6-19-05, 9:31 am
From Rednet News
Statement of the World federation of Trade Unions
The 93rd Session of the International Labour Conference is meeting in a year which commemorates the anniversary of our organization, WFTU, which was founded at the end of the Second World War 60 years ago, just after the creation of the UN. It is only logical that we recall the fact that it was on the initiative of the WFTU that the fundamental ILO Conventions 87 and 98 – on the Right of Association and Collective Bargaining – were adopted.
Towards the end of this year, the WFTU is convening the 15th World Trade Union Congress to discuss how the trade unions and workers can be mobilized and united in the struggle against neo-liberal globalization, war and exploitation, for social justice, full employment, solidarity and peace.
Similar questions were discussed last year at the Beijing International Trade Union Forum.
For us, it is not only time for reflection but for action to implement the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Because, this time, the arguments need to be followed by strong and powerful actions.
The WFTU strongly deplores the fact that the big employers like the transnational corporations pay very little or no attention to this ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Even in the industrialized countries, the percentage of workers enrolled in unions remains low and many employers do not recognize the trade unions. The biggest industrial power – the USA – still does not ratify the core conventions of the ILO and thus continues to be one of the major violators of trade union rights and human rights. It is in this context that the WFTU continues to call upon the ILO to compile a Trade Union Development Index, to factually record the actual implementation of ILO conventions 87 and 98 in Member States and to ensure that all States and TNCs assume their obligations under these core Conventions.
The Copenhagen agreements adopted at the UN World Summit for Social Development and the UN Millennium Goals remain unimplemented.
The ILO should deeply analyze the ways to change these grave negative developments, while seeking to implement the Copenhagen decisions, the UN Millennium Goals and recommendations of the ILO Commission on Globalization. The upcoming reform of the UN should lead also to real strengthening of the social dimension of globalization and the role of the ILO itself. Therefore, all trade unions should unite their efforts and act effectively to check the gross violation of human rights and trade union rights by the transnational corporations. Productive employment is not only an instrument for poverty reduction but for economic and social development and the development of productive forces.
It is necessary to cancel the colossal external debt of developing countries – the huge barrier which blocks their development. Resources for development should be found through cuts in arms budgets and by implementing the UN directives concerning Disarmament for Development and ending the ongoing aggressive wars.
Working people and trade unions all over the world over are deeply concerned over the situation of the workers who are gravely affected by the ongoing wars, foreign occupation, illegal blockades and sanctions, confrontation and threats, gross violation of international law, the sectarian conflicts, double standards and brutal interference into the internal affairs of sovereign States and by the attempts to dominate and to police the world, by the restriction of basic rights on different pretexts as witnessed today in occupied Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, parts of Syria and Lebanon, the blockades against Cuba and other countries. We are concerned also with the attempts to utilize the ILO for some of these purposes and practices.
We regret the failure of this Conference to elect to the ILO Governing Body, the representative of the All China Federation of Trade Unions – the biggest trade union in the world and from the most dynamically developing major economic power, as well as representatives of the different trends in the trade union movement, thus ignoring present realities, making the Workers Group not representative and thus weakening the ILO itself – at a time, when we are all convinced of the necessity to strengthen this important organization.
The world - and the ILO - at the beginning of a new century, are again at the crossroads. We are all again forced to make vital choices because we believe in the noble principles upheld by the ILO that peace and justice are irreplaceable and inseparable and are cornerstones of human values.
