Teachers rally in Athens. Photo: OLME

Last week, Greek teachers found out that their services were essential. No news there, of course – as the old poster had it “if you can read this, thank a teacher!” But the language of austerity is becoming more like George Orwell’s “newspeak” by the day. The Greek authorities defined teaching as an “essential service” in order to ban a one-day strike on Friday by the Greek Federation of Secondary Education State School Teachers (OLME).

The Greek Government has invoked these powers already earlier this year to ban a strike by dock workers. International human rights laws and the ILO do allow governments to ban strikes in essential services, but the definition of what’s essential is very narrow – usually only relating to certain functions protecting national security, public safety, public health or morals.

And the Greek Government is increasingly in the dock over taking away people’s fundamental human rights, because it’s the only way to ram through their austerity measures (and, according to one press report, they even get brownie points from ‘the markets’ for taking away workers’ rights.) They’ve been condemned by international union organisations, Amnesty International, and the European Committee of Social Rights, part of the Council of Europe.

The OLME strike was against longer hours (two hours on the average working week), which teacher unions claimed would also lead to the redundancy of many part-time teachers. But the Government has also proposed the forced movement of teachers to remote schools with shortages, on top of numerous other attacks on terms and conditions of teachers, which the union claims will also hit the quality of education in Greece.

Outraged by the ban on the teachers’ union action, the GSEE private sector confederation and public sector organisation ADEDY called on workers to protest in sympathy. But the teachers’ union – faced with threats to their members of dismissal and even arrest - had to call off the action.

Amnesty International accused the Greek Government of violating its international human rights obligations. Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Programme Director said:

“Times of financial hardship don’t absolve governments from their obligations to uphold all human rights, and workers’ rights in particular should not become a casualty to the crisis.”

This latest step – sure to be raised by Greek unions with the International Labour Organisation at its conference next month – follows hard on the heels of the latest finding of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), the main supervisory body monitoring the implementation of the (revised) European Social Charter of the Council of Europe in five collective complaints against Greece. The unions had criticised the massive reductions in social security benefits, particularly in relation to pension rights. The ECSR concluded that Greece is in violation of the right to social security enshrined in the European Social Charter.

Bernadette Ségol, ETUC General Secretary, commented that:

We’ve reported elsewhere about the 34 major companies that have already signed the global union Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, in the aftermath of the horrific Rana Plaza disaster. And we’re urging people to help the families of the victims with our TUC Aid Dhaka Disaster Appeal.

But this weekend, we’re also asking you to persuade two other companies to sign up to the Accord and help ensure there are no further atrocities: Debenhams and Gap. Both are involved in discussions with IndustriALL and UNI Global – the worldwide textile and retail worker unions about signing the Accord. We think some public pressure could make the difference and get them to put their words into action.

Please sign our e-action, and encourage your friends, family and workmates to sign up too. We hope we can welcome both companies to the list of Accord-backing list soon.

If you find this attempt to silence criticism as outrageous as I do, please join nearly 9,000 trade unionists worldwide and take a moment to let the Thai employers and authorities know that we don’t like the way Thailand’s courts are being abused by a bad employer. We’re seeking publicity for Andy’s case, and are pressing the UK Government to raise the issue formally with the Thai Government, as well as working with global unions and the ILO.

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina marchers calling for justice for workers killed in the Dhaka tragedy. Photo IndustriALL

I blogged last week about what you can do to help Bangladeshi workers prevent more tragedies like the Dhaka factory collapse that has now claimed over 610 lives and the Tazreen factory fire which claimed 112 in November. Now global e-petition machine Avaaz has joined the union campaign, encouraging its millions of supporters globally to pressurise the multinational brands to sign the factory safety agreement that global union federation IndustriALL has proposed.

Please sign that petition and encourage as many of your friends, family and workmates to do so. The deadline set by IndustriALL is 15 May, so there are only a few days left for the multinationals who have profited out of low wages to do the right thing (you can also make a donation to IndustriALL’s fund for the humanitarian effort in Savar – the area around the Rana Plaza factory).

Meanwhile, the ILO’s tripartite mission to Bangladesh – led by former Prime Minister of Togo and now ILO Deputy Director General Gilbert Houngbo – has issued a concise and hard-hitting set of recommendations to the Government of Bangladesh. The key five points of its strategy are unequivocal and uncompromising:

• labour law reform that would improve protection, in law and practice, for the fundamental rights to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, as well as occupational safety and health;
• assess by the end of 2013 the structural building safety and fire safety of all active export-oriented ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh, and initiate remedial actions, including relocation of unsafe factories;
• an ILO skills programme for workers injured in the recent tragic events at Tazreen Fashions Ltd., Smart Export Garments and Rana Plaza that resulted in disability, as well as redeploymenta nd rehabilitation;
• recruit, within 6 months, 200 additional inspectors, upgrade the Department of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Establishments to a Directorate with the budget for a minimum of 800 inspectors; and
• implement the National Tripartite Plan of Action on Fire Safety in the Ready-Made Garment Industry in Bangladesh, extended to include structural integrity of buildings to improve health, occupational and structural safety.

The strategy would certainly get the support of Financial Times ‘Undercover Economist’ Tim  Harford. Arguing against a boycott of Bangladeshi textiles (and certainly, no Bangladeshi union has asked for that!), he correctly identifies the key change that Bangladeshi workers need to secure higher wages, better safety standards, and dignity at the workplace – the right to join a free trade union. He concludes:

“One other thing: poor countries need to allow trade unions to operate – unlike in Bangladesh, where union activists have been harassed and even killed. …

“Ultimately, whatever western consumers demand, what determines whether rules about working conditions are upheld is that workers on the factory floor have a voice and some power.”

Sign the Avaaz petition now

Garment workers in a Bangladesh clothing factory. Photo: Jankie

In the aftermath of the death toll in Bangladesh’s worst ever factory disaster last week, much has been written (including by us!) about what needs to be done to prevent further tragedies. Most attention has focused on what the Bangladesh government and multinational clothing companies should do, with a fair amount of blame being mis-directed (more on that in another blog) at cash-strapped, bargain-hunting western consumers.

One element of the online debate has been about what sort of terms and conditions of employment are appropriate for workers in Bangladesh’s Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector. The usual canard about not pricing them out of their jobs has been raised, so I thought I should address that specifically, because it’s being used to attack unions’ and campaigners’ attempts to demand better wages and safer workplaces.

The argument runs like this. The only reason multinational textile firms place orders in Bangladesh is because the price is low, due mostly to very low wage levels. If those wages go up too far, the companies will stop placing orders and people will lose their jobs. That will leave them worse off than they are now.

Some people have argued this aggressively, resisting any increases in wage levels, and insisting that the situation in Bangladesh may be bad, but any pressure for change would only make things worse. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh essentially argued that case when she was interviewed on CNN yesterday. No wonder it’s reported that the Government has apparently expressed displeasure at the arrival of an ILO mission who are taking a tough line (the Government has also refused CNN journalists visas to enter the country, as they have done in the past with our own union, Unite!)

Others argue a much less strident line. On the Guardian Development pages earlier this week, New York-based Maha Rafi Atal argued that campaigners were seeking to impose western wage levels, which would destroy the livelihoods of the workers concerned. She did, let me be clear, spend far longer rebutting the claims of the sweatshop apologists in the right wing media like Alex Massie in the Spectator.

But Maha also hit out – for balance? setting up a straw man? - at campaigners against sweatshops, writing that:

“Pushing not only for raised safety standards but also for wages that match those in the developed world is a tactic that will have the effect of shutting down developing world manufacturing altogether.”

She cites, as evidence, a blog by US academic Erik Loomis, where he argues that US corporates should be held to US labour standards wherever they operate, and suggests that he is therefore calling for the same wage rates in Bangladesh as in the USA (although there isn’t a single wage rate in the US, even under minimum wage laws). I asked Erik what he meant by the relevant line in his blog, and he clarified thus:

“What I’m calling for are legally enforceable international standards regardless of where a corporation chooses to site a plant, with these standards enforceable in the courts of the country of corporate origin.”

And I also checked with the AFL-CIO, our sister organisation in the US, because Maha had told me (on twitter, so I’m not implying this is her detailed position) that the argument she was criticising was not uncommon in North America. Their trade expert, Celeste Drake, told me:

“The AFL-CIO clearly is for rising wages and standards of living for all, and we agree that as wages rise in developing nations, low-wages won’t be one of the factors pulling jobs out of the US to other countries. However, the AFL-CIO has not supported efforts to impose a global minimum wage from the United States, nor to use a global minimum wage standard as a way to block imports from developing countries (moreover, our brothers and sisters in developing countries would not likely appreciate such efforts, which they might see as efforts to prevent their own country’s development).

“Instead, we have strongly supported international labor rights so that workers are empowered to raise their own wages and living standards; we support trade provisions to address labor rights abuses; we oppose austerity measures which reduce social safety nets, employment, and job security; and we promote social protection systems on a national basis (eg minimum wages, health and old age pension systems, unemployment and disability insurance etc), that will help workers everywhere live decent lives.  These policies will help workers as they help grow a global middle class that will increase markets for goods everywhere, creating a virtuous cycle of ever increasing demand—but without imposing a wage level from the US.”

That’s the TUC’s position too. Above all, we want Bangladeshi workers to have the freedom of association and rights to collective bargaining that would allow them to set their own wage rates at a level that would provide dignity and a living wage. Most of the people arguing against that aren’t protecting Bangladeshi workers’ jobs, but the wealth of Bangladesh’s business and political elite, and the bloated profits of multinational enterprises. And people who do care about the textile workers, like Maha, shouldn’t be making their task easier by misrepresenting the union/campaigner case.

Hassan Juma’a, head of the Iraqi General Union of Oil Employees. Photographed in Iraq by David Bacon in 2005, for the photo documentary Oil for Freedom

Over a month ago, I wrote about the court case being taken against the leader of Iraqi’s oil workers at the South Oil Company (SOC). Hassan Juma’a was due to be tried for organising a strike, using a Saddam-era law. The charge itself is offensive, as the strike he is being accused of calling should be entirely legal. It is further evidence that Iraq is still way out of compliance with ILO labour standards.

But now the situation is getting farcical, with trial date after trial date coming and going. Originally scheduled for 20 March the case was initially postponed to 7 April and then 15 April. Then the trial was postponed again to 2 May and yesterday it was postponed again until 19 May. Meanwhile, pressure from trade union movements around the world is growing.

What’s the problem? Well, the SOC management who brought the case seem to have failed to prepare any evidence of the damage they claim has been done to them. In fact they’ve told the judge that they’ve asked the Oil Ministry in Baghdad to provide them with some evidence (not that it’s being made up or anything, hundreds of miles away from the actual workplace concerned!) And the Iraqi Oil Ministry, who have been after Hassan for years, have somehow failed to come up with the evidence the local management need.

Now the judge seems to be losing patience. Hassan has reported that when the SOC lawyer failed again to present any evidence or witnesses, the judge said that he would give the company one last chance. He added that all that he had heard about so far was peaceful demonstrations about workers’ rights that are protected by the Iraqi constitution. He indicated that if the company doesn’t come up with the evidence on 19 May, he may simply dismiss the case.

Frankly, the Iraqi government – who clearly put the company’s management up to it – should cut its losses and drop the case. And they should enact ILO-compliant labour law so that unions can concentrate on building a new Iraq. You can help persuade them by signing the IndustriALL e-action demanding the charges be dropped and replaced by good faith bargaining.

People search for survivors after the Rana Plaza building disaster in Bangladesh. Photo: Qamrul Anam Coordinator, Industriall IBC

Rosa blogged last week about how the Dhaka textile factory collapse demonstrated the need for strong, independent unions in Bangladesh. Since then, there have been thousands of words printed and broadcast about the disaster and what caused it. A lot of the comments have been more or less anguished concerns that there is nothing we can do about the situation – or, indeed, attempts to blame heartless western bargain-hunters for the 382 deaths – so far – in Dhaka.

In fact, there’s a lot that we can do about what’s happened in Dhaka, even though the real action will be taken – is being taken, despite police brutality - by workers in Bangladesh, just as it was the action of workers in Britain and the USA that led to higher living standards and safer workplaces in our own countries.

You could protest about the companies in Britain and the USA who ultimately dictate the working conditions throughout their global supply chains and profit from them. You can back the call by unions in Bangladesh – textile unions that are part of the Global Union Federation IndustriALL - for stronger labour laws and freedom for trade unions. And, longer term, you can play your part in building union power around the world, persuading fellow workers and thus securing support from the politicians who seek their votes for Decent Work to become the norm rather than a dream.

There have been lots of positive signs that the Dhaka deaths have shifted the terms of the debate over supply chains and workers’ rights, although there have been so many similar occasions in the past. I remember campaigning with Asian unions and western NGOs to get the global toy industry to clean up its act after the Kader Toy Factory Fire that killed 188 workers almost exactly 20 years ago in May 1993.

The International Labour Organisation has announced that it is sending a high-level mission to Bangladesh, led by the former Prime Minister of Togo, now a Deputy Director General of the ILO, to ensure action is taken to prevent further disasters.

Katharine Hamnett – best known for her eye-catchingly radical t-shirt designs – was fantastic on Newsnight last week (still available on i-Player for a few more days) calling for the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Labour’s Shadow International Development Secretary Ivan Lewis MP was moved to pledge that:

“Decent work and labour standards will be central to development policy under a Labour Government.”

Even Save the Children’s Chief Executive Justin Forsyth said something similar in the Times (£).

There have been arrests in Bangladesh (unlike in Texas after the recent fertiliser factory explosion, as several people caustically noted on twitter), although there are concerns that this is just the Government protecting the public image of its huge export industry. Probably more important, health and safety inspections have subsequently been ordered in Bangladeshi textile factories. And there have been protests from workers and local communities, as mentioned above.

Nothing will change overnight, and more people will suffer exploitation, injury and even death in the global supply chains for many years to come. But the argument for workers’ rights, and for the core labour standards of the ILO, is now firmly on the agenda, and we need to make sure it stays on the agenda until we’ve won it.

Jailed Swazi trade union leader Wonder Mkhonza

I wrote last week about the protests in Swaziland marking the 40th anniversary of Africa’s longest state of emergency. The Swazi security services sank to a new low, bursting in on a Catholic Church funeral because they suspected it was an illegal protest meeting and only leaving when the coffin actually arrived.

But they also arrested the organiser of one protest meeting, Wonder Mkhonza, Secretary General of the Swaziland Processing Allied Workers Union. His comrades are worried that he hasn’t been seen since he was detained on Friday. They say that the normal reason why lawyers and family members can’t visit people who’ve been seized is because they’re being tortured, and the police don’t want the evidence to be too obvious.

You can take action by signing an online petition to be sent to the Swazi Minister for Foreign Affairs, initiated by the National Union of Metalworkers in South Africa (NUMSA), Wonder’s sister union.

Wonder was arrested for allegedly being in possession of literature from the TUC’s sister organisation the Trades Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) which has been refsued recognition on spurious grounds, and pamphlets from the banned political party the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), of which he is National Organising Secretary.

It is believed that he is now in jail in Nhlangano in the South of Swaziland after he was transferred from Lavumisa - the small town near the South African border where he was arrested - on Saturday evening.

UPDATE 18/4/13: Wonder has now been officially charged with sedition, for possession of 5,000 political leaflets. His bail has been refused and a trial date set for 24 April. The petition for his freedom still stands, so please sign now and share it, ahead of his trial.

I’ve known Andy Hall, off and on, for over ten years. He’s a dedicated, committed activist putting his considerable skills to use on behalf of workers in some of the least propitious environments, especially Southern and South-Eastern Asia.

Next month, he’s due in court in Thailand charged with criminal defamation of the Natural Fruit Company, whose disgusting exploitation of Burmese refugee labour he exposed in a report for a Finnish labour rights NGO, Finnwatch.

Please take a moment to join the global e-action – promoted by LabourStart and global unions BWI and UNI – to persuade the company to drop the case, and instead, address the abuses his report reveals. And reflect, too, on the way so many corporations use their wealth and legal powers to try to stifle dissent rather than clean up their act, as Human Rights Watch have pointed out.

Andy Hall is a British citizen whose research showed that the Natural Fruit Company abused the rights of migrant Burmese workers – the majority of its workers – including child labour. Despite being offered every opportunity to meet the researchers while the study was underway, and respond to the report’s findings, the company’s only response has been to sue Andy for millions of pounds, in a clear attempt to punish him and deter others. The company’s chairman is the elder brother of the Secretary General of Thailand’s opposition Liberal Party (the sister organisation of Britain’s Liberal Democrats).

Unions in Thailand and around the world have sprung to Andy’s defence, including the State Enterprise Workers’ Relations Confederation of Thailand (SERC), who have a global reputation as the most advanced section of the Thai trade union movement.

Sign the e-action now!

King Mswati III in a still from 2008 documentary “Without the King“, First Run Features

Today is the 40th anniversary of the declaration of a state of emergency in Swaziland, and it isn’t over yet. The last remaining feudal dictatorship in Africa continues to ban political parties, harrass trade unionists, and bans demonstrations, meetings and even religious ceremonies. Meanwhile the economy is falling apart, the country has the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world, and food aid destined for the country’s poor – in a country where one in three are malnourished but sugar is one of the main exports – has been sold off by the regime to pay for its repulsive rule.

So, today, we express our solidarity with the unified Trades Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), its leaders, unions and members, in their struggle for democracy, human rights and trade union freedoms. Over the coming year, we will be working with our sisters and brothers to demand the Commonwealth suspend Swaziland, insist that the regime allows free and fair elections by unbanning political parties, and keep up the pressure for ILO standards on freedom of association and collective bargaining to be observed.

There will be protests in neighbouring South Africa organised by Swazi refugees and the massive COSATU trade union federation, and inside the country, vigils, prayers and meetings will be organised. Sadly, many will be deterred by a heavy police presence, and some will be broken up. Traditionally, opponents of the regime will be picked up in the early hours, driven out into the countryside and left there, too far away to get back in time for the protests they have arranged.

The IMF has taken the extraordinary step of calling on the Swazi government to make cuts not in social programmes and welfare arrangements, like in most other countries, but in the security services, Ministerial salaries and the budget for the royal household. Because it is these elements of state expenditure that are still growing despite the collapse of the economy, and it is those elements which are of no practical value to the people of Swaziland.