With disability rights organization New Age foundation, the Solidarity Center supported the re-launch of job search mobile phone app, “Ten Ishte” for people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan. The app, which translated means “Equal Work,” was previously informational but now also lists inclusive job openings and accessibility information about the buildings in which those jobs are located.
“Everybody deserves the dignity of full participation in society, including opportunities to acquire jobs-based skills and earn their livelihoods,” says New Age founder and long-term Solidarity Center partner Askar Turdugulov.
In collaboration with experts and civil society organizations and with Solidarity Center support, New Age helped redesign the app to best serve the needs of people with disabilities who are living in Kyrgyzstan. The app’s launch in Bishkek on October 3, gathered key rights activists and political and business leaders, including people with disabilities, civil society organization leaders, employers, Deputy Minister of Labor Kyial Januzakova, Deputy Minister of Education Muratbek Kasymaliev, Bishkek Deputy Mayor Victoria Mozgacheva and key members of parliament.
Event feedback included a recommendation by public association ARDI lawyer Seinep Dyikanbaevato to report the app’s building accessibility ratings to the Bishkek mayor’s office.
A public signing of a Solidarity Center memorandum of understanding during the event, which for the first time also included the Kyrgyz Society of the Blind and Deaf, marks the expansion of a disability rights coalition that, through better access to good jobs, seeks better social and professional integration for people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan.
In a precedent-setting case before the International Court of Justice, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) provided written comments last week in a legal dispute over the right to strike.
The dispute, filed in 2023, is the first submitted by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It arises from the refusal, in 2012, of the ILO Employers Group to recognize that the right to strike is protected by ILO Convention 87, as the ILO supervisory system has recognized since the 1950s.
On September 13, 2024, the ITUC filed its written comments. Oral arguments are expected to begin in the coming months. The ICJ’s advisory opinion is expected in 2025.
“This case is consequential, as the protection of the right to strike is essential not only for workplace democracy, but for democracy as a whole,” says Jeffrey Vogt, Solidarity Center rule of law director, co-author of the book The Right to Strike in International Law and member of the ITUC’s legal team. “The right of workers to withdraw their labor is so fundamentally intrinsic to the exercise of freedom of association and the right to organize that, without it, their very survival and the protection of their dignity as workers is at stake. We hope that the ICJ will agree with our reasoning as contained in our brief and affirm that the right to strike is protected under international law, including ILO Convention No. 87.”
The filing was made on behalf of ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle and Paapa Kwasi Danquah, ITUC director of legal and human and trade union rights, and supported by members of the ITUC legal team, including Vogt, Catelene Passchier, workers vice-chair of the ILO Governing Body, and Monica Tepfer, an ITUC lawyer.
Proposal Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, November 14, 2024
The Solidarity Center is seeking proposals from qualified applicants to conduct an evaluation of a portfolio of U.S. government (USG) funded international labor programs and the associated strategic program framework.
South Luzon workers from TF Logistics Philippines, Inc., and Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. rose victorious after their certification elections, with both unions committed to collective bargaining and continuous worker rights education.
The Philippine Metalworkers Alliance (PMA) started organizing the two unions last year, aiming to grow its industry affiliates in the region. It also secured a union of drivers and mechanics from RVL Movers Corp. last March.
TF Logistics Philippines Supervisory Union (TFLPSU-PMA) successfully conducted its union elections on August 20. This followed the unionization of the company’s rank-and-file workers way back in 2016, with supervisors actively working toward their own collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Mary Grace, PMA union organizer, noted a provision in the existing CBA that grants yearly salary increases to rank-and-file workers in TF Logistics, almost closing the income gap with supervisors.
John Edward Nilooban, TFLPSU-PMA president, explained, “Our benefits as supervisors were closely tied to the rank-and-file workers’ CBA, but we recognized the need for our own voice. We aim to secure a CBA on our own prerogative.”
Jonathan Punjong, TFLPSU-PMA secretary, added, “We want to be a part of the solution and a bridge for proper communication between our rank-and-file workers and management.”
Combined, the supervisory and rank-and-file unions at TF Logistics represent about 200 workers.
Auto Workers Choose New Leaders
Meanwhile, the Mitsubishi Motors Workers Union-Philippines (MMWU-P-PMA) held elections for its new leadership on July 30. Established in 1965, the union is a founding member of PMA and represents workers involved in manufacturing cars for the company.
The new union officers emphasized the need to fortify awareness and education on worker rights with its roughly 800 members.
Sergio Ward, Jr., MMWU-P-PMA president, said, “Unionization is not a simple matter. Our members need to be re-educated on the importance of our union and their role in it—that the union is more than just the benefits we enjoy.”
In a significant win for equity on Firestone Liberia’s rubber plantation in Harbel, more than 90 percent of contract workers voted Saturday to join the Firestone Agricultural Workers’ Union of Liberia (FAWUL). With 1,660 votes for FAWUL representation, contract workers won the right to negotiate collectively with the employer for, they hope, the same wages and benefits currently enjoyed by directly employed workers who are already represented by FAWUL.
“We owe it to generation after generation of workers who have suffered to secure good jobs and dignity for ALL,” says FAWUL Chairperson Rodennick Bongorlee.
FAWUL’s organizing success is the result of the union’s long-term campaign for equity for Firestone’s contracted workers, whose precarious jobs and low wages, often for the same work as permanent employees, are in stark contrast to hard-won worker rights on the rubber plantation.
A 2008 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and subsequent agreements were key for workers and labor rights in Liberia, where Firestone is the country’s largest employer. Previous to these agreements, plantation workers had endured working conditions that a 2005 human rights lawsuit against the company described as,”forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery,” where exploitative quotas resulted in excessive hard labor and children working alongside their parents in lieu of attending school. However, through a series of agreements with the company since 2008, FAWUL won for directly employed workers improved conditions that include reduced quotas, better working conditions and compensation, on-site free schooling for workers’ children, a free onsite health clinic and somewhat improved housing.
But, after 15 years of partnership with agricultural workers on the plantation, the company is increasingly backtracking. By FAWUL’s calculations, since 2019, some 3,500 full-time jobs have been lost to Firestone-imposed transfers to contract positions, lay-offs and forced retirements. In 2019, Firestone fired up to 2,000 employees and required them to sign contracts with “labor contractors,” who in turn hired the former employees to perform the same work under Firestone Liberia’s supervision, but at significantly lower rates of pay, with no benefits and without the protections provided by FAWUL’s CBA.
Without collective voice and effective representation through a union, contract workers have been subject to safety risks and exploitation. Although all plantation workers face grave dangers to their health and safety, low-wage contract workers cannot afford personal protective equipment such as boots, gloves and glasses and are at increased risk related to acid use and snake bite exposure. And inadequate company housing for contract workers—usually a small, two-room brick apartment that houses 15–20 people from two extended families—is exposing contract workers and their families to unsafe crowding and, some workers report, rat infestation.
And, without CBA protection, contracted workers complain of economic exploitation. Contract tappers last month were describing Firestone Liberia’s measurement process for reimbursing latex extraction as “cheating,” and said they are being forced to work excessive overtime regularly without commensurate pay or, sometimes, any pay at all. Contract cup washers, most of whom are women who walk more than an hour to work, say they too are forced to work excessive hours without fair or, sometimes, any compensation. Excessive hours are enforced by threat of discipline or dismissal contract workers told the Solidarity Center—a very serious threat for those trapped in debt bondage to the company.
“We applaud the courage and spirit of the Firestone plantation workers who have steadfastly fought for a union to improve their lives and working conditions,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
FAWUL in 2007 was awarded the AFL-CIO’s annual George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award in recognition of the union’s “extraordinary courage” in successfully organizing more than 4,000 Firestone Liberia workers for the first time in the company’s 82-year existence in the country. An indirect subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas Inc., Firestone Liberia is the largest contiguous natural-rubber producing operation in the world. The company supplies Bridgestone with raw and block latex with which to manufacture tires in the United States. Approximately 25,000 people reside on the Firestone-Liberia plantation, including roughly 8,500 workers with their families. Because Firestone Liberia is an employment-standards trendsetter, plantation wages and working conditions have a direct impact on the livelihoods, rights and dignity of all workers in Liberia.
The Solidarity Center, in partnership with the United Steelworkers (USW), works with Liberian unions in key extractive industries such as mining, timber and rubber, as well as with domestic workers, to support them as they better serve their members and assist workers in forming unions.
Unions of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila say they will continue to fight for job security amid securing an agreement with management to reinstate workers once the hotel reopens, which only materialized after the closure.
The unions said about 70 percent of its members already accepted severance pay due to pressure from management and family financial needs.
Hotel grounds closed on June 30 for renovations, contrary to previous reports of a permanent closure, and 1,200 workers—500 regular staff and 700 contractual–lost their jobs.
However, the unions remain optimistic. Marco Jalandoni, National Union of Workers in Hotels, Restaurants and Allied Industries (NUWHRAIN) secretary general, said, “Our victory is in securing the future of the union. We were able to ensure the return of the remaining union members once the hotel reopens, and our negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement will continue.”
Workers added that amid their persistent demand for negotiations, the hotel held job fairs prior to closing, with the majority of offers contract positions with few regular managerial jobs. Benster Moleno, education and communications officer of the NUWHRAIN-Philippine Plaza Chapter (PPC), said, “Many workers are unqualified for these positions, and job opportunities outside Metro Manila are impractical.”
The unions organized a media campaign with picket actions in front of hotel grounds leading up to the closure, which were followed by local news outlets. Senator Risa Hontiveros called for an investigation after listening to the workers’ plight two days before operations ceased.
Nestor Cabada, NUWHRAIN-PPC president, said, “The hardest thing right now is how those employees without jobs—how the whole union will survive until the hotel reopens. But as we always say: even if there is only one of us standing, the union will remain and continue the fight. We will leave no one behind.”
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