Financial Times

Widespread violation of trade union rights in FTZs

From the Philippines to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China and Vietnam, millions of workers, the vast majority of whom are women, are doing backbreaking jobs on poverty wages with disgraceful health and safety conditions, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) said in its annual 2003 survey released last week.

In the worst cases, this has even cost workers their lives, e.g. in Bangladesh, which holds the depressing world record for deaths of workers owing to fires at their workplaces, and where workers often have no means of escape when fires break out.

With trade unionists harassed, sacked, assaulted, imprisoned and sometimes even killed, the survey covering 30 countries in the Asia and Pacific region deplored the depressing continuation and even partial worsening of trade union rights violations in the region. During 2002, four trade unionists in the region were killed and over 1250 were arrested and/or imprisoned.

The survey however highlighted some positive developments in the region, such as the final abrogation of a drastic Sri Lankan law on essential services that severely restricted the right to strike, the global trade union movement said.

In the section on Sri Lanka, the ICFTU survey found widespread violations of trade union rights in Sri Lanka's FTZs. It said at the BOI-managed zones, union members face intimidation, including threats of beatings from security guards, and new workers are warned not to join unions.

Labour representatives say that the Labour Commission, under pressure from the BOI, fails to prosecute employers who refuse to recognise or enter into collective bargaining with trade unions. Consequently, few trade unions have been formed in the FTZs, the report said.

It said in spite of the adoption of the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act of December 1999, which is supposed to protect workers against acts of anti-union discrimination in taking up employment and in the course of employment, many serious cases of anti-union discrimination and non-recognition of trade unions have been reported.

Cases were reported at FTZ companies producing sports and ski wear, clothes for many internationally known firms, surgical gloves and hot water bottles, zippers for export as well as for the local market, fabric fireproof membrane structures, power loom and knit fabric, and many more. "The government clearly does not stop anti-union persecution nor provide adequate protection against anti-union discrimination," the report noted.

It said however there was some improvement when the government, acting under union pressure, prevailed on employers to respect union rights in FTZ enterprises.