Union-Backed Social Forum Event Draws Young Workers

Union-Backed Social Forum Event Draws Young Workers

Tunisia.World Social Forum.UGTT Youth Informal Econ workshop.3.15. Credit: Kaltgoum Barkallah

Maher Dribik was among presenters at the UGTT National Youth Workers Commission workshop on  informal economy workers. Credit: Lassaad Mahmoudi

More than 60 worker advocates shared strategies for empowering workers, especially women and young workers, trapped in informal economy jobs during last week’s World Social Forum in Tunis, Tunisia. Sponsored by the National Youth Workers Commission of the General Union of Tunisian Workers, (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT), together with the Solidarity Center, the workshop brought together representatives of European, Asian and Arab civil society organizations.

During the half-day workshop, the Youth Workers Commission shared a report on informal economy workers in Tunisia the UGTT released last year. The report found that 67 percent of Tunisian workers in the informal economy do not benefit from social protections such as paid sick leave, and pointed out that the informal economy is growing, accounting for 38 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, compared with 30 percent in 2010.

Workshop participants suggested the need for employers, workers and the government to work together to define a new development model; reform programs covering social protections; and encourage a sense of citizenship among workers and employers in the informal economy. The workshop also served to build and strengthen alliances between civil society organizations and trade unions.

Some 70,000 participants, representing more than 4,000 organizations took part in the World Social Forum. The five-day event serves as an annual counterweight to the Davos World Economic Forum, where top political leaders and business elites meet to discuss economic issues.

Striking Mexico Farm Workers Receive U.S. Labor Support

Striking Mexico Farm Workers Receive U.S. Labor Support

Striking farmworkers in Mexico are receiving international support for their efforts to secure decent living and working conditions and be paid a living wage. The women and men who pick berries and vegetables for the U.S. market make about $10 a day, and they see the employers’ latest offer to increase pay by 6 percent as a “slap in the face.”

In a letter to Mexico’s secretary of labor, the AFL-CIO urges the government to work with organizations representing the workers to rectify serious worker rights violations, among them employers’ refusal to pay overtime, child labor, worker exposure to pesticides and sexual harassment, as well as to release workers arrested for exercising their right to protest. (Read the letter in English and Spanish.)

A recent Los Angeles Times series on the farm laborers found many workers on export-oriented farms “essentially trapped for months at a time in rat-infested camps, often without beds and sometimes without functioning toilets or a reliable water supply.”

Further, the Times reports that “some camp bosses illegally withhold wages to prevent workers from leaving during peak harvest periods.”

 

 

Swaziland: Police Attack Another Union Meeting

“In June 2014 the U.S. government took the rare step of suspending African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade benefits for Swaziland, citing the Swazi government’s systematic violations of fundamental worker rights, including refusal to legally recognize TUCOSWA,” reported the Solidarity Center.

World’s Lawmakers Told to Focus on Ending Child Labor

World’s Lawmakers Told to Focus on Ending Child Labor

Twenty years ago, child labor was the norm in many countries around the world but “today, that is not the case,” said Tim Ryan, Solidarity Center Asia Director. “Child labor is not acceptable. Changing attitudes can be accelerated.”

Ryan spoke yesterday at a gathering of elected lawmakers from Asia and Latin America about the importance of focusing on the abolition of child labor in their parliaments. “Parliamentarians Without Borders for Children’s Rights,” a two-day gathering in Kathmandu, Nepal, drew participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Paraguay and Turkey.

Speaking in his role as North American board member of the Global March Against Child Labor, which sponsored the event, Ryan also pointed out the intrinsic connections between child labor, equitable economic development and promoting healthy democratic societies that work for all citizens.

“It’s incumbent upon you as elected leaders to contribute to that democratic process and be responsive to your constituencies by connecting the issues of child labor, education and decent work for children’s parents.”

He also pointed out connections between the U.S. civil rights movement and Gandhian principles and practices centering on the peaceful self-determination of impoverished citizens seeking economic equality, strategies fundamental to Global March Against Child Labor leader Kailash Satyarthi and his colleagues in combating child labor.

Noting that it takes time to make significant social change, Ryan cited the experience of abolishing slavery in the United States.

“Even after America’s Civil War, it took 100 years for African-American citizens’ rights to be enshrined in law and respected,” said Ryan. “And that fight still isn’t over.”

Ryan addressed the meeting at the invitation of Nobel Prize winner Satyarthi, a long-time Solidarity Center ally.

 

Mexican Senate Recognizes Human Rights Activist Ancheita

Mexican Senate Recognizes Human Rights Activist Ancheita

Alejandra Ancheita.Senate speech.3.15.Comisión de DDHH

Alejandra Ancheita spoke before the Mexican Senate about the lack of human rights enforcement. Credit: Comisión de DDHHA

Alejandra Ancheita, founder and executive director of the Mexico City-based ProDESC (Project for Economic, Cultural and Social Rights), was recognized this week by the Mexican Senate, where she discussed the urgent need to address human rights in the country.

Ancheita told the Senate that torture and enforced disappearances are the country’s most serious problems and cited 242 documented attacks against female human rights defenders in 2013. In 95 percent of the cases, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice, she said. She went on to recommend that the Senate’s Human Rights Commission convene a committee to observe the situation involving alleged violations of farmworkers rights in Baja California.

Last year, Ancheita won the prestigious international Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for her courage and tireless search for new ways to advance the rights of some of the most vulnerable workers in Mexico, including mine workers, migrant workers, child laborers and agricultural workers.

Ancheita, a Mexican lawyer and activist who leads the fight for the rights of vulnerable and excluded workers, migrants, communal landowners and indigenous communities, founded ProDESC in 2005. ProDESC is a longtime Solidarity Center ally whose work includes a campaign seeking justice for communal landholders in Ejido La Sierrita, Mexico, whose agreement with an international mining interest has been repeatedly violated by the company.

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