Sri Lanka: Labour Rights Violations threatening GSP benefits
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reported today to the World Trade Organisation that "while Sri Lanka has ratified all eight of the International Labour Organization’s core conventions, it has largely failed to implement these conventions," as noted by Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC.
Trade Union Rights Not Respected in Belize
The ITUC is releasing today a report on core labour standards in Belize, coinciding with the Trade Policy Review of the country at the WTO. The report finds that internationally recognised labour standards are violated especially with regard to child labour and trade union rights.
ITUC Shocked at UN Palestinian Agency Actions Over Strike
The ITUC has written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticising the actions of the UN’s Palestine Relief Agency UNRWA as a strike of its employees enters a third week. UNRWA management have insisted that they will not talk to the workers’ union unless and until the strike is called off. Some 7,500 employees and contract workers are on strike over claims for improvements in their wages and working conditions.
G20 Finance Ministers: World Unions Warn of Complacent Attitude and Ask “Where are the Jobs?”
“G20 Finance Ministers have to look beyond the comfort zone of Wall St and the City of London, to the reality that millions of people are still losing their jobs and are now being made to suffer further austerity whilst the benefits accrue to the very banks and financiers who caused the global crisis in the first place. The world economy is not out of the woods yet, and the cuts in public expenditure being announced by many of the G20 Finance Ministers have in fact made the risk of a deeper recession more likely. The commitments made by the G20 in London and Pittsburgh to put employment at the centre of decision-making are not being met. The G20 leaders’ meeting in Seoul next month must put jobs back on the G20 agenda,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
Trade union leaders and workers at Foxconn India imprisoned
The ITUC has protested to the Indian authorities over the continued imprisonment of 12 union leaders and workers in Vellore central prison. Criminal cases have been filed against trade union leaders and workers at a Foxconn plant located in a Special Economic Zone in Chennai, after they took strike action for union recognition and better wages.