Brussels, 20 March 2008: On the eve of The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the ITUC has reiterated the need to eradicate racism and xenophobia, insisting that every effort must be made to promote respect for diversity, particularly within the workplace and unions.
Discrimination based on race, colour or ethnic origin is an insidious and changing phenomenon, difficult to quantify and to combat. Racist practices based on a hierarchisation of human groups according to their biological differences have largely been replaced by “cultural” racism. This new type of racism is accompanied by more covert forms of discrimination, fuelled by the belief that the cultural values of certain groups have no place within the dominant cultural environment.
Eradicating racism in the workplace is a key challenge facing the trade union movement within the context of ever-greater worker mobility, especially among workers from ethnic, cultural and religious minorities, concentrated in certain regions of the world. Recent years have seen an increase in the discrimination facing these workers, such as unequal access to the labour market, unequal pay, moral harassment, job insecurity, etc., undermining the solidarity between workers.
“Racism and xenophobia are major factors in the growth of the decent work deficit,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder. “Eradicating these problems forms an integral part of our campaign for decent work,” he added.
During the international seminar aimed at developing a trade union strategy to fight racial discrimination and xenophobia held by the ILO and the ITUC in Geneva in December 2007, representatives of trade union organisations undertook to play a key role in defending and protecting the rights of those affected by racism and xenophobia, with the implementation of a global programme to fight these ills, driven by an overarching awareness-raising campaign targeting every level of the trade union movement. 2008 is set to be a decisive year, with the assessment of the action programme adopted in 2001 at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban (South Africa). It is essential that workers’ concerns be fully integrated within this review process.
Please read the final declaration of the seminar (FR - pdf)
The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 155 countries and territories and has 311 national affiliates.
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