Jul 16, 2012
During her tour of Southeast Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the greater protection of worker rights, improvement of labor standards, and the empowerment of women following a private meeting in Cambodia with union leaders and labor activists.
Clinton met privately in Siem Rep, Cambodia, with 12 women union leaders—independent union representatives from every major industry in Cambodia, labor lawyers, and activists—as well as the Solidarity Center country program director, David Welsh. Friday’s two-hour roundtable, organized jointly by the Solidarity Center and the U.S. Department of State, was devoted to union and worker rights issues. Participating in the discussion were Melanne Verveer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues; Barbara Shailor, special representative for international labor affairs at the U.S. Department of State; U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia William Todd; and U.S. Agency for International Development Mission Director Flynn Fuller.
At the meeting, Clinton heard of the challenges faced by trade unionists in Cambodia and in particular the challenges of women workers and women union leaders. The discussion also focused on the enormous progress made by both Cambodia and the young, independent Cambodian labor movement over the last decade as well as the potential opportunities to advance both women s and workers rights under Cambodia’s prospective Trade Union law.
“Trade union rights in Cambodia were the dominant component of discussions,” the Solidarity Center’s Welsh told the Phnom Penh Post. “The U.S. delegation was clear that justice must be delivered for victims [of labor abuses].”
The Secretary pledged the continued support of the U.S. government to both the Cambodian independent trade union movement and the work of the Solidarity Center before delivering the closing address to the Lower Mekong Initiative on Women s Gender Equality and Empowerment.
In the address, Clinton commended the new trade union law, saying it “could be a model for the region. It would extend rights and protection to domestic workers. It would allow people to join unions. And if this law is passed and enforced, it will set a very strong standard for the rest of the region.”
She also emphasized the link between the promotion of trade union and worker rights with economic growth.
“The international community and international law recognize that workers everywhere, regardless of income or status, are entitled to certain universal rights, including the right to form and join a union and to bargain collectively. Child labor, forced labor, discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or other factors, should be universally prohibited,” she said in a speech following the meeting. “So defending these labor rights and improving working conditions is a smart economic investment, but it’s also a very important value.”
Jul 12, 2012
The Solidarity Center has expanded its program work in Colombia, with the goal of consolidating and implementing labor reforms and formalizing labor relations for hundreds of thousands of precarious, subcontracted workers who currently toil without many of the protections of the labor law or the right to join a union.
Colombia has a long history of repression of worker rights and the world’s highest murder rate for trade unionists, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Colombian workers are largely employed under innumerable subcontracting schemes that sever the traditional employee-employer relationship and render them ineligible for protections under labor law. As a result of these factors, fewer than 5 percent of Colombian workers belong to a union.
In response to these problems, and as a result of negotiations with the U.S, government around the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the Colombian government committed in 2011 to a Labor Action Plan, leading to legal reforms including the prohibition of fraudulent worker cooperatives and other types of labor intermediation that prevent unionization of workers and protection of worker rights. Unfortunately, only a minority of workers have been able to capitalize on these reforms, as a result of a weak enforcement of the law and employer hostility toward unions.
To address these challenges, the Solidarity Center is increasing the size and scope of its work in Colombia. Solidarity Center work will focus on building organizing capacity within unions to rebuild membership and on strengthening unions’ advocacy capacity to press for full implementation of new legal reforms, with an emphasis on women’s empowerment and inclusion. While the Solidarity Center will continue to work with its long-standing allies in the public sector and the sugar cane, ports, palm oil, and energy industries, it will increase its work in such sectors as cut flowers and telecommunications—all with the potential to achieve significant, precedent-setting gains for workers.
Specifically, work with partner unions will focus on training and empowering vulnerable workers, with emphasis on women workers, to grow their unions and advocate for their rights. Training areas include worker organizing, leadership skills for new union members and emerging leaders, negotiation and collective bargaining , labor law (particularly new laws that were created or changed to eliminate fraudulent subcontracting), and tools for defending worker rights, including international justice mechanisms.
In addition to training and capacity building, Solidarity Center staff in Colombia will play a critical role in providing ongoing mentorship and support to unions undertaking new organizing campaigns. In sectors where union activists and leaders are frequent targets of threats and violence, such as the sugar cane, energy, and palm oil sectors, this role has entailed Solidarity Center staff presence alongside workers engaged in both short-term demonstrations, such as rallies, and longer-term struggles, such as work stoppages, as well as solidarity and support for union-led advocacy directed at decision makers in Colombia, such as the Ministry of Labor, elected officials, and the U.S. Embassy. Solidarity Center work in Colombia also includes support for several union- led public forums, seminars, and publications, intended to build broad support for worker and union rights and to increase public pressure for compliance with labor law.
“We are working with all three national union centers and key sectoral unions in Colombia to support their demands for direct, formal labor relations with employers that will bring workers under the full protection of the law,” said Rhett Doumitt, Solidarity Center country program director for Colombia. “For Colombian workers to be recognized as ‘workers,’ with due rights under national and international law, and for Colombian enterprises to be made legally responsible as employers are critical to improving worker rights in Colombia.”
The Solidarity Center’s Bogota-based team will implement its expanded Colombia work with financial support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Jul 10, 2012
Ukrainian union leader Valentyna Korobka was hospitalized with a concussion and other injuries after she was assaulted by police at a July 4, 2012, protest in Kiev, according to the Free Trade Union of Entrepreneurs of Ukraine (FTUEU), which she chairs. FTUEU is an active democratic union, focused on street vendors, the self-employed, and informal workers. It is affiliated with the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) and the StreetNet International alliance of street vendors.
Korobka, a former geography teacher, ran a flower stand in Kiev for 10 years. While working as a vendor, Korobka became a prominent trade union and human rights activist. In 2011 she was elected to head the 29,000-member FTUEU.The protestors, among them a number of union members, were demonstrating against a controversial language bill passed by the Ukrainian Parliament. Many Ukrainians, including native Russian speakers, are nervous about efforts to introduce Russian as a second official language in Ukraine. Since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, many residents have seen the renewal of the Ukrainian language as a symbol of national progress and unity.
As is true in the United States, union members and leaders in Ukraine are active in issues important to citizens across society. The right to peacefully assemble and protest is directly connected to the right of freedom of association in the workplace, and union leaders and members are often at the forefront of community action on many different issues.
Jul 9, 2012
Two groundbreaking pieces of legislation are poised to bring 300,000 domestic workers in the Dominican Republic into the national social security system, providing them for the first time with a minimum wage, health care, pension, and other social protections to which formally employed Dominican workers are entitled.
Dominican domestic workers—the vast majority of them women—do not earn a living wage; indeed, 50 percent of their meager earnings are often received as in-kind goods, food, and lodging at their place of work. They have no maternity leave, pension, health care coverage, or vacation time. Under the new plan, they would be entitled to receive a pension as well as disability, survivor, family and occupational health insurance, and other basic benefits.
“In the labor movement, we are confident that the Social Security system will cover domestic workers,” said Eulogia Familia, vice president and coordinator of policies for gender equity of the National Confederation of Unions (CNUS), a Solidarity Center partner. “The best way to begin to lift domestic workers out of exclusion and poverty is by affiliating them to the social security system. The approval of these laws will generate an advance for women and men who are domestic workers.”
Famila was referring to the likely ratification of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers, and to legislation drafted by Sen. Adriano Sánchez Roa. Sánchez Roa’s worker rights bill, first presented last year, includes establishing a minimum wage for domestic workers and health coverage by the Dominican Institute for Social Security. Sánchez Roa has not yet introduced his bill in this session of the Senate, as he is waiting for ratification of Convention 189, according to Familia.
In a July 5 meeting with Familia, other labor leaders, and domestic workers, Dr. Reinaldo Pared Pérez, president of the Dominican Senate and secretary general of the governing Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), told the unionists that the Senate is going to support the ratification of Convention 189. He went on to say that on Tuesday July 10, the Senate will discuss Convention 189 and later send it for study in the appropriate commission of the Senate.
His announcement comes on the heels of a public commitment by the minister of labor, Francisco Domínguez Brito, at the National Forum on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, held on June 28. At the forum, organized by the Inter-Union Committee for the Woman Worker (CIMTRA), Domínguez Brito pledged to lobby senators for passage of the convention. CIMTRA brings together women from this Caribbean island’s three labor confederations. Also present at the forum were Sharan Burrow, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation; Dominican labor leaders; representatives of various NGOs; governmental offials; and local representatives of the ILO.
The Solidarity Center’s partners in the Dominican Republic, who have been advocating for many years for the rights of all informal workers, continue lobbying to make these protections a reality. With Solidarity Center support, they have conducted public awareness campaigns, organized domestic workers, and educated Haitian migrants on their rights as domestic workers.
The government pledged to ratify Convention 189 after its adoption more than a year ago, but the legislation had stalled. While ratification of the convention and the Sánchez Roa bill is likely to move forward in the Senate, it may run into trouble in the House of Deputies, according to Familia, as a result of one influential legislator’s resistance to sections that specifically address migrant workers.
Jul 9, 2012
Attorneys are challenging the results of a July 5 union election at a Canadian-owned silver mine in Durango, Mexico, that a team of international observers says was marred by “serious irregularities.” The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalúrgicos, Siderúrgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana (SNTMMSSRM, known as Los Mineros) lost by a single vote amid a climate of intimidation and ballot discrepancies.
According to a preliminary report, 129 workers at the La Platosa mine, owned by Excellon Resources of Canada, were eligible to vote for one of three unions: “Presidente Adolfo López Mateos” Union of Workers and Employees in Commerce and General, the National Mining and Metallurgic Union “Don Napoleón Gómez Sada” (SNMMDNGS), and Los Mineros.
The official vote count was 45 for Los Mineros, 46 for SNMMDNGS, and 32 for the Adolfo López Mateos union, which currently controls the labor contract at the mine. The latter two unions are widely regarded as company-dominated “protection unions.” There were six challenged ballots.
The team noted that although many election procedures appeared proper, a number of irregularities severely marred the results. Despite a request by Los Mineros to hold the election in a neutral location, it took place on company grounds. On the day of the vote, some 100 men, many armed with sticks, arrived in a convoy of buses, trucks, and cars. Identifying themselves as members of SNMMDNGS, they attempted to block entrance to the mine. “These individuals were quite aggressive in their behavior,” said the report, “surrounding and photographing observer team members when they attempted to talk to workers.” In addition, a large contingent of municipal, state, and federal police with automatic rifles patrolled the mine entrance.
“There must be about two dozen heavily armed state police at the mine site right now,” reported Ben Davis of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial & Service Workers International Union (USW), a member of the observer team. USW has long supported Los Mineros.
Other members were Lorraine Clewer, Solidarity Center country program director in Mexico, and representatives of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), IndustriALL Global Union, Project on Organizing, Development, Education and Research (PODER), Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ProDESC), and Labor Justice Center, El Paso.
Workers told the observer team that they had been pressured to vote for one of the two protection unions over the independent Los Mineros. “These practices occurred over a long period of time, as the request to hold an election was filed on October 7, 2011, and the election did not occur until nine months later,” said the report. The workers have been struggling for nearly two years to gain democratic union representation.
“Unfortunately, this flawed electoral process demonstrates once again how Mexican workers are locked into a system that excludes them from having a voice on the job,” said the Solidarity Center’s Clewer. “In a job as dangerous as mining, we see time and again the consequences of this exclusion on the lives and livelihoods of miners and their families.”
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