Jun 2, 2021
A police crackdown against Lesotho garment workers protesting a two-year delay in scheduled minimum wage increases resulted in two fatalities in Maseru, the capital, last week. Pitso Mothala and Motselisi Ramasa died as police fired into the crowd. Many more workers were injured.
The deaths come after two weeks of escalating state-sponsored attempts to use shootings, beatings and arrests to force thousands of the country’s 50,000 garment workers to return to their factories. Meanwhile, government ministries have rejected union attempts to negotiate an end to protests and are still refusing to provide garment workers with the wage increases they need to sustain themselves and their families through the COVID-19 pandemic, reports United Textile Employees (UNITE).
“We want justice for our brutal[ally] killed comrades and we shall forever make sure that their blood is not in vain,” says a UNITE media release that identifies the two slain garment workers by name. Garment workers remain at home this week while the country’s armed forces continue to patrol the industry, reports the union.
The country’s unions are refusing to return to work until the government makes good on two missed incremental minimum wage increases—for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022—that have been delayed indefinitely.
Lesotho has a long history of human rights violations against political and labor activists, including police violence against peacefully striking factory workers rallying for fair wages last year. The 45th annual U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Human Rights report on Lesotho found that members of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service and Lesotho Defense Force last year committed numerous human rights abuses, including “unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions [and] arbitrary arrest or detention.”
May 19, 2021
In a demonstration of Lesotho’s widely reported troubled human rights record, peacefully protesting garment workers rallying since Friday for two promised, but indefinitely delayed, minimum wage increases were met on Monday in the capital, Maseru, and surrounding areas with police violence and intimidation.
“Eight workers today were hospitalized after being shot at with rubber bullets and—in one instance—live rounds,” reported National Clothing Textile and Allied Workers Union (NACTWU) General Secretary Sam Mokhele to the Solidarity Center.
Unions say the government deployed special forces, with police shooting 12 people—including two children, ages 7 and 9—in Maputsoe and Maseru, and beating and arresting others.
“Our garment worker members, with whom we are already addressing rampant gender-based violence in their factories, want the world to know that their peaceful rallies in support of scheduled wage increases were met with outsize police violence,” says Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho (IDUL) Deputy General Secretary May Rathakan.
Lesotho’s unions, including garment workers, are imploring the government to make good on two missed incremental minimum wage increases—for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022—that were due to be implemented by government gazette publication on April 1 but have been delayed indefinitely.
“These acts had exposed the workers to absolute poverty because their current salaries cannot address their needs,” says United Textile Employees (UNITE) General Secretary Solong Senohe in a media statement.
Six private-sector Lesotho unions warned almost two weeks ago of a possible work stoppage starting last Friday should promised minimum wage increases continue to be delayed. In addition to IDUL, NACTWU and UNITE, the Construction, Mining and Quarry Trade Union (CMQ), Lentsoe La Sechaba Trade Union (LESWA) and the Lesotho Workers Association (LEWA) also protested.
Lesotho has a long history of human rights violations against political and labor activists, including police violence against peacefully striking factory workers rallying for fair wages last year. The 45th annual United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Human Rights report on Lesotho found that members of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service and Lesotho Defense Force last year committed numerous human rights abuses, including “unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions [and] arbitrary arrest or detention.”
Solidarity Center Africa Regional Program Director Christopher Johnson says: “State violence in response to garment workers’ legitimate and peaceful demands for a livable minimum wage flies in the face of human rights norms.”
The right to strike has been enshrined in the constitutions of at least 90 countries and “has in effect become customary international law,” said UN rights expert and former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Maina Kiai in 2017, citing global and regional instruments that include ILO Convention No. 87 (Articles 3, 8 and 10), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 8), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 22), the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 11), and the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 16).
May 17, 2021
A Kyiv mine worker rally protesting $71 million wage theft by state-owned coal-mining enterprises last week resulted in multiple concessions from the country’s Ministry of Energy. These included:
- Transferring more than $30 million on May 12 to state-owned coal mining companies’ accounts to pay back wages
- Directly paying back wages from the first three months of this year to non-industrial employees
- Committing to meeting regularly with the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine (NPGU) to strategize on the industry’s future
- Working with the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine (NPGU) to appropriately address low coal prices—including working toward a total ban on electricity and coal imports from Russia and Belarus, where oligarch control and failure to respect internationally accepted worker rights enables the low coal prices that are pushing Ukraine’s miners out of work.
“People who work in dangerous conditions, risk their lives every day and whose work depends on the country’s energy security must not be humiliated” said NPGU Chairperson Mykhailo Volynets during the rally.
The May 12 rally, which was located near Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Kyiv office, brought together more than 500 mine workers from Donetsk, Luhansk, Lviv and Volyn. Protestors asserted Ukraine citizens’ constitutional right to renumeration for work performed, highlighted the difficult conditions for families of miners suffering wage theft and demanded postponement of labor-related draft laws that would eliminate labor and trade union rights. The rally follows on the heels on an 11-day protest last year over the same issues.
Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said that, going forward, his ministry is committed to regular meetings with energy sector union leaders and miners to address long-term problems. “We are always open to dialogue and discussion of transformation concepts… But, for this, we need to work out mechanisms for constant normal communication,” he said.
In recognition of the Ministry of Energy’s concessions, NPGU suspended the protest. However, warned Volynets: “[T]he miners are ready to return with protests if the authorities, the government, the new Minister of Energy do not listen.”
May 11, 2021
The International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) is urging more than 25 Africa-based affiliates to use the results of a new survey documenting the suffering of Africa’s domestic workers and their dependents during the pandemic to lobby their governments for urgent reform. Conducted by domestic workers with 3,419 of their peers in 14 African countries from November 2020 through January 2021, the survey found that only 17 percent of respondents received emergency income, food or other state-provided social support—and that most of that number received such support through another household member because they were not themselves eligible.
“It’s one thing to lose your job, it’s another thing to lose your job in a context where you don’t have access to unemployment benefits, social security or any income support,” says IDWF Lead Research Associate Louisa Acciari and post-doctoral researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “I think this is something where the unions can really campaign at the national level to get more inclusive social protection policies.”
Only 6 percent of those unable to work received employer-provided wages, while almost one-third of survey respondents were laid off—85 percent of whom were the main family breadwinner. They received no severance pay and remained out of work for up to six months. Nearly half of survey respondents suffered income reduction that had a dramatic impact on their household and was exacerbated by rising food and transportation costs.
During a recent event, IDWF leaders urged affiliates to use survey data in national campaigns lobbying their governments for inclusion of domestic workers in unemployment, health insurance, injury and illness compensation, and pension schemes, and for ratification of ILO Conventions ILO Conventions 189 on Domestic Workers and 190 on Violence and Harassment.
“Now we have an additional tool to fight until we get our rights, our social protections. People will remember what we say if they hear us saying [it] with numbers,” said IDWF General Secretary Elizabeth Tang.
More than 25 IDWF affiliates conducted peer-to-peer surveys in English, French, Portuguese and multiple local languages in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
“Through it all, the IDWF has shown the world that we are united,” said IDWF President and General Secretary of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU). “There is much more to be done.”
Based on survey findings, IDWF recommendations include that governments:
- Conduct awareness-raising campaigns regarding occupational health and safety standards, worker rights and employer responsibilities
- Distribute personal protective equipment at key access points such as bus and taxi stands
- Introduce price controls
- Expand income-support measures to domestic workers
- Extend contributory social insurance to domestic workers
- Where absent, introduce contributory unemployment benefits for domestic workers
- Ratify ILO Conventions 189 and 190 and adopt complementary national legislation for implementing an appropriate enforcement framework
- Adopt legislative reforms to ensure effective expansion of social protection to domestic workers.
“The Impact of COVID-19 on Domestic Workers of Africa” survey is part of a global IDWF research project that includes Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa. Around the world, the pandemic has vastly widened gender, racial and economic divisions. CEOs have raked in record profits during the pandemic, and 8 of the 10 wealthiest people in the world have grown billions of dollars richer over the past year. On the other side, domestic workers, agricultural workers, trash collectors, street vendors and a growing number of gig workers employed through app-based services were recognized as essential over the last year and hailed as heroes, yet are among the most economically undervalued and underserved. The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020, equivalent to more than the combined GDP of 98 countries, said Oxfam last month.
The Solidarity Center partners with the IDWF around the world, supporting domestic workers’ efforts to access their rights. As of April 2021, the IDWF has 81 affiliates from 63 countries.
Apr 28, 2021
Women working in South African mines “at times confront danger, violence and indignity in their work environments,” where gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) appears both widespread and normalized, according to a new report from the Solidarity Center and South Africa-based Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).
The report, “What Happens Underground Stays Underground: A Study of Experiences of Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Harassment of Women Workers in the South African Mining Industry,” found that while verbal harassment is most common, women mineworkers also face requests for sexual favors in exchange for physical labor or for promotions, transfers or changes in work schedules. And sexual assault and harassment can occur both above and below ground at mines.
GBVH in the mining sector can be attributed to a range of complex political, social and economic factors, including:
- The dark and isolated nature of underground mines makes GBVH more likely, and monitoring and supervision of workers and evidence collection more difficult.
- South Africa’s dominant patriarchal social norms are exacerbating reporting barriers by enabling a culture of silence and victimization and the economic dependency of women on men.
- Women working within the numerically and culturally male-dominated sector are outnumbered and often subordinated in their personal security and professional development.
- Some business strategies are undermining the well-being of women workers in the mining industry, such as the outsourcing of female worker recruitment, which can expose recruits to sexual exploitation by gatekeepers of lucrative jobs, and the failure to accommodate women in the design and placement of facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms, bus stops and elevators, which leaves women vulnerable to violence and harassment.
The report’s findings and recommendations are based on interviews conducted in Cape Town, Johannesburg, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Rustenburg and Wonderkop last year with former and current women mineworkers and representatives of women’s structures within mining unions, including the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Wits (CALS), the South African Gender Equality Commission, the South African Human Rights Commission and the Wits Mining Institute. All women mineworker interviewees chose to remain anonymous, to protect their safety and jobs.
“Women mineworkers, striving to support their families, live a troubling reality—one that comes at great cost to their physical and mental well-being. The stakes are high, and the failure to prevent GBVH amounts to granting tacit permission to perpetrators,” according to the report.
Lead report researcher Sheila B. Keetharuth—who previously served on the United Nations team of international experts on the Kasai, Democratic Republic of Congo—says that the lower proportion of female workers in the mining sector in South Africa is, “a recipe for disaster that necessitates easily accessible and trustworthy reporting mechanisms as provided for in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”
The International Labor Organization two years ago adopted Convention 190, the first global binding treaty to address GBVH in the world of work. The treaty calls on governments, employers and unions to work together to confront the root causes of GBVH, including the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, gender stereotypes and unequal gender-based power relationships. South Africa has yet to ratify Convention 190.
“Safe and healthy jobs are among workers’ most fundamental rights,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau. “As we observe World Day for Safety and Health at Work today, we must continue to reinforce that a safe workplace is one that is free of gender-based violence and harassment. And through unions, workers can achieve the strong, collective voice needed to improve safety and health on the job.”
Report recommendations include that:
- South Africa immediately ratify ILO C190 on Violence and Harassment at Work
- Occupational health and safety laws and policies, as well as sector-specific laws and policies, obligate employers to prevent and eliminate GBVH
- The country’s Mining Charter extend employer obligations with respect to prevention and elimination of GBVH and require that special measures be adopted for women working in mining
- In consultation with workers and unions, compulsory GBVH risk assessments be established for identifying safety risks.
- Acquisition of a mining license be conditioned on right holders’ commitment to the prevention and elimination of GBVH
- Employers adopt confidential and independent reporting system
- Women working underground be provided with a confidential, anonymous, efficient and easily accessible incident reporting system.
- Workers be informed that victims of sexual assault have the right to press separate criminal or civil charges against their perpetrators.
- Mandatory and effective education and training with respect to laws and policies on GBVH be provided to workers and supervisors, and that policies addressing GBVH be printed in all official languages, displayed conspicuously throughout the mining shafts, and widely and regularly promoted through interactive workshops.
- Policies against GBVH be included in employment contracts and clearly state repercussions for GBVH violations.
- The mining industry provide education and counseling to rehabilitate perpetrators in cases not likely to reach the level of criminal prosecution.
“Although the report shows that GBVH is rooted in complex and deeply entrenched patriarchal social norms, it also presents fairly simple, cost-effective changes to the work environment—such as improved lighting, a buddy system and safer toilet and locker room locations—that will make women mine workers less vulnerable to crimes of opportunity,” says Solidarity Center Rule of Law Department Senior Program Officer Ziona Tanzer.
Beginning in 2014, the Solidarity Center was a core member of a global coalition of worker rights organizations led by women union activists that successfully advocated for Convention 190. We support our partners as they campaign for their governments to ratify ILO Convention 190 and recognize GBVH as a primary barrier to achieving gender equality and a key step for security of all workers’ rights and seek to enhance the voice of women and other marginalized workers in policy making at the local, national, and international levels to reduce the risk of gender-based violence at work—including through their unions.
