http://www.icftu.org/english/turights/survey1998/etusurvey1998Foreword.html -- All the best Tor Førde visit our homepage: URL::http://home.sol.no/~toforde/ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Title: Survey Foreword 1998
ANNUAL SURVEY OF VIOLATIONS
OF TRADE UNION RIGHTS - 1998
FOREWORD
Fifty years after the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted Convention 87 establishing freedom of association in international law, this right is still being violated with impunity on every continent.
Even more disturbing is that the trend which emerges from this 1998 survey of trade union rights violations around the world is one of increasing repression, provoked in part by trade union action to denounce the harmful effects of the globalisation of the economy.
The rapid spread of export processing zones across Africa combined with the social impact of structural adjustment plans led trade unions in many African countries to go on the offensive against the ever greater exploitation of the workforce as well as, in many countries, growing delays in the payment of wages. Faced with mounting discontent, most governments refused to negotiate with workers’ representatives and some, such as Nigeria’s military dictatorship, simply stepped up their repression.
Repression has also continued in Latin America where neoliberal policies have accentuated inequalities and proved totally ineffective in solving the problems of unemployment and underemployment. Colombia remains the continent’s black spot. 156 trade unionists were killed there in 1997, many the victims of paramilitary groups, some of which operate hand in hand with the security forces of the Colombian government. A lot of these murders took place while trade unions were in negotiation. And virtually all have remained unpunished.
The dramatic fall of the Asian tigers, which only yesterday were seen as the motors of world growth, represents the most crushing defeat in 1997 of the advocates of unbridled capitalism. Because they dared warn of this crisis, because they dared point to the frailty of economies built on speculation, nepotism and corruption, many trade unionists found themselves behind bars. In countries such as Indonesia, where the independent trade union movement remains suppressed, the mass dismissals and widespread poverty caused by the crisis sowed the seeds of an unprecedented social explosion.
Incapable of solving the unemployment crisis affecting more than 18 million people in Europe, some governments have shown themselves to be more adept at unravelling their social welfare systems or further curtailing trade union rights. In the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the payment of wage arrears has become one of the principal trade union demands.
At a time when all too many are still refusing to acknowledge the link between world trade and social rights, our survey confirms the impact of the globalisation of the economy on the lives and rights of workers, as well as on the activities of the organisations whose job it is to make their voices heard. As national boundaries become blurred, rules established at the national level, often after years of social struggle, are becoming as irrelevant as they are ineffective. In this context, freedom of association, established by the ILO as a universal right, has never been so crucial to working people. As is the need to include social clauses in international trade agreements, in order to ensure that globalisation furthers the cause of social justice, and benefits those who create the wealth.
It is driven by this cause that men and women trade unionists daily continue their struggle, often risking their freedom, even their lives. Their courage should inspire all those fighting for a fairer world.
Bill Jordan
General Secretary
The violations of trade union rights reported
in this survey took place in 1997.
The survey was written by Kathryn Hodder of the ICFTU Trade Union Rights
Department
and edited by Bernie Russell.
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