Worker rights abused amid cost-of-living crisis: unions

PARIS — Workers in nine out of 10 countries have seen their right to strike violated over the past year as they battle the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, the International Trade Union Confederation warned Friday.

A decade after launching its first annual Global Rights Index, the ITUC said the results for 2023 provided "a sobering confirmation of its founding purpose".

Eighty-seven percent of the 149 countries reviewed in the index violated the right to strike between April 2022 and March 2023, the union group said.

Seventy-nine percent of countries violated the right to collective bargaining, with companies for instance refusing to comply with collective agreements or rejecting established trade unions, it added.

"As workers have felt the full force of a cost-of-living crisis, governments have cracked down on their rights to collectively negotiate wage rises and take strike action against employer and government indifference to the impacts of spiraling inflation upon working people," the union group said in a report.

Ecuador and Tunisia were highlighted by the IUTC, joining its list of the 10 worst countries for workers in 2023.

Mass protests in Ecuador for democracy and collective rights were brutally repressed, it said.

"In Tunisia, President Kais Saied has continued to tighten his hold on power, undermining workers’ civil liberties and democratic institutions," it added.

Nineteen trade unionists around the world have been murdered, compared to 17 in the previous comparable period.

Luc Triangle, the ITUC's acting general secretary, said this year saw an "urgent need for action" by unions as workers are slammed by rising costs in the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

However, the index shows "a steady attack on workers who dare to demand fair pay for their labour", he said, adding this was seen "across economic and geographical regions".

"Politicians have continued to hold wages down, have refused to honour negotiations with unions, have restricted strike action and have attempted to quash protests claiming that a wage-price spiral must be avoided," Triangle said in the foreword to the index.

Many countries are grappling with cost-of-living crises because wages are not keeping up with inflation prompting central banks to raise interest rates to try to tame the rise in prices.

Agence France-Presse

Hong Kong maids march against window-cleaning after deaths

HONG KONG - Domestic helpers in Hong Kong marched in protest Sunday after several maids fell to their death from tower block windows as they tried to clean them.

There are 300,000 maids in Hong Kong, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, with concern growing among rights groups over their welfare following several abuse cases.

A 35-year-old Filipina domestic helper fell to her death last month as she was reportedly cleaning the outside of the windows of her employer's flat.

Organizers of Sunday's rally said they believed at least three maids had died falling from windows this year.

Hundreds of helpers marched in the center of Hong Kong Sunday shouting "We are workers, not slaves!"

In a city of skyscrapers, they are calling on the government to ban employers from asking maids to clean the outside of windows.

"For us it's hard to say no when employers ask us to clean windows, but it's scary," said Dolores Balladares, a spokeswoman for the Asian Migrants' Coordinating Body.

"It's about time for the government to protect the workers."

Thai domestic worker Waen Takruerat, 42, said majority of maids were expected to clean windows inside and out.

"It's scary and dangerous so I told my boss I can't do it," she told AFP.

The plight of maids in Hong Kong was thrown into the spotlight by the case of Indonesian helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, who was beaten and starved by her employer Law Wan-tung in a case that made world headlines.

Law was jailed in February 2015 for six years.

Campaigners have long sought reforms, including ending the requirement for maids to live with their employers. They say this makes it difficult for them to escape abuse.

They also want the government to abolish the "two-week rule" under which domestic workers must leave Hong Kong 14 days after they quit a job, unless they can find other employment within that time.

So far the government has shown no indication it will relax either rule.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com