Feb 28, 2014
Government restrictions and repression of citizens’ universal right to freedoms of assembly and association topped the list of violations in the State Department’s 2014 annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”
The report, released yesterday, also singled out the April collapse of the multistory Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers, as among the worst incidences of human rights violations in 2013.
The congressionally mandated report is not an intellectual exercise, said Secretary of State John Kerry in discussing the findings.
It is “about accountability. It’s about ending impunity. The struggle for rights and dignity couldn’t be more relevant to what we are seeing transpire across the globe.”
Get the overview and the full report.
Read Kerry’s statement.
Sep 10, 2013
Trade unionists from dozens of countries are taking part in the quadrennial AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles this week—and the Los Angeles Times has video highlights of two international union leaders.
Zahoor Awan, general secretary of the Pakistan Workers Federation, said he is representing the Pakistani union movement in solidarity with the U.S. labor movement. “We share the same … defense of workers and trade union rights.”
Also in the clip is Myrtle Witbooi, general secretary of the South African domestic workers union SADSAWU. Witbooi is chairwoman of the International Domestic Workers NetWork (IDWN), which received the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award Sunday during the covention’s opening session.
“We want to say that domestic workers want respect, they want to be valued for what they are doing,” Witbooi told the Times. “Domestic workers want the same rights as other workers. We are workers like all other workers, so we demand the same respect as all other workers in the world.”
Check out the video.
Jun 22, 2013
Some 197 million people were jobless worldwide in 2012, and an additional 39 million workers have dropped out of the labor market, unable to find employment, according to a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The ILO predicts the situation will only get bleaker this year, with 5.1 million more workers likely to be unemployed. Young people are the hardest hit: 74 million young workers worldwide are unemployed, a staggering 40 percentof those unemployed globally.
“Global Employment Trends 2013” notes that although the global economy is expected to recover, growth will not be strong enough to bring down unemployment quickly, and predicts that unemployment worldwide will remain at 6 percent up to 2017, not far from its worst level in 2009. The number of unemployed workers is expected to rise further to some 210.6 million over the next five years.
Read the full report.
Jun 3, 2013
Emerging nations—where, on average, employment is rising, income inequality decreasing and the middle class rapidly expanding—are recovering from the global recession faster than developed countries, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO) report released today.
Based on current trends, the “World of Work Report: 2013” forecasts that employment rates across emerging and developing economies will return to pre-recession levels in 2015, while employment rates in advanced economies will only return to pre-crisis status after 2017.
Yet the report also finds that more than 30 million jobs are needed to return employment to the pre-recession level and predicts that nearly 208 million women and men will be unemployed in 2015, rising to 214 million people by 2018. Today, slightly more than the 200 million people are jobless. “Almost everywhere, young people and women find it difficult to obtain jobs that match their skills and aspirations,” according to the report, which is subtitled, “Repairing the Economic and Social Fabric.”
“We need a global recovery focused on jobs and productive investment, combined with better social protection for the poorest and most vulnerable groups. And we need to pay serious attention to closing the inequality gap that is widening in so many parts of the world,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.
Behind the overall national averages, the report paints a less optimistic picture for millions of workers in emerging and developing nations.
• Employment rates in 2012 surpassed pre-crisis rates in 13 of 28 countries with available information. Of the 28, only four developing economies (Jamaica, Jordan, Morocco and Sri Lanka) showed a continuous decline in employment rates at the start of the crisis. In the 11 remaining countries, the employment rates have showed some recovery, but the increase was not sufficient to surpass pre-crisis levels.
• Although the size of the middle-income group has increased, there are three times as many workers on the brink of poverty, whose numbers rose from 1.1 million in 1999 to 1.9 million in 2010, mostly in low- and low middle-income economies.
• Even though global investment by emerging economies increased, accounting for nearly 47 percent of global investment in 2012 compared with only 27 percent in 2000, investment in this group has been stagnant when India and Indonesia are excluded.
Global investment is essential to improving employment, according to the report. Further, it finds that higher minimum wage levels and/or improved compliance in following minimum-wage laws have tended to boost the relative position of low-paid workers. Minimum wages have been accompanied by reductions in inequality at the bottom end of economic distribution, especially in India, Mali, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam, the report finds. In Brazil and Peru, improved minimum wages appear to have resulted in an expansion of the middle part of the wage distribution.
The report highlights case studies of successful economic initiatives, including those launched by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a Solidarity Center partner. The group has addressed the welfare of women working in India’s informal sector by establishing programs to foster health care, income security and empowerment. The organization provides members with health education and preventative health care, such child immunization.
May 15, 2013
A wide range of workers are now part of the new Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Jordan (FITU-J).
Nine unions representing more than 7,000 workers recently held the founding congress of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Jordan (FITU-J), demonstrating a concrete commitment to independent trade unionism as workers in Jordan seek to mobilize for greater political freedom, improved economic conditions and strong social justice.
The conference theme, “Freedom of Association is a Necessity,” underscored how, as Jordanian workers have participated in multiple labor strikes for the right to form unions over the past four years, they are part of the country’s broader movement for democratic change. Although the Jordanian constitution upholds International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on freedom of association, Jordanian labor law allows trade unions in only 17 sectors designated by the Ministry of Labor.
During the one-day congress, delegates elected as president Azzam Smadi, retired president of the Independent Phosphates Workers Union. Delegates ratified a constitution and articulated principles and priorities, including the goal to pass legislation expanding access to freedom of association and social security. Conference delegates also demonstrated the importance of involving women in the union movement by establishing the FITU-J women’s committee, headed by Wijdan Abu Ighanam, a member of the independent Electricity Workers Union.
The 218 delegates at the April 26 convention were joined by international guests, including a representative from the United Auto Workers Global Organizing Institute and representatives from the ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ILO-ACTRAV), Public Services International (PSI), and independent unions from Algeria and Kuwait. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter of support and AFL-CIO International Department Director Cathy Feingold taped a video greeting.
The nine participating unions represent workers in the phosphates industry and the pharmaceutical industry and also include electrical workers, land transport drivers, printing press operators, day laborers, agricultural workers, engineers’ assistants and Department of Statistics employees.
May 8, 2013
A stunning 73.4 million young workers are estimated to be jobless in 2013, an increase of 3.5 million between 2007 and 2013, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO) report out today. Even worse, the number of unemployed young workers is likely to increase through 2018, with the long-term impact felt for decades, the report forecasts.
“The youth employment crisis will not be overcome without stronger employment growth,” according to “Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013: A Generation at Risk.” But job growth will not happen on its own. The report urges nations to adopt aggressive policies for improving job growth, including strategies targeting employment of disadvantaged youth. Further, nations must invest in education and training, and ensure labor rights are based on international labor standards “to ensure that young people receive equal treatment and are afforded rights at work.”
“Increasing the participation of young people in employers’ and workers’ organizations and in social dialogue and improving their awareness about young workers’ rights— including through modules in school curricula—are key instruments for enabling young
people to voice their concerns and for improving the quality of jobs available to them.”
Among the report’s findings:
• Young workers are increasingly employed in non-standard jobs, including temporary employment and part-time work. Informal employment accounts for half of young workers in the Russian Federation.
• In 2012, youth unemployment was highest in the Middle East (28.3 percent) and North Africa (23.7 percent) and lowest in East Asia (9.5 per cent) and South Asia (9.3 percent).
• Gender gaps in youth unemployment rates are exceptionally large in the Middle East and North Africa.
• In all developing countries surveyed, more young people receive below-average wages than average or above-average wages. This trend is strongest in Cambodia, Liberia, Malawi and Peru, where two-thirds of working young are classified as poorly paid.
• Young people continue to suffer disproportionately from decent work deficits and low-quality jobs, measured in terms of working poverty, low pay and/or employment status
and exposure to occupational hazards and injury.
Underlying the inability of young workers to find jobs, the report finds, is the persistent unavailability of quality, full-time jobs; the proliferation of temporary jobs; a skills mismatch; and the growth of informal, subsistence jobs in developing countries.
Packed with charts and graphs, the 150-page report also includes case studies highlighting best practices for addressing youth unemployment, including Peru’s job action plan and the dual apprenticeship program offered in some European countries.
