Striking dockers and supporters in the camp they have started at Hong Kong’s docks. Photo: Alex Leung.

In recent years there has justly been much attention on workers taking action to defend their rights in mainland China. We’ve seen major incidents in car and textile factories, and more recently the electronics sector, including Apple supplier Foxconn. There have been developments in both the legal framework and in workers’ willingness to protest, that have led to increases in pay and improvements in a number of sectors.

However the situation facing workers in Hong Kong, who while having at least on paper the right to freedom of association, lack many other basic social and legal protections, has received virtually no coverage.

This may change as a strike by dockers working for subcontractors supplying Hong Kong International Terminals (HIT) looks set to enter its 4^th week.

The strike pits hundreds of crane operators and other staff on casual day rates against the owner of HIT’s parent company, and one of the worlds 10^th richest men Li Ka-Shing. The dispute is taking place in an industry where workers ability to act collectively seemed to have been increasingly diminished by outsourcing and casualisation.

But the struggle is not as uneven as it looks, the ports business has been severely affected as crane operators who had been expected to work 12 hour shifts without breaks moving 35-40 cargoes an hour have stayed united and organised themselves into a union, the United Hong Kong Dockers.

They are campaigning for things that ordinary Hong Kongers can totally understand; a living wage, an end to casualisation, a reduction in excessive hours and improved health and safety conditions and they are receiving remarkable support from the wider community, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, and fellow trade unionists around the world.

Last week 4,000 marched on the offices of the Hong Kong government, demanding an end to the harassment of the dock works and legal attempts to block their protests. A support camp has grown up outside the dock gates with people bringing food and  other necessities and a solidarity fund has raised over HKD5.3million, enabling strikers to receive strike pay for the protracted dispute.

Support action is spreading including students and others initiating a boycott of other companies owned by HITs ultimate owner the Hutchinson Whampoa Corporation, including one of Hong Kong’s main supermarket chains Park ‘n’ Shop.

As anyone in the UK who knows the history of the great dock strikes from which the predecessors of UNITE were formed at the end of the C19th and early C20th, both community and international solidarity are vital to win these actions. Australian and US dock workers have visited the picket lines and donated funds, the TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady has written to the dock owners demanding action and the International Transport Federation and Labour Start have set up an online action, please support it and encourage others to do so.

Sign the action now

Sally began by pointing out that whilst we welcomed the chance to meet with the embassy the reality was that since a similar TUC delegation had last with officials, the situation in Mexico had worsened rather than improved;

• Protection contracts were still prevalent (these are the agreements signed by employers with tame or fake unions which exclude independent unions from organising)
• Long promised labour law reforms introduced last year have in fact made the situation worse for workers, failing to deal with protection contracts, increasing job insecurity by encouraging widespread outsourcing and allowing for mass dismissals of workers who do try to organise independent democratic unions
• Napoleon Gomez, general secretary of the Los Mineros mining and metal workers union remains in exile in Canada
• And the bodies of the victims of the Pasta Conchos mine disaster in 2006 remain unrecovered, with no sign of further investigation into why the disaster happened or any action against those responsible.

Tony pointed to the mass dismissals of workers employed by PKC, a Finnish auto-parts maker, Honda the Japanese car giant and 16,500 electricity workers in Mexico City who had tried to defend their right to belong to the SME union. And Billy highlighted the continued failure of the Mexican authorities to deal with detailed issues raised by the International labour Organisation and to meet their obligations to enter into dialogue with all unions, not just those who for historic reasons have privileged access to state systems.

Letters from Frances O’Grady on behalf of the TUC and Len McClusky, Unite General Secretary and Leo Gerard of the US United Steel Workers on behalf of Workers Uniting were handed over, outlining our concerns in detail.

On behalf of the Mexican embassy Snr. Garcia-Zamudio welcomed the chance to engage in discussion with British unions on these issues and promised to convey our views ‘clearly and bluntly’ back to the ministries of foreign affairs and labour so that they could see the strength of feeling around the world.

Following some more detailed responses on the background to our concerns from the embassy Sally concluded by requesting;

• More information on the position of Los Mineros general secretary Napoleon Gomez
• An update on the possibility of recovering the victims of the 2006 Pasta de Conchos disaster and information on what steps had been taken to investigate and prosecute those responsible
• Information on what steps the government of President Pena Nieto was taking to meet the concerns raised by the ILO committee of experts and the committee on application of standards.

It was agreed we would contact the embassy again once this information had been received.

The week of action continues until the 24 February, with a public meeting in London on Wednesday 20 February.

You can register your support online as well, by taking Labourstart’s latest e-action in support of dismissed workers. And more information on the campaign to support our Mexican colleagues can be found at the IndustriALL website.

Former ITUC General Secretary, and ILO Secretary General Candidate, Guy Rider

Guy Ryder the former head of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is in the running to be the next Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)  the part of the United Nations that deals with issues relating to the world of work.

As the Trades Union Congress representative on the ILO governing body, and someone holding one of the 56 votes that will decide the next DG, I’m giving my full support to Guy, notwithstanding his dodgy sporting allegiances.

The ILO is an important organisation for working people around the world, set up in the aftermath of the First World War to work for social justice by creating a level playing field of labour standards. It was seen as fundamental to building a fair and just peace, sadly as the outbreak of the Second World War showed this vision didn’t quite work out in practice. However in the years since WWII it has continued to build a base of globally agreed rights and backed them up with technical and policy support at a national level.

Under its current director general, Juan Somavia, the ILO has taken major strides in highlighting the key role of fundamental labour rights, in establishing the Decent Work Agenda and in putting forward the case for employment to be at the heart of polices for global economic recovery through the global jobs pact and securing a seat at the G20 table.

However the ILO is now 93 years old and needs a major shake-up. The task of ensuring that the ILO is fit for the purpose is a complex one, not least because there are many who would love to see it fail or at the very least fade into obscurity.

Guy has the ideal set of skills and ideas to make sure that this doesn’t happen. Guy is currently the ILO Executive Director responsible for standards and before this he was the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) whose creation he successfully oversaw with the merger of the ICFTU and WCL. In both roles his calm and balanced approach coupled to an underlying unshakable belief in the need for people to work together to deliver practical results for workers have shone through.

Guy has already laid out his vision for the future direction of the ILO, including:

• Putting Standards back at the centre of its mandate, with a  clear recognition that effective and implementable  conventions and recommendations must form the basis of the work of the ILO in helping to reshape the global economy
• Reform of the internal management and structures of the ILO to ensure that its dedicated staff are able to work in an effective, and joined up way to deliver real results at ground level. Coupled with a more outward looking approach so people can access the knowledge and resources of the organisation without have to negotiate a sometimes Orwellian style bureaucracy.
• Reasserting the ILO’s confidence in the core value of tripartism – bringing together worker, employer and government representatives on an equal basis to champion the needs of the real economy in the face of the crisis caused by the excess of financiers and bankers who are as removed from the needs of most business and enterprises as they are from workers.

Given the current state of the world, increasing levels of inequality, growing unemployment and the rush to austerity by many governments that could condemn a generation, we need the ILO more than ever. However to be an effective force that can take forward the fight for a better, fairer world it needs the kind of leadership that Guy is best placed to provide.

Domestic workers celebrate the passing of Convention 189 on Domestic Workers at the ILO's 100th Session in Geneva in June this year. Photo: © International Labour Organization

Last week, I had to give a presentation to the Solicitors International Human Rights Group (SIHRG), on the topic ‘International Labour Standards: How effective is the current system?’ The main temptation was to simply say ‘not very’ and leave it at that, but the calibre of the audience demanded a rather more structured response.

When it comes to actually establishing international labour standards, the system might not be the Rolls Royce of global governance structures, but it’s definitely in the high end range compared to many of the other areas where we’re crying out for globally agreed standards, such as finance sector regulation or controls on tax evasion and avoidance.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has been fulfilling its mandate to establish conventions and produce authoritative recommendations that apply to the world of work since 1919. These standards are negotiated by governments, employers and workers representatives and are therefore supposed to be a product of consensus by all actors in the ‘real economy.’  The adoption at this year’s ILO conference of Convention 189 on the rights of domestic workers, one of the most exploited work forces in the world, shows the continued ability of the ILO to reach out to all workers.

However, setting the standards is of course only part of the battle, and benefits for working people only come if the standards are actually implemented and enforced. And in far too many countries around the world we aren’t even close.  As I told the SIHRG, the best (and in long run, only) guarantee of decent standards in the workplace is workers being organised into strong and effective unions. The role of a framework of labour standards is to help create the space to make this possible and provide a clear view of what Decent Work should actually be.

There has been a worrying reduction in governments ratifying recent ILO standards, and far too many long standing standards, including the 8 classed as fundamental rights (conventions covering freedom to organise and bargain collectively, ending child and forced labour and outlawing discrimination in the workplace) have still to be ratified in many countries, including the US and China.

Our own coalition government has joined this awkward squad recently, by refusing to even consider ratification of the domestic workers convention in the UK, on the spurious basis that it could lead to the elderly being sent to prison if a domestic worker in their employ had an accident.

To make the labour standards system effective there needs to be more practical support to countries to implement them (something our government has moved away from by cutting all of DFID’s funding to the ILO) and there needs to be a more effective stick for those that don’t.

The ILO has a well established system for gathering information on levels of implementation, but it lacks any real sanctions, hence the long standing global union demand that trade agreements should contain clauses on labour standards.

The logic behind this is that if they contain legally binding language on intellectual property rights and other business related interests they should also contain enforceable language on the rights of the workers who make trade possible in the first place.

Worded in such a way to ensure they can’t be used as for protectionist purposes, such clauses could help to ensure a more effective global system of labour rights.