Excellent news from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF): Mohamed Chamchati, the unjustly detained general secretary of the Moroccan merchant seafarers’ union, has been released. Like his colleague, Said Elhairech, who was freed in October, Chamchati was arrested in June on clearly mistaken charges. Yesterday, he and others were released without charge.
Mahdi Abu Dheeb and Jalila al-Salman, the president and vice president of the Bahraini Teachers’ Association, were sentenced to five and six months in prison after a court in Bahrain upheld their convictions last week.
The two were arrested in 2011 after supporting calls for reform in Bahrain. Abu Dheeb has spent some 18 months in prison and al-Salman spent five and a half months in prison before being released on bail. Prior to that, they were held in solitary confinement, where they say they were subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and forced to sign “confessions” they did not even read.
They were brought to trial before the National Safety Court of First Instance (a military court) on June 15 on charges that included “inciting hatred toward the regime” and “calling to overthrow and change the regime by force.”
In September 2011, a military court convicted them of attempting to overthrow the ruling system by force and inciting hatred of the regime. Amnesty International concludes that it has ‘not seen any convincing evidence supporting such accusations, nor was there any such evidence presented at trial,’ and has adopted Madhdi and Jalila as prisoners of conscience.
“All these teachers did was to call for a strike in their role as trade union leaders—this is merely exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association and is certainly not a crime,” says Philip Luther, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa program director.
The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry last year found that the authorities had grossly exaggerated, if not manufactured, many claims brought against thousands of ordinary people who had been caught up in the February 2011 protests.
Education International has issued a call for a large online campaign demanding the release of both Mahdi and Jalila.
Take action now. Urge Bahraini authorities to immediately release Mahdi, ensure that Jalila does not serve any of her remaining sentence and to drop all charges against them.
A strike by 2 million blue-collar Indonesian workers over wages and job outsourcing resulted in government promises to improve worker pay and restrict the use of workers subcontracted through labor agencies.
The one-day walkout in October halted work on more than 80 industrial “estates” (sites) mainly throughout Java and the island of Batam, across from Singapore. Union leaders vowed to press ahead with industrial action if the government did not take action. In response, Chief Economics Minister Hatta Rajassa said the government would seek to increase worker pay and issue a new regulation designed to better enforce rules regarding subcontracting.
In Indonesia, where 16 million workers—roughly 40 percent of the country’s formal labor force—are labor agency employees, “outsourcing” is similar to U.S. subcontracting practices. But there are key differences. In Indonesia, outsourced workers are recruited by third-party agencies or individuals to work on production lines side by side with a company’s employees. Their “employer” is the middleman, who takes a cut out of each pay check. The worker often receives less than the minimum wage and no benefits.
Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar has said he will facilitate meetings between employers and labor unions to solve these crucial issues. He also said he would ensure that employers comply with laws covering outsourcing and wages so the country would be a better place for the workers and foreign investors.
Mudhofir, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperous Labor Unions (KSBSI), said that the strike was unavoidable because the government had breached a September 15 deadline set by union leaders to review outsourcing practices and revise the wage system. But workers now plan to wait and see if the government acts on its promises. According to Said Iqbal, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI), “We are not planning any more strikes…until after dialogue with the government and the employer associations. Then we’ll see if the results are satisfactory.”
Wages in Indonesia, which are among the lowest in South Asia, are a draw for labor-intensive manufacturers. Union leaders say Indonesian minimum wages have never been sufficient for workers to support themselves and their families. Annual minimum wage hikes over the past decade have not kept up with inflation, and workers’ purchasing power is declining every year. During the strike, workers called for the government to speed up implementation of last year’s new social safety net law that, in part, mandates health care coverage to all Indonesians.
The strike also moved local governments to act. West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan circulated a notice informing regents and mayors about work contracts, including the use of the outsourcing system. Batam’s local government and the Batam Free Trade Zone Authority (BPK-FTZ) have agreed to no longer promote low-wage labor to investors who wish to do business in Batam. Instead, they will promote the quality of human resources, manpower and infrastructure, according to news reports.
The strike fostered employer discussions around worker rights. In news reports, business leaders said the government must guarantee that workers receive social benefits, including health insurance, even if they are outsourced and short-term contract laborers.
Garment workers at Zilani Apparels Ltd., in Rampura, Dhaka, Bangladesh, formed a union in August with the help of the Bangladesh Federation of Workers’ Solidarity (BFWS) and now are waiting for the Labor Department to register it. More than 50 percent of the 350 garment workers at Zilani Apparels have joined together after recognizing that their individual efforts to improve wages and working conditions were not effective, says Fatema, a committee member.
“We raised our problems individually with management so many times… but they never listened to us,” Fatema said.
The workers, who make men’s and women’s shirts for export to the United States and Europe, say low wages and an unfair salary scale are their biggest concerns.
“We are not getting the amount which we are supposed to get,” says Maksuda, joint secretary of the proposed union. “We receive a lower salary than new workers, even though we are more capable.”
Wage discrimination is common, according to Jakia, publicity secretary of the proposed union. “I am very skilled in my work and have been working in the garment industry for 15 or 16 years, and with Zilani for four years. Many times I requested a salary increase. But management told me that they won’t increase my salary like others because they know my involvement with the union.” Jakia says the company transferred her to another production floor and gave her a new starting date to avoid providing benefits.
The garment workers also must confront a lack of job security. Once hired, they say management demands their signatures on blank pieces of paper, which the workers fear will be used to trump up charges if the company wants to fire them.
Although pregnant workers often are either terminated or forced her to resign and typically receive no maternity benefits, the workers won their first victory as a united team in August when they helped a woman get maternity benefits. Parvin, a seven-year employee, was eight months pregnant when management tried to force her to resign. Her co-workers requested that she receive the maternity benefits to which she was entitled. When the company refused, the workers sent a notice to the factory through BFWS. After receiving the notice, management paid her maternity leave.
The garment workers realized they needed to form a union when they attempted a work stoppage in May to force management to discuss their concerns. After a manager convinced most of the line workers to return to the job, says Rubina, who was elected president of the proposed union, “all of us realized that we need to be united to achieve our demands and we need to do something else which is effective.” That is when they met with BFWS.
Since then, leaders of the effort to unionize encouraged co-workers to join the union and continued to press for annual leave payment and a salary increase. On August 1,they again stopped work to get management to talk with them. But this time, they had the BFWS to support them. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA) also joined the discussions, and workers and management ultimately signed a 16-point agreement. Management has so far only implemented two of the 16 requests, including paying some annual leave and a bonus for the Muslim holiday of Eid ul Fitr.
Like those at Zilani, garment workers across Bangladesh are taking a stand for decent work. In response, police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at workers rallying outside their workplaces.
Despite the significant obstacles to forming a union, at Zilani, the workers remain optimistic and hopeful about the changes they can make and the new strength they will have with a union.
“We know that getting union’s registration will not be easy, but we will not give up until seeing it through,” says Ruhul Amin, BFWS general secretary.
Nicaragua this week became the third country to ratify the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on domestic workers. An ILO “convention” sets international labor standards, and the “Decent Work for Domestic Workers” convention addresses issues such as working conditions, wages, benefits and child labor while requiring nations to take measures to making decent work a reality for domestic workers.
Uruguay in April 2012 was the first to ratify the convention, followed by the Philippines in August. The convention goes into effect one year after the second country approves it.
Many countries exclude domestic workers from labor laws partially or completely, denying them basic labor protections that most other categories of workers can take for granted, such as a minimum wage or limits to hours of work. Such exclusion—together with discrimination and a profound devaluation of work associated with traditional, unpaid female roles has—led to a wide and disturbing range of abuses against domestic workers around the world, many of whom are migrants and an estimated 30 percent of whom are children under the age of 18. There are 14 million domestic workers in Latin America.
In June 2011, ILO members—made up of government, worker and employer delegates from the 183 ILO member states—took a significant step to address the omission of these workers from basic job protections by adopting the decent work convention for domestic workers.
Under the convention, a domestic worker is “any person engaged in domestic work,” which includes cleaning the house, cooking, washing and ironing clothes, taking care of children, or elderly or sick members of a family, gardening, guarding the house, driving for the family, even taking care of household pets.
The global union movement, including the Solidarity Center, which has worked for years to support domestic workers’ rights, strongly backed ratification of the convention and urges nations around the world to adopt it. The Solidarity Center’s work in Nicaragua with the Federación de Mujeres Trabajadoras Domesticas y Oficios Varios, helped support union members and human rights organizations seeking ratification of the domestic workers convention.
Check out an ILO fact sheet on Domestic Workers convention for more information.
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