but still to be brought to court."
We delegates, convened here in Geneva on the 16th of June 2002,
endorse the appeal to set up a new international delegation open to
activists in the labour and democratic movement to continue the fight for
the liberation of the five Liaoyong workers.
We demand the liberation
of the Romanian mining trade unionist Miron Cozma!
We were also informed by a Rumanian union leader of Miron Cozma,
mining union leader, being arrested and condemned to 18 years
imprisonment.
The whole of the Rumanian Trade Union movement is under target with this
anti-union repression which is intended as a warning from the government
to all trade unionists who are opposed to the dismantling of mines and
factories that the IMF demands.
Besides, this condemnation is part of a logic developing in Europe and the
world over and considering that the only legitimate trade unions are those
agreeing to support social regression plans. We have been informed of the
letter sent to us by Miron Cozma.
Consequently, we decide to support the setting up of an international
commission of inquiry which will go to Rumania in autumn 2002 to assert
our solidarity with the Romanian trade unionists.
The report back from the women workers delegation
to Mr. Somavia, head of the ILO, on June 14th
Proof has been brought forward by all the delegates: since the "declaration
of the principle of fundamental rights" ("principles",
which contrary to the conventions, are not of a compulsory nature), the
whole of the ILO system of conventions is under threat to disappear. This
would in turn ipso facto, mean a threat everywhere, to labour legislation
and the collective bargaining agreements which are linked to this.
o First of all conventions 4 and 14 which banned night work for women in
industry came under fire when convention 171 was adopted in 1990.
o Then in 1999 convention 182 was adopted " on the worst forms of
child labour", aimed in fact at replacing convention 183 which
actually bans child labour. The new convention means by "the worst
forms of labour" "work, which by nature and because of the
conditions under which it is exercised, is likely to put a child at risk
from a health, security or moral point of view." Can there be
"moral" forms of child labour ? Doesn't child labour always
imply their over exploitation ? Is n' it still just and correct to say, as
was always the position of the whole labour movement, "a child's
place is at school not in a factory !"
o In 2000, a new convention was adopted, entailing a negative
revision of convention 103 which banned all possibility of sacking working
women during their maternity leave.
The conference considers that as a result of international resistance in
favour of maintaining and ratifying convention 138, which bans child
labour, 116 states have now ratified this convention, as against 40 states
in 1999. And this in spite of pressure being brought to replace this
convention by the new one.
We consider that this is a first result encouraging us to go on
fighting for the defence and ratification of all Conventions.
Mandated by the " International Women's Conference to
Reclaim ILO Convention 103 and for the Defence of Working Women's Rights
" held in Berlin on February 21st the last, this document brought
a document reading as follows:
«We have organised an international campaign for the defence of ILO
Convention 103 to protect maternity rights for working women. ILO
Convention 103 has been "reformed." Has this "reform"
led to a better protection of maternity rights?
o In Brazil, a draft law is putting into question the Constitution,
which protects maternity rights for women at work. Trade unionists,
Members of Parliament, leaders of the Workers Party (PT) and tens of
thousands of women are campaigning against this draft law.
o In Great Britain, a campaign has been launched on the basis of a
letter to MPs in opposition to a draft law that would exclude from
maternity rights millions of women. This campaign demands that the ILO
Convention 103 be turned into a law in Great Britain.
o In Sweden, the labour movement won considerable rights for women.
These rights are being threatened. An appeal states the following: «We
are worried by the stand adopted by the Social Democrat government and the
trade unions concerning the reform of the ILO Convention 103. Our rights
are greatly threatened. More and more, employers ask women if they intend
to have children. When pregnant, they are at risk of being laid off. When
they return to work after a maternity leave, they have been replaced and
are offered lesser wages." (Š).
The oldest conventions of the ILO ban women's night work in industry. In
the name of equality between men and women, the governments of the
European Union have restored night work for women in industry. In France,
a law restored night work for women in the name of equality between men
and women.
This law underlines that night work should be exceptional, "unless
economic reasons make it necessary." A woman senator proposed,
correctly, that night work in industry should be banned for both men and
women. The government answered that this was out of the question. The
steel industries bosses have imposed an agreement which states that night
work is necessary "to maintain industrial competitiveness, to prolong
the period of use of equipment and/or because of short delays for
delivery."
Is this equality? Hardly. Is this not, rather, the will to impose and
generalise night work for women so as to thereby increase the
over-exploitation of men as women?"
We endorse the "call for maintaining and ratifying ILO
Conventions 4, 41 and 89: Restore the ban on night work for women in
industry where it has been repealed!"
We decide to publish a special account of this interview.
We call the attention of the whole world labour movement on the fact that
the women representatives of the ILO Bureau promised to answer our new
letter on the questions concerning Convention N°3 and Convention N°4 and
N°41.
Why should the Constitutional ILO Charter be modified?
We learned that the US government, through its spokesman at the ILO,
demanded that ILO dispositions be « less rigid », that existing
procedures for the ratification of conventions and the work of the yearly
assemblies be « simplified » and in a more general way, to aim at «
less regulations ».
We consider that this would mean putting in question the very nature of
Conventions, whose function is precisely to define the rights and
guarantees going with them. This would also means putting an end to the
States' prerogatives.
The conference observes beside that this is a preoccupation it has in
common with many others. For instance an amendment to the Constitutional
ILO Charter adopted in 1997 stipulates that «the Conference may, after
proposal of the Administration Board, and with a majority of two-/third of
the delegates to the Conference, repeal any adopted convention according
to the present article, if it seems to have lost any object and no longer
be useful for the implementation of the organisation's aims ».
Still it is not yet implemented, because it still has not been
ratified by the necessary 2/3 of the State members (equal to 117 out of
175). 70 States only have ratified it. The adoption or not of this
institutional reform is an important stale today. It is not only opening
the way for the general dismantling of the ILO Conventions, but it is
contradictory to the principles of peoples' sovereignty. A government
delegate indeed under-lined in the 2001 ILO session that this reform
raised « several questions concerning international public
legislation. When ratifying a Convention, the ratifying States enter a
contract relation. Therefore it is not possible for a third party possible
to put an end to this juridical relation. »
We raise the question : taking into account all the gains acquired
on the basis of the ILO Constitutional Charter, should not it be
maintained as it is ?
Vocational Training or " Lifelong Training ", What is at
Stake ?
We share the preoccupations of the teacher trade unionists concerning
the proposal included in the agenda of the ILO assembly on 2003, aiming at
modifying recommendation 150 on " vocational training ".
Vocation training would be replaced by a so-called " lifelong
training ". The interventions showed what was the fundamental
difference between these two formulations. Vocational training is linked
to the labour contract and the measures protecting workers against lay
off.
The so-called " lifelong training " is tightly linked to the «
flexibility» of working time and wages, to the reduction or even total
lack of protection against lay off. Its basic principle is that workers
should accept all their life an indefinite number and variety of jobs
interspersed with as many periods of unemployment.
The Conference proposes to organise before the beginning of 2003 an
international conference for the defence of education, of the right to
vocational training and collective bargaining conventions.
Can there be any "decent" job in the « informal
economy » ?
Many delegates expressed their worries concerning the report of the
commission set up by the on-going ILO assembly on" decent jobs and
informal economy ". One can read in this report : « our aims
is to promote decent jobs in all sectors, in informal as well as formal
economy. »
Can there exist "decent jobs" in the "informal
economy" when this report precisely underlines that it means « no
job stability (which means protection against arbitrary lay off,
regulation of employment or lay off, regular jobs in relation to economic
dynamism) ; job career (possibility of a professional career, or to give
value to one's job by getting new qualifications) ; job security
(protection against accidents at work and professional illnesses through
regulations on health and security, limitation of work hours, etc.) ;
security in developing one's qualification (multiplication of
possibilities of obtaining or developing one's qualifications by modern
means, apprenticeship or vocational training) ; guaranteed income
(guarantee of a living wage) ; and security of representation (protection
of collective expression on the labour market through independent trade
unions, employer unions and institutions for social dialogue). »
Can there be "decent" jobs while not avoiding any of these
scourges? Is it right to say that the reasons for the development of
informal labour are «fundamentally (Š) the juridical and
institutional obstacles making it difficult, or even impossible, for firms
and workers to integrate the formal economy » ?
This report is right to qualify "informal" jobs as
"activities" which are neither acknowledged nor registered or
protected or ruled by public powers.
In short, overexploited, irregular employment which would be in
contradiction with the very principles founding the ILO and labour
organisations. Besides, the report notes the expansion on all continents
of this deregulated employment. In Africa alone, over 90% of new
"jobs" are created in the informal economy. And this not true
only in the poorest countries. In developed countries too, there is a "growing
flexibilisation and informalisation of production and labour
relations."
Is not the real challenge raised by informal labour its
eradication?
Can one talk about "legal status" when informal economy as a
rule is outside laws? Can one talk about " social protection "
for all (in formal or informal sectors) when the report underlines an
unavoidable reality: « Public powers should provide informal economy
actors with a kind of access to all the potential services of a
responsible State, from basic infrastructure to social security inside and
outside :all these services must be financed mostly taxes on formal
economy. »
Should not one conclude that the ILO « cannot help à "promote"
or "develop" the informal sector in such or such country
as an easy and cheap mean to create jobs »? (1991 Report on Informal
Economy)
This is the meaning of the intervention of a workers representative at
the 2001 international assembly concerning social protection: « Many
workers in the informal economy have deregulated activities, with no
security and no decent income. One should help these workers to obtain a
secure job freely chosen in the formal economy. We should not accept
structures contributing to maintain informal labour. »
We therefore draw the attention of the delegates to the following
issue: in various " social forums, " informal labour has been
praised and given for the occasion a new name: " solidarity
economy", " popular economy ". Is it far reached a
conclusion to say that the only aim of this is to associate trade unions
to the management of informal labour and turn them into NGOs ?
We raise the la question : Is not the real challenge raised by informal
labour its eradication? Implementation of all ILO conventions, as a
leaning point for the implementation of Labour codes, of tall the rights
linked to social protection, this is the way to reduce informal labour.
Legal means for that do exist, especially those defined by convention 81
on labour inspection, ratified by 128 pays.
Welcome message by Swiss trade unionists and elected officials
The conference registers the fact that everywhere, a genuine will to
resist and defend independent labour organisations against this
generalised deregulation offensive.
We heard the declaration of the Swiss trade unionists and elected
officials concerning « the recent initiatives of resistance of the
Swiss labour movement against deregulation.
o Thus in the building sector, although the general tendency is to later
retirement age, building workers and their trade union, the SIB, have just
made the demonstration that it was possible not only to resist, but also
to impose a historical gain. They imposed retirement departure age at 60,
when the legal age in Switzerland is 65 for men and 63 for women.
Building workers want to retire at 60 because working 40 years on building
site is quite enough !But in the present climate of social dismantling,
one cannot obtain such a social progress social without struggle. The
renewal of the signature of the collective bargaining convention in the
main part of the building sector in Switzerland was the occasion for this
strong mobilisation (Š).
On March 16th, 2002, two days before the decisive negotiation meeting,
the SIB organised a great national demonstration in Berne. 12 000 workers
of the building sector and more participated in this initiative. Their
determination showed that the general strike at the national level
prepared by the SIB was possible and probable. This certainly led the
employers to finally accept the SIB scheme for anticipated retirement. »
Decision to publish a bulletin of exchange and discussion
We consider that we can draw first conclusions of our exchange:
The path allowing workers to reclaim their rights and win new ones is not
drawn in advance. Unity is a necessity.
The 9th Conference organised by the International Liaison Committee of
Workers and Peoples gathered worker activists and leaders who do not
necessarily agree on all questions. This is a question of democracy. Still
we all of us consider that the emancipation struggle of workers never can
be dissociated from :
o The struggle for the defence of all social and political gains won by
class struggle, and especially of the ILO Conventions;
o The struggle for the defence of labour organisations' independence as
organisations defending the "specific interests" of all those
whose labour force is exploited by the owners of productive means ;
o The right of peoples to decide by themselves according to their own
interest against any policy or dictate which jeopardise labour and
democratic gains.
We therefore think that fully free discussion is absolutely necessary
between all those who claim to fight for the social and political
emancipation of peoples.
As a consequence we decide to publish a quarterly bulletin of discussion
in order to establish a continuity in our activity in defence of ILO
conventions and labour organisations' independence.