Open
World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
|
Open Letter to All the Heads of State Attending the
World Trade Organization Summit in Seattle:
The Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Must Be Ratified, Implemented and Fully Enforced in Every Country!
Dear Heads of State and Government:
We, the undersigned trade union leaders, union activists and supporters of labor rights the world over, address you this Open Letter on the occasion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Summit in Seattle in November 1999.
In recent months, U.S. President Bill Clinton and the heads of state of the G8 countries have issued countless declarations professing the need to uphold workers' rights in all "free trade" pacts and to put a "human face on the global economy."
As trade unionists and supporters of labor rights, we have reached the conclusion - based on years of bitter experience - that the "free trade" agreements and Structural Adjustment Programs promoted by the WTO, as well as by the IMF and World Bank:
o are an assault upon our rights and upon our working and living conditions, and stand as barriers to social progress and democracy,
o elevate the multinational corporations and their interests above those of the peoples of each country,
o have, at their core, the aim of destroying our public services, collective bargaining agreements, and national labor codes,
o are an assault on our right to employment, insofar as they destroy jobs for the many while creating work for only a few,
o are a means through which the governments and employers seek to undermine the independence of trade unions that stand for the defense of working people and our interests.
As trade unionists and activists, we consider that any government leader that today professes to uphold and defend workers' rights must begin by ensuring that his or her own country ratifies, implements and fully enforces the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The ILO, which was founded in 1919, has codified into 176 ILO Conventions the gains won through struggle by the workers' movement over the past century. When a country ratifies a Convention of the ILO, it must bring its own national legislation into conformity with the ILO convention. The substance of the ILO convention therefore becomes the law of the land.
These ILO Conventions have set the standard for labor rights worldwide. On every continent they have laid the basis for national labor legislation and labor codes - all which are under assault today in the name of "globalization."
In June 1998 - under pressure from the WTO and IMF to create a "less constraining framework for ensuring international labor standards" - the ILO adopted a new "Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work." The principles and rights promoted in this declaration correspond to seven of the existing ILO Conventions. On June 20, 1999, the G8 Summit in Cologne, Germany, issued a communiquŽ pledging to "promote effective implementation" of this new ILO declaration.
We, the undersigned, state categorically: If this ILO "Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work" is to be of any value to working people the world over, the seven corresponding Conventions of the ILO must be ratified, implemented and enforced fully by every government participating in the WTO Summit in Seattle!
These seven core ILO Conventions are:
1. ILO Convention 87 concerning freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize (1948)
2. ILO Convention 98 concerning the right to organize and to bargain collectively (1949)
3. ILO Convention 29 on forced labor (1930)
4. ILO Convention 105 banning forced labor (1957)
5. ILO Convention 100 on equal wages for work of equal value (1951)
6. ILO Convention 111 on discrimination in employment (1958)
7. ILO Convention 138 on the abolition of child labor (1973).
We will not accept any substitutes for the existing conventions of the ILO. We will not accept support for hollow principles and rights at work detached from concrete implementation in national labor legislation. We will not accept any watered-down agreements.
Finally, we wish to issue a special appeal to the government that is hosting the November 1999 WTO Summit - that is, the U.S. government:
U.S. officials proclaim loudly in every international arena that the United States is a staunch defender of workers' rights. Bill Clinton addressed the yearly assembly of the ILO in June 1999, where he trumpeted his support for the new ILO "Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work."
But the truth of the matter is that the U.S. record on workers' rights is abysmal.
On July 14, 1999, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) issued a 15-page report [see attachment below] that fully documents the "massive, ongoing, and appalling violations in the United States of the right to freedom of association and the right to organize."
"The United States," the report continues, "has ratified only one of the seven core labor standards - ILO Convention 105 opposing forced labor. ... This is one of the worst ratification records in the world."
The ICFTU report reviews in great detail how the core ILO conventions - including those on child labor, forced labor, discrimination in the workplace, and the right to strike - are violated daily in the United States. The ICFTU report concludes with these words:
We, the undersigned, fully concur with this ICFTU report and its conclusions. Any government that pretends to uphold workers' rights must begin by ratifying the Conventions of the ILO!
This Open Letter was prepared by the Organizing Committee of the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights (OWC), which will be held in San Francisco in February of 2000 with the participation of trade unionists and activists from 74 countries. The call to organize an international campaign to ratify the ILO conventions was first issued by the Seventh Annual Meeting of Trade Unionists in Defense of the ILO Conventions, held in June 1999 in Geneva at the time of the yearly assembly of the ILO. The meeting was convened by the heads of 17 African trade union federations and the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC). The ILC is a co-sponsor of the OWC, along with the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) and the Continuations Committee of the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations (WHC).
The Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Must Be Ratified, Implemented and Fully Enforced in Every Country!
Initial list of Signatories: Organizing Committee of the OWC: Jack Henning, Secretary-Treasurer-Emeritus, California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO); Walter Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer, San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO); Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC-AFL-CIO); Mya Shone, Co-Coordinator OWC and member OPEIU Local 3; Ed Rosario, Co-Coordinator OWC, Coordinator WHC and President, San Francisco LCLAA; Daniel Gluckstein, Coordinator, International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC); Patrick HŽbert, General Secretary, CGT-Force Ouvrire Labor Federation (Loire-Atlantique/France); Nancy Wohlforth, Secretary-Treasurer, OPEIU Local 3 (AFL-CIO); Frank Martin del Campo, National Executive Committee, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA); Alan Benjamin, Assistant Coordinator WHC, member OPEIU Local 3 and SF LCLAA.
Note: The letter above was presented at a press conference in Seattle on December 1, with an attached list of 3876 signatures from 46 countries. A large number of signatories represented trade union federations and union locals. For a full list of signatories, please contact the OWC Organizing Committee in San Francisco.
On July 14, 1999, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) issued a report slamming the United States' "appalling record on workers' rights and calling on the U.S. to ratify the core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
It is worth examining in greater detail the content of this 15-page ICFTU report, which was issued the same day the WTO released its trade policy review on the United States.
The ICFTU press release that summarizes the report states in part:
"Violations in the United States of the right to freedom of association and the right to organize, are 'massive, ongoing, and appalling.' ... 'It is shocking to see that in the United States both government and employers harass and persecute those who exercise their rights at work,' said the ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan.
"The United States has ratified only one of the seven core labor standards, which cover the right to organize a trade union, to bargain, the prohibition of discrimination and child labor, as specified by the UN's International Labor Organization (ILO). This is one of the worst ratification records in the world, says the ICFTU."
The ICFTU report details how the right to freedom of association and collectively bargaining are severely restricted.
The ICFTU goes on to report on discrimination at work in the United States:
The ICFTU continues its report with a section of child labor and forced labor:
The ICFTU report then concludes:
The ICFTU report fails to mention a fundamental workers' right that is being trampled upon daily in the United States - and that is the right to strike. While there is no ILO convention that upholds explicitly the right to strike, ILO jurisprudence has established that the right to strike is covered by ILO Conventions 87 and 98. The ILO's Commission on Freedom of Association (CFA), in fact, has ruled that the United States persistently violates the workers' right to strike. The CFA has taken issue, in particular, with the hiring of permanent striker "replacements" and the various laws restricting workers' rights to picket.
"The United States needs to take a series of far-reaching measures to establish genuine respect for core labor standards in the United States. In areas of compelling violations, ILO Conventions 87 (Freedom of Association) and 98 (Right to Organize) should be ratified and the country's laws brought into conformity with these Conventions, because major reforms are needed to protect workers who try to organize and bargain collectively from employer interference and intimidation.
"The United States should also ratify Conventions 100 and 111 against Discrimination, Convention 138 on Child Labor, and Convention 29 on Forced labor, and work to put these Conventions into full effect."
ATTACHMENT
SUMMARY OF THE ICFTU REPORT ON WORKERS' RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
"[F]orty percent of American public service workers - nearly seven million - are denied the right to collective bargaining. Over two million federal government employees are denied the right to strike and to bargain over hours, wages, or economic benefits. ...
"In the private sector, workers are not adequately protected from employer interference in the fundamental right of workers to organize a union. Where limited protections exist, penalties for this form of corporate lawlessness are often weak and ineffective. At least one in ten union supporters campaigning to form a union is sacked illegally each year. Employees who support trade unions are often harassed, intimidated, and isolated from other workers. Many employers use consultants, detectives and security firms in anti-union campaigns.
"In addition to trying to block union organizing, many companies attempt to destroy unions where they exist. Unfortunately, enforcement of protections for worker rights which exist in the law is weak, both because penalties are light and because procedures are long and often difficult. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which administers the law covering most industrial relations in the private sector, has a backlog of 25,000 cases. For example, it took 62 workers who were fired in 1979, 19 years to receive financial compensation.
"Union representatives are often threatened with arrest when they try to help workers organize unions and are denied access to the workplace. Union solidarity is restricted by the law which makes secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes illegal.
"When workers vote to have a union, employers regularly challenge the results. For example, 5,000 workers at the Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans are still being denied the right to form a union, although they voted for one in 1993.
"An increasing number of employers deliberately provoke strikes to get rid of trade unions. In 1995, Detroit News and Knight Ridder unlawfully provoked a strike involving 2,600 employees. The newspapers were ordered to reinstate the striking workers by the NLRB, but have appealed against the decision and are still refusing to rehire most of them. Other companies have locked out workers as part of a strategy to destroy unions.
"Multinational companies refuse to bargain in good faith or drag out and delay the process. For example, the German multinational Continental Tire, after not seriously engaging in bargaining, hired permanent replacements for striking workers at its facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. This practice of permanently replacing strikers has a devastating effect on industrial relations. The threat of permanent replacement is used to scare workers during organizing campaigns, to intimidate them at the bargaining table, and as a tool to eliminate union representation altogether."
"Surprisingly, for a country where the law provides for equal rights regardless of race, sex, age or religion, the United States has ratified neither ILO Conventions 100 nor 111, which deal with discrimination at work.
"Also, in a country with such a high proportion of female workers - the percentage now stands at 45% - women on average earn only 75% of men's earnings, Black women 65% of men's earnings, and Hispanic women, 57%."
"Again, surprisingly for a government which has taken a strong stand against child labor internationally, it has not ratified ILO Convention 138 itself, banning child labor. A 1997 survey, based on federal government data, found that 290,000 children were working illegally. 14,000 were under the age of 14, and some nine-year-olds were working in garment sweatshops.
"There are also a large number of children of migrant workers, whom the survey was not able to document fully, the majority of whom work in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. This sector is one of the most dangerous, and between 400 and 600 children working in agricultural suffer work-related injuries, and many are killed in accidents each year.
"Regarding forced labor, the United States has ratified one out of the two ILO Conventions dealing with forced labor (No. 105). However there is evidence of a considerable amount of prison labor being carried out for profit by the prison authorities, which prisoners are penalized for refusing.
"Prisoners work for between $0.23 and $1.15 a day in sectors including telemarketing and telephone reservation systems for hotels and airlines (including Trans World Airlines, which uses prison labor extensively). They also work in computer circuit board assembly, clothing, and food. At least three states are exporting prison-make goods.
"Prisoners who refuse to work lose their chance of early release, are deprived of privileges or sent to high-security prisons and may be locked up in their cells as a punishment.
"The United States needs to take a series of far-reaching measures to establish genuine respect for core labor standards in the U.S. In areas of compelling violations, ILO Conventions 87 (Freedom of Association) and 98 (Right to Organize) should be ratified and the country's laws brought into conformity with these Conventions, because major reforms are needed to protect workers who try to organize and bargain collectively from employer interference and intimidation.
"The United States should also ratify Conventions 100 and 111 against Discrimination, Convention 138 on Child Labor, and Convention 29 on Forced labor, and work to put these Conventions into full effect."
Return to Open World Conference Return to Home