Volume 10, No.3 - May 2001

A victory for all the people

International

 

 

ICFTU launches a new global campaign to Stop Child Labour

Governments and employers world-wide will be pressured into taking stronger steps to eradicate child labour or else face international criticism, says the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), who, on 30 March, launched a major two-year campaign in a fresh impetus to stop this practice.

"Despite numerous promises by governments and multinationals to stop child labour, to this day 250 million children are working, 125 million of them have never seen inside a class room, and while at work a frightening number of working children are affected by numerous hazards. The situation must be brought to halt", says Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the ICFTU.

The ICFTU's 221 affiliates worldwide, and the International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) representing the different industrial sectors, will pressure governments and multinationals to tackle as a priority the most hazardous and exploitative forms of child labour, where children have to work in appalling conditions, risking their health as a result of long working hours and operating dangerous machinery.

"We have had enough of words. We want action", continues Bill Jordan. The ICFTU's Campaign will pressure governments to enforce laws on education and to ratify and fully apply International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions 138 and 182 (on the minimum age to work and on the worst forms of child labour).

Companies identified as resorting to child labour will be exposed and called on to abandon the practice at once, and pay for the full rehabilitation and education of the child labourers. International institutions will be invited to adopt non-child labour clauses in their programmes and join the ILO's efforts to address the scourge.

The ICFTU's affiliates and the ITSs kicked off the campaign by sending a petition around the world, calling on governments, employers and international institutions to take measures to get children out of work and into school. This will be presented to representatives of governments at the UN General Assembly Special Session on the Rights of the Child in September 2001.

Sectors to be targeted include agriculture, where more than two-thirds (70%) of all working children are found, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, domestic and other "personal services".

Campaign teams on all five continents will work closely with the ILO and NGOs and build community alliances. The ICFTU will carefully monitor their work.

The petition urges employers to stop hiring children and take the children who are working out of work, rehabilitate them and bring them to school.

The campaign will link the elimination of child labour to the observance of other fundamental rights at work, focussing on providing decent jobs for adults and respecting the right of workers to organise unions and bargain for better wages and conditions.

"While millions of children are working, millions of adults are unemployed or do not earn enough to make a living," says Bill Jordan. "That is why we are convinced that one way to stop child labour is to ensure that their parents have access to decent jobs, decent wages and that their right to join and form unions is respected.

"The only guarantee to end the use of child labour is if workers themselves can ensure through trade union organisations that proper practices and conditions prevail day in and day out, and this requires recognition of the fundamental right to organise and engage in collective bargaining".

The campaign also seeks to make the elimination of child labour part of a wider effort to promote corporate social responsibility among multinational enterprises (MNEs), which play a major role in the world economy and have influence over public policy.

"Almost every multinational represented on the high street is guilty of profiting from child labour," says Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers' Federation. "They may not employ children directly but they are invariably doing so through their sub-contractors. MNEs must accept their responsibilities and realise that they cannot demand world-class standards whilst paying sweatshop prices.

" There are now nine pioneering framework agreements between ITSs and MNEs. Which include banning the use of child labour, linked with the observance of other fundamental workers' rights, including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

Public Services International, working with the ICFTU and others, has been researching the use of child labour in the production of surgical instruments. It is engaging in contacts with the MNEs that distribute them, as well as engaging its network of affiliates in the health-care sector who represent people using these goods. PSI affiliates will build specific recommendations into agreements they reach with health ministries, purchasing organisations, hospitals, corporate suppliers, trade associations, etc.

Their aim is to apply international pressure on employers and their subcontractors, and/or to strengthen child labour elimination and trade union rights programmes already underway.

The ICFTU will produce a wide range of campaign materials which will be available on its website (http://www.icftu.org), including posters, leaflets, the petition and various publications and surveys on child labour. For more information, contact ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224 0232 or +32 476 62 10 18.

What is Southern Africa doing to end child labour?

More than 40 countries, including Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe, have now ratified the International Convention to Eliminate Child Labour.

The convention has secured "the fastest ratification rate of any convention in the ILO's 81-year history", following its unanimous adoption by the International Labour Conference in June 1999. It came into force on 19 November.

Through the convention, the ILO seeks to end labour that harms the health, morals or psychological well-being of children and that is "likely to severely impede a child's normal growth into adulthood".

Five forms of exploitative labour that children have been forced into are:

About 80 million of the world's 250 million child workers are in Africa. Close to 60 million of them work in the "worst forms of child labour".

In war-torn Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for instance, there have been allegations that the warring parties are recruiting children as soldiers, one of the worst forms of exploitation. The two countries have not ratified the convention.

Elsewhere in the region, poverty has led to the exploitation of children through child prostitution and their employment in farms. The advent of the killer disease AIDS has also meant that orphans left behind in the aftermath of the affliction have had to fend for themselves.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its acceptance by so many countries has heightened recognition of the fundamental human dignity of all children and the urgency of ensuring their well-being and development. It makes clear that a basic quality of life should be the right of all children, rather than a privilege enjoyed by a few.

When countries ratify the convention, they agree to review their laws relating to children, assess their social services, legal, health and educational systems, and levels of funding for these services.

The convention protects children from economic exploitation and from work that is hazardous to their health or interferes with their education. There is however nothing to prohibit parents from expecting their children to help out at home in ways that are safe and appropriate to their age.

At times, children's help can also be essential in the running of a family farm or business. However, if they involve their children in such work, parents must be aware of the laws that regulate child labour in their countries. If children help out in a family farm or business, the Convention requires that the tasks they do be safe and suited to their level of development.

"Children's work should not jeopardize any of the other rights guaranteed by the Convention, including the right to education, or the right to rest, leisure, play and recreation," says the official website of the UN Children's organisation, Unicef.

More killings in Colombia

Following the killings of two trade unionists in Colombia, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has protested vigorously against the appalling circumstances in which they were killed in a letter to President Andres Pastrana.

The victims, Balmore Locarno and Jaime Orcasitas, respectively President and Vice-President of the union at the mining firm Drummond Ltd, were gunned down by paramilitary forces, thought to be the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), after being dragged out of a bus taking them to work at the coal mine. Drummond Ltd operates the coal mine of El Cerrejon, the largest open cast mine in Colombia and one of the largest in the world. Yesterday's assassinations are being seen as part of a long campaign by the country's far right movement to silence labour leaders who speak out against them.

The ICFTU warned that this steep increase in violent attacks against trade unionists would, if continued, leave it with no alternative but to resume its campaign for the appointment of a special ILO Commission of Inquiry, one of the strongest measures available to the ILO.

The ILO Governing Body will soon examine the 2nd report of the ILO Director General's Special Representative for Colombia, appointed in June 2000 as a compromise which allowed the Colombian government to temporarily avoid the scrutiny of an international judicial investigation into violence against the country's trade union movement.

A total of 129 Colombian unionists were killed in 2000. The ICFTU's affiliate, the CTC (Confederation of Colombian Workers), and the country's largest national union centre, CUT, have both called for an increase in resources for the Special Representative's office in Bogota.

For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department at +32 2 224 0210

New Violence Against Locked-Out Jakarta Shangri-La Workers!

Statement by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

In Jakarta, Indonesia, violence against the locked-out Shangri-La Hotel workers and their union is escalating. Police on 17 March brutally assaulted demonstrating workers who had assembled peacefully as the hotel reopened with minimal staff and few guests. Twenty union members were injured by police, including a pregnant hotel restaurant worker who miscarried in hospital as a result.

Workers have been locked out since 22 December 2000 in a conflict over basic trade union rights. Hundreds of members of our Indonesian affiliate FSPM have been threatened with the permanent loss of their jobs unless they resign from the union.

Throughout the conflict, management has used violence, police action and intimidation, lawsuits (the hotel owners have hit the union with a US$13.8 million damages suit) and mass dismissals of union members to beat the workers into submission. But their most potent weapon is hunger.

Pay for the illegally locked-out workers has been withheld for the last two months to starve the workers into surrender. Workers have not been paid for February and March, and many saw little or no pay in January. The January pay check of union president Halilintar Nurdin amounted to 30 US cents (R2.40) after deductions, including payment on a bank loan that is automatically deducted from his wages!

The young union has no strike fund to ward off the hunger facing the workers and their families. Eviction of workers from their living quarters has begun, and many are having difficulty paying theior children's school expenses.

The Shangri-La reopened with a reduced staff of scabs on 17 March, but the occupancy rate is less than 5%, with most of the guests invited by management. The union continues to organize regular protests outside the hotel despite the strong police presence. The union is committed to keeping up the struggle and the workers are confident they can outlast management and return to work with their rights guaranteed in a collective agreement. Pressure on the Indonesian government is urgently needed to bring management back to the bargaining table to resolve the dispute. But to continue the fight they need to eat!

The IUF therefore appeals to all its members and supporters, as a matter of urgency, to contribute to the IUF Emergency Rice Fund for the Shangri-La Workers. We need to raise at least US$ 9-10,000 monthly over the next 2-3 months to help sustain the strikers while their sisters and brothers in Indonesia and the IUF internationally work to promote a settlement of the dispute.

Please send your contribution today to the IUF secretariat. Payment can be made in US dollars to the IUF's dollar account: Account number 246.750.31.00.90.0 Banque Coop Place Longemalle 6-8 CH-1200 Genève Switzerland

Kindly send copies to the secretariat of any bank transfer you might make, and clearly mark them as for the IUF Shangri-La Emergency Rice Fund. We thank you in advance for your solidarity and support.