Trade Unions call for Decent Work and Social Justice

INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU)

025/040202/JH (ICFTU OnLine):

At World Social Forum in Porto Alegre:

Trade Unions call for Decent Work and Social Justice

Brussels 4 February, 2002 (ICFTU OnLine): "The free market model of
globalisation has failed the world's workers," declared Mamounata Cissé,
Assistant General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU), the world's largest trade union body, at the start of a
trade union-organised seminar on decent work at the World Social Forum in
Porto Alegre, Brazil. "Inequalities are widening everywhere - between poor
and rich, between women and men, between governments and the international
economic institutions, and between the developing and the industrialised
countries."

"Unregulated free trade is leading to increased exploitation of
workers around the world," stated Luis Anderson, General Secretary of
ICFTU/ORIT, the ICFTU's regional organisation for the Americas. The
examples given by other unionists proved his point. Alex Aguilar from the
TUCP in the Philippines reported that, "99% of companies we surveyed in a
number of export processing zones were violating minimum wage standards,
with many cases of sexual harassment and physical abuse of the women who
make up 80% of the workforce". Amanda Villatoro, also from ICFTU/ORIT
stated that "in El Salvador alone, there are 60,000 workers employed in
sweat-shops, and a probable 500,000 throughout Central America." Fouad
Benseddik from the UMT in Morocco condemned the complicity of many
governments in the violation of trade union rights.

Union representatives Gocha Alexandria from Georgia and Radi Parnits from
Estonia spoke of the grave social and economic situation in the formerly
Communist countries, while Tandiwe Munyanyi from ZCTU Zimbabwe condemned the
policies of the IMF and World Bank that caused grave economic problems for
developing countries. Austin Muneku from the ICFTU's regional organisation
for Africa ICFTU/AFRO noted that, "Poverty and unemployment is creating an
army of desperate job seekers, willing to take any job regardless of the
level of exploitation involved. Government propaganda is selling export
processing zones as a source of jobs, ignoring the high financial and human
costs of multinational investment in the zones." Victor Báez from
ICFTU/ORIT explained the arguments for protecting workers' rights in
regional trade agreements and at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"Poor safety conditions are the norm in unregulated and informal
employment," said Christine Nathan from HMS India. Hannah Koranteng from
GTUC Ghana demanded that governments "ensure protection for all their
citizens including persons operating within the informal economy", adding
that trade unions must extend their coverage to assist the workers
concerned. "In Hong Kong, the trade unions have recently begun a successful
campaign to organise informal domestic workers," reported Elisabeth Tang
from HKCTU Hong Kong. The ICFTU will be making full use of its experience
in this area at the International Labour Conference in June 2002 to ensure
that the Conference helps to extend protection to informal workers.

Many other interventions at the World Social Forum from affiliates and
representatives of the ICFTU, as part of the Global Unions group and in
co-operation with the ETUC and the WCL, have made the case for a socially
just globalisation. The seminar was also addressed by ILO Director-General
Juan Somavia and by different experts and NGOs. The World Social Forum
continues until 5 February 2002.

The ICFTU represents 157 million workers in 225 affiliated organisations in
148 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of Global Unions:
http://www.global-unions.org

For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224
0232 or +32 476 62 10 18.

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