FOS-Socialistische Solidariteit campaign for global social protection

by Fonds voor OntwikkelingsSamenwerking - Socialistische Solidariteit (Belgium)

Becoming sick and not being able to pay for your treatment. Losing your job and not getting a benefit or income support. Working all your life and not getting a pension. ‘This is not fiction!’ More than 5 billion people worldwide do not have any kind of social protection! That is the main message of a new campaign on the universal right to social protection.

The Belgian campaign for global social protection is a joint effort of several ngo’s, unions and mutualities. We ask policy makers to respect the universal right to social protection, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as in several conventions and recommendations of the ILO. We ask our politicians:

• To translate these rights in national legislation, and to make sure that countries who ratified conventions on social protection do the necessary to put this in practice as soon as possible. Also we ask to fully acknowledge this right within the Sustainable Development Goals.
• To make sure that governments worldwide allocate sufficient resources to finance a decent system of social protection. The ILO calculated that universal social protection is financially feasible and, moreover, will generate economic growth. The mobilization of domestic resources, the implementation of just and fair international and national fiscal system, and the development of international financial support are some measures that will make the financing of a universal social protection feasible.
• To consult and respect social actors when constructing and managing a system of social protection. Social organizations, like unions, are best aware of the needs of social protection in countries. That’s why they should be involved in the policy regarding social protection.
• To make sure that Belgium and Europe strengthen their policy on social protection and do not install or impose other countries commercial our investment treaties that will harm social protection worldwide.

FOS, as a ngo working on the right to social protection, decent work and health, is also participating in this campaign. In 2015 we are focusing on the informal workers. More than half of the global active population is working in the informal economy, and therefore do not have access to social security. Work in the informal economy is, by definition, work with no social protection.

For example, the 23.000 sugarcane workers in El Salvador are mostly informal workers who are not eligible most social protection measures. The unions STEIA, together with STEIJISA and STEIMSA, working in respectively sugar factories El Angel, Jiboa and La Magdalena, joined forces in order to organize and mobilize the informal sugarcane cutters. “Sugarcane cutters are an important part of the supply chain. We want workers, informal or formal, in all stages of the supply chain to have decent work, with access to social protection. It is the responsibility of the large sugar factories as the small (in)formal enterprises who organize the harvest to support informal cutters to get access to social protection.”, says Noé Nerio (general secretary STEIA).

On the website www.socialebescherming.be you can find more info on this campaign and upload a picture of yourself whilst supporting for social protection!

More info: [email protected]