Sushila Rana and Roja Maya Limbu spoke at the founding congress of the domestic workers’ union in Lebanon in January 2015. Credit: IDWF
The two woman helped found the domestic workers’ union in Lebanon in January 2015.
“This is a serious violation of basic human rights and (the International Labor Organization’s) core conventions on the right to organize and on freedom of association,” says Myrtle Witbooi, IDWF president. “We also call on the government of Lebanon to observe and abide by Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which ensures the right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention.”
Migrant Workers Exploited, Have Few Rights
Migrant workers to the Middle East are rarely protected by labor laws and generally denied the ability to exercise fundamental human rights, including freedom of association, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, according to a recent report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of assembly and of association. Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon commonly report non-payment of wages, forced confinement, employers’ refusal to provide time off, and verbal and physical abuse.
Like most migrant workers around the world, many are forced to go into debt to pay excessive fees to labor brokers to obtain the jobs. Once in the country, they are governed by the repressive kafala system, which ties a domestic workers’ visa and work permit to one employer. Kafala results in situations where employers have unchecked control over migrant workers, exposing the latter to greater risk of exploitation and abuse.
Freedom of movement for the estimated 250,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon is restricted by employers who take workers’ passports and laws that limit their access to public places like restaurants, unless accompanied by their employer.
A 2010 Human Rights Watch report said that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon were dying of unnatural causes at a rate of one per week. Most of the deaths were attributed to suicide — many of the victims were falling from buildings while apparently trying to escape their employers.
Solidarity Center Senior Specialist for Migration and Human Trafficking Neha Misra took part in a Facebook Live event today to shine a spotlight on the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers. The event, held in advance of the International Migrants Day (December 18), included a discussion with International Labor Representative Sarah Fox and the U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Misra’s comments follow.
The Solidarity Center implements programs around the world, such as those in Bangladesh, Qatar, South Africa and Mexico, to support migrant workers in exercising their rights at the workplace and throughout the migration process. Whether documented or undocumented, the Solidarity Center recognizes that migrant worker rights must be mainstreamed into worker rights advocacy more generally, meaning that migrant workers must have full rights equal to native workers. First and foremost, migrant workers must have the freedom of association and right to organize and collectively bargain.
In the landmark report, “Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association” presented to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in October, UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai forcefully conveys how the vast majority of the world’s workers are disenfranchised from their rights to assembly and association—rights that are fundamental to all other human rights—either by exclusion or outright oppression.
Burmese migrant workers in Thailand are transported after their shift ends. Credit: Solidarity Center/Jeanne Hallacy
The report finds that “low-wage migrant workers face severe economic exploitation, social exclusion and political disenfranchisement. They are often denied their freedoms of peaceful assembly and of association because of their irregular status or by structural barriers in legal channels that systematically disempower workers . . . . Because most migrant workers are effectively barred from forming and joining unions, they are unable to advocate to improve wages and working conditions. Migrants have become a massive, disposable, low-wage workforce excluded from remedies or realistic opportunities to bargain collectively for improved wages and working conditions.”
Solidarity Center Empowers Workers to Form Unions
Moreover, workers in temporary, guest-worker or circular migration programs (programs touted as “development solutions”) face limits on their right to form unions and worker associations because they often are fired, blacklisted, detained or deported for trying to exercise their rights.
As Kiai notes, “Violence with impunity is also common. In Mexico, migrant farm workers at one of the country’s biggest tomato exporters were physically assaulted when they complained about lack of food or tried to leave the work camp where they were kept ‘as prisoners.’ Camp bosses threatened workers who demanded their illegally withheld pay. The indebted workers could not enjoy their assembly and association rights for fear of losing wages that would not be paid until the harvest. The company received World Bank financing and supplied major United States grocers.”
The Solidarity Center supports programs globally to help migrant workers organize. For example in Jordan, the Solidarity Center supports the first of its kind Domestic Workers Network (DWN), to assist migrant domestic workers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other countries to collectively advocate for their rights and support each other for better conditions in their workplaces. The DWN also supports monthly legal clinics for migrant domestic workers, and provides linkages with domestic worker rights organizations in the workers’ origin countries.
In Peru’s export sector, textile workers and agricultural laborers typically earn low wages and receive few or no benefits, like paid sick leave, work in dangerous and unsafe conditions, and often are fired when they form a union to improve their lives on the job, according to Juan Carlos Vargas, an economist for the Labor Development Program in Peru (PLADES).
“Agricultural workers have less vacation time, less compensation for unfair dismissal or receive minimum remuneration,” say Vargas. Textile workers typically are hired on one- to two-month contracts, which do not allow them to plan for a stable future, he says.
“My contract, like that of other workers, is one month and 15 days,” says Carmen Pérez, a textile worker who has toiled 10 years at the same factory. “I am afraid to plan to have a child because I know that at any moment (the company) can fire me.”
The Dark Side of ‘Made in Peru’
Pérez and other workers in Peru’s export sector discussed their struggles in a new video, “The Dark Side of ‘Made in Peru,’” produced by unions and other nonprofits to highlight the precarious working conditions and lack of freedom to form unions in the Peruvian textile and agro-export sectors. The workers describe laboring long hours for low pay, working for years without knowing if they will have a job for more than a few weeks at a time and being fired when they collectively try to improve their workplaces and working conditions.
Peruvian organizations hope that the campaign will open a dialogue with the new administration of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on their proposed labor regulations that would strengthen the enforcement of labor rights for temporary contracted workers, and tighter oversight on registration and proper use of temporary contracts.
Union leaders from the textile and agro-export sectors recently discussed the difficult environment for workers with U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, U.S. Ambassador to Peru Brian Nichols, Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Carol Pier and others at a meeting in Lima, Peru, hosted by the Solidarity Center. One participant, Lorena Chavera Caceres, secretary general of the Union of Camones Textile Workers, described how she was fired from her job at a textile factory for forming a union but ultimately empowered by learning about her rights through the Solidarity Center.
“The growth of the export sector has been accompanied by a lack of enforcement of labor rights,” says Juan Jose Gorriti, secretary of international relations at the General Workers Confederation of Peru (CGTP). “We cannot allow the competitiveness of the Peru brand to come at the cost of precarious employment conditions.”
The exponential growth in textile and agriculture in recent years also has not been reflected in the increased income for workers, says Vargas. “There is international competitiveness but at the expense of workers ‘ wages.”
Peru Labor Laws Must Change to Better Protect Textile, Ag Workers
Textile and agricultural workers are covered under dated labor laws that extend far fewer rights to them than to workers in other sectors, say union leaders, economists and other policy experts.
Unions and their allies are seeking legislative changes that will limit short-term contracts to five years, after which a worker must be given full-time work; increase the number of labor inspectors and bolster workplace inspection; and strengthen enforcement of workers’ right to form a union without retaliation, bargain collectively and strike—all rights covered under laws governing the textile and agro-export sectors.
Pedro, who has worked in a textile factory since 1999, says workplace conditions significantly improved after workers formed a union there in 2008. “Through unionization we achieved many things,” he says. “First of all, that the eight-hour day was respected.” Yet Pedro says his employer constantly harasses him for his active role in the union and fired him while he was in contract negotiations, an activity protected under the law.
Many of the more than 150 million migrant workers around the world endure abusive conditions—and one of the most exploitative phases of transnational labor migration takes place before migrants even leave their home country: recruitment for work abroad.
Forced to take on debt to pay the exorbitant fees labor brokers charge to secure a job, migrant workers often cannot repay it even after working for years. Trapped in debt bondage, a situation further exacerbated when workers’ visas are tied to employers and employers confiscate workers’ passports, they have no means of escape when employers abuse them or withhold wages.
“Labor recruitment fees can lead to debt bondage and should be eliminated,” says Sonia Mistry, Solidarity Center senior program officer for Asia. Mistry is taking part this week in Civil Society Days, a series of panels and events by nongovernmental organizations leading up to the December 10–12 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) meeting. Participants in Civil Society Days will present recommendations to representatives of the more than 100 governments meeting at the annual GFMD conference.
GFMD events, taking place this year in Bangladesh, coincide with Human Rights Day December 10. Commemorated annually, Human Rights Day marks the date in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
‘Multinationals Must Hold suppliers Accountable for Forced Labor’
Mistry, who will speak Friday on the Civil Society Days panel, “Protecting and Empowering Migrant Workers in all Global Supply Chains,” says multinational corporations have not done enough to prove to consumers that their supply chains are not tainted with forced labor.
“Multinational corporations need to exert their significant power as buyers to hold suppliers accountable for supply chains free of forced labor,” she says. Companies argue that it is too difficult or expensive to completely map their supply chains.
The recruitment and placement industry is a $464.3 billion-a-year industry.
During the recruitment process, it is routine for recruiters and their agents to make false promises about the jobs on offer, charge would-be migrants fees that exceed their annual income and offer loans at usurious rates, demanding property deeds as collateral.
Mistry and co-panelist Anup Srivastava from the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) say promoting the rights of migrant workers in supply chains requires a multifaceted approach that can be undertaken even in difficult environments—“so there is no space for ‘it’s too hard’ excuses by employers or governments,” Mistry says.
At the panel, Mistry will recommend:
All workers have equal access to internationally recognized labor standards, regardless of where they are.
Workers—who are the best workplace monitors—have the freedom of association rights they are due and are protected to raise and help address workplace safety, health, legal and rights violations. “At all points in the supply chain, unions serve as key partners in promoting decent work and addressing some of the most egregious rights violations, including child labor, forced labor and gender-based violence,” says Mistry. “No auditing system or third-party verification scheme can replace the role of unions.”
Binding and enforceable agreements be struck to enforce and protect worker rights. These can take many forms, from an International Labor Organization (ILO) standard to a collective bargaining agreement.
Unions Call on GFMD to Take Action to Protect Migrant Worker Rights
Participants at the GFMD’s ninth meeting are considering how member states can design a “Global Compact” to govern the mobility of migrant workers and the possible commitments by stakeholders to create a comprehensive global framework and follow-up mechanism. The Solidarity Center, along with the Council of Global Unions (CGU) and the AFL-CIO, is calling for recognition in the Global Compact negotiations of the “vital role of the ILO, founded on a mandate of social, justice, peace and democracy.”
Participants from unions around the globe held discussions and events in preparation for the GFMD meeting. Credit: Solidarity Center/Sonia Mistry
As noted by the CGU, the “ILO has important standards related to labor migration and a robust system to supervise those instruments. It is also the institutional protector of other workers’ rights that also apply to migrant workers, such as trade union rights (including freedom of association and collective bargaining), forced labor (including trafficking) and child labor, occupational health and safety protection, social security and many others.”
Civil society groups are urging the GFMD to take action to protect migrant workers’ rights by fulfilling the portion of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 8) that calls for taking immediate measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking, protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers.
The GFMD is a non-binding and government-led process open to United Nations member states and observers “to advance understanding and cooperation on the mutually reinforcing relationship between migration and development and to foster practical and action-oriented outcomes.”
Unions and other civil society organizations have been advocating for a stronger role for civil society in the GFMD.
Tunisian public employees will receive salary increases, bonuses and other key economic gains following negotiations between the country’s union federation, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) and the government. With the December 7 agreement, the UGTT canceled a public service general strike set to start December 8.
UGTT called for a strike after the government revealed plans to freeze public-employee wage increases as part of measures to control the budget deficit. UGTT had previously negotiated the increases with the government and throughout the year has been urging the government to follow through with its agreement.
The agreement includes 50 percent of negotiated wage increases to be paid between January and November 2017, with the increase paid in full in December 2017. Bonuses will be paid in full in December 2017 and workers will receive the remaining 50 percent of the wage increases in January, February and March 2018.
The pact will enable UGTT members to support strategic sectors providing services to citizens, such as health and education, and transportation, the federation said in a statement. The government also agreed to begin social negotiations in April.
Lawyers in Tunisia went on strike November 23 to protest government austerity measures that would add an 18 percent value-added tax on professional services of accountants, lawyers, financial consultants, notaries, judicial officers and architects.
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