Aug 24, 2012
Worker and human rights activist Abdelkader Kherba has been imprisoned after he filmed a citizens’ protest brought on by chronic water cuts affecting the inland town of Ksar El Boukhari in Algeria.
Kherba was detained August 22. Initial attempts made by his family to locate him at the local police station were met with denials by authorities. However, his family has since learned that Kherba was transferred to the town prison after appearing before magistrates on charges of insulting the state’s institutions and officials. He is due to stand trial on August 28, according to the independent union of public administration workers, SNAPAP, a Solidarity Center partner.
Kherba is a founding member of SNAPAP’s Committee of Unemployed Workers, which has been calling on the Algerian government to resolve problems caused by extremely high levels of chronic unemployment in the country— a situation which acutely affects younger workers.
A trade union activist, Kherba supported a sit-in protest of striking Justice Ministry workers last April, an action for which he was convicted for inciting protest, fined and given a suspended 1-year jail sentence. After returning home for the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr, which follows the month-long Ramadan fast, Kherba was outraged by the seemingly indifferent manner in which authorities disrupted the water supply—so vital when Ramadan falls during the hot summer months and people do not consume food or water during the daylight hours.
“We condemn this illegitimate use of the courts against human and worker rights activists and call upon the Algerian government to immediately release Abdelkader Kherba,” said SNAPAP President Rachid Malaoui. “SNAPAP considers these drastic and punitive legal measures taken by the Algerian government to be a form of harassment against activists engaged in the legitimate exercise of their fundamental human and worker rights and are deliberately designed to suppress dissent and eliminate all possibility of free speech and democratic participation.”
SNAPAP calls upon the international community for support in defending human and workers’ rights in Algeria by actively denouncing the arrest of Abdelkader Kherba.
Aug 8, 2012
Agate-processing workers have achieved their first major legislative success in India’s Gujarat state—official recognition that their jobs can kill them.
Agate processors polish gemstones against a grinding wheel to produce jewelry and other ornamented items. Working at home or in small shops, agate workers often lack masks or other protective equipment to prevent inhalation of silica dust generated while cutting, shaping and polishing the stones. Acute silicosis may develop within months following massive silica exposure. Over time the disease may destroy large areas of the lung leading to respiratory failure and death. Destruction of lung tissue may continue even after the worker is no longer exposed to silica.
The state government of the Gujarat has issued official notification of a 2007 resolution specifying that the heirs of agate workers who die as a result of the occupational lung disease silicosis be compensated Rs.1 lakh (approximately $1,800) through an insurance scheme. According to the Peoples Training and Research Center, the May 24 notification is the first policy decision in Gujarat state benefiting agate workers, especially those most at risk in the agate-polishing cottage industry. Because of their status as informal sector workers, these workers have not previously been covered by existing rules.
The majority—80 percent—of all colored gemstones sold in the global market come from artisanal, small-scale operations, with 90 percent of those stones originating in developing countries, according to the former vice president of the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA), Edward Boehm.
The People’s Training and Research Center and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), based in New Delhi, have long campaigned on behalf of workers and the on-the-job threats to their health. While this recognition is important, they say much remains to be done for workers who continue to risk disability and death due to silica exposure. The Peoples Training Center is a member of the regional occupational safety and health network, the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims (ANROEV), a Solidarity Center partner.
Jagdish Patel of the Peoples Training and Research Center says that the estimated number of workers exposed to dangerous work conditions in the gem trade in Khambhat, where the Center is most active, is 1,500 to 2,000 people, but that there are many more vulnerable workers in other parts of Gujarat. Patel estimates that in Jaipur—India’s largest center for colored gemstones—another 2,000 workers work in hazardous conditions.
While heartened by the initial victory, activists continue to press forward with several crucial demands: that the state back-date enforcement to the 2007 Resolution, increase the compensatory amount for heirs, provide compensation for gem workers living with silicosis and take action geared toward prevention.
Without proper safety precautions, all agate-processing workers are at high risk of developing silicosis. The Solidarity Center works with ANROEV and many of its partners on this and other health and safety concerns throughout the region.
Aug 6, 2012
In a victory for domestic workers in the Philippines and around the world who are trying to secure decent wages, benefits and recognition, the Philippines is the second country to ratify International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers.
Today the Philippine Senate approved a resolution in support of ratification of ILO Convention 189 (C189) on Decent Work for Domestic Workers with 20 votes in favor and no abstentions. The convention—which addresses issues such as wages, working conditions, benefits, labor brokers and child labor—goes into force one year after two countries approve it. Uruguay ratified C189 in April of this year.
“The Solidarity Center congratulates the Philippines for this historic decision. As the convention goes into force, domestic workers will have an important international standard bolstering their fight for the protections and rights to which they are entitled but which they have long been denied,” said Neha Misra, Solidarity Center senior specialist on migration and human trafficking.
“Our partners have been striving for years for the passage of an international convention to raise the status of domestic workers and to strengthen their hand as they face exploitation and abuse. This milestone proves that people can jointly push for—and gain—better working conditions and their human rights.”
Trade unions, civil society groups and human rights organizations worldwide have advocated fiercely for ratification of C189 since the convention was passed at the ILO in June 2011. Stakeholders, including the Solidarity Center and its partners in many countries, view ratification of C189 as crucial to the achievement of decent work and social justice for all domestic workers—most of whom are women working in the informal sector. By defining domestic work as “work” deserving of full rights and benefits, the convention takes a major step forward in bringing domestic work out of the informal economy.
As a trend-setter in supporting and protecting its cross-border migrant workers in the region and because of the high numbers of Filipino workers who migrate overseas for work, the ratification of C189 by the Philippines sends a powerful signal to other governments that domestic workers deserve the same rights, legal protections and access to social safety nets as workers already included in the formal economy.
The Solidarity Center works with domestic workers and the unions that represent them around the world, including in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, South Africa, Liberia and Kenya.
Aug 2, 2012
What a difference four months can make. When I first went to Burma in January of this year, some of the Federation of Trade Unions-Burma (FTUB) labor activists I met with were too worried about security forces to meet me in public. The officers of the Agriculture and Farmers Federation of Myanmar (AFFM), for example, had attempted to register with the government under the new Labor Organization Law but had been rebuffed. They met with me in my hotel room.
By the time I returned in April, we met in a hotel coffee shop and its chairperson, Than Swe, seemed very confident. In the previous four months, the AFFM distributed 35,000 membership forms in areas around Rangoon, Mandalay and Arakan, had received 9,462 applications (up from 4,200 members in January) and issued 6,942 membership cards.
Today, in the wake of pressure put on the Burmese government at the International Labor Conference in June, the AFFM boasts 16 registered units, with dozens more in the process of registering. In addition, the government has told various observers that it is prepared to allow the FTUB and its leaders to re-enter the country after their years of exile, and to register the federation under the new law as well.
Workers are organizing in the industrial sector as well, with new FTUB affiliates registered in paper, plastic and textile/garment factories. In Bago, a provincial city about two hours north of Rangoon, we checked in with the Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Union of Bago (TGLWUB), whom I first met in January. In four months their membership expanded from 2,000 to 5,000 workers in three factories. Most factories in the region have Chinese, Korean or other owners, and union representatives say they work seven days a week and make 15 cents an hour, or about $2 a day.
Besides what appears to be a new reality for freedom of association, the media also may be opening up. These twin developments are groundbreaking for the Journalist, Press and Publication Workers Union (JPPWU), which also registered two units in July. In the months since my first visit with them, they had held their founding convention with about 100 delegates from all over the country—and had gained 250 members, nearly doubling their membership. They said they could have about 4,000 potential members in Burma.
While there is still controversy and negotiations over what a new press/media law would look like, JPPWU members said there had been some pushback from the media on the government’s first draft. Even though a few entrepreneurs are taking the plunge and opening new publications, most are waiting for the law to pass and the landscape to become clearer before they jump in. Most people in the countryside get their information from radio, and the top broadcasters are Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and the BBC Burmese service. The AFP, Reuters, Associated Press and the BBC have locally staffed bureaus.
Something that struck me about all the workers I met from the different sectors was their organizing grew out of a desire not only to improve their wages and working conditions, but from a fierce conviction that this was a moment in history and if they were going to build a democratic society, it would be unions that could lead the way.
Jul 27, 2012
Globally, more than 129 million children are agriculture workers, the majority of them unpaid and involved in hazardous and age-inappropriate jobs, according to the International Labor Organization. Their plight and the path to remove them from exploitive work and return them to childhood is the subject the International Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture, July 28th-30th, 2012 in Washington, D.C.
Representatives and activists from multiple organizations and more than 50 countries will gather this weekend under the aegis of the Global March Against Child Labor to discuss their knowledge and experience, create national action plans to combat child labor, build and strengthen strategic partnerships, and establish a platform of action and follow-up, resulting in the “Roadmap 2016.” Key partners include representatives from the United Nations, governments, employers, farmer organizations, trade unions and civil society.
“Agriculture is a critical sector for the fight against child labor,” said Tim Ryan, Asia regional director for the Solidarity Center and a member of the governing board of the Global March Against Child Labor. “Poverty is the key driver of child being sent to work instead of to school. This conference is extremely important because until now globally there hasn’t been this kind of focus on child labor in agriculture.”
Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson of the Global March Against Child Labor, founded its forerunner organization in India more than 30 years ago. He said around the world progress has been made—including the creation of international instruments under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and new national legislation and active enforcement programs in many countries around the world—and trade unions—especially teachers’ unions—have been a pillar of the organization’s support. However, much remains to be done.
“It has been 30 years,” he said. “I am not patient. I am persistent. Children are losing their childhood. Their dreams are being robbed every minute. How can we be patient?”
The conference, which is supported in part by the Solidarity Center, takes place July 28–30, 2012, at the Doubletree Hotel in Washington D.C.
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