ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin

In this issue the ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin gives information on the procedure leading to the ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work. It also takes up the International AIDS Conference, to be held in Mexico City in August.

The ICEM Calls on its Affiliates to Contribute to this e-bulletin

ICEM affiliates are already engaged in a wide range of HIV/AIDS activities. To spread the information on new agreements, awareness, and prevention campaigns, and educational activities, affiliates and project coordinators are invited to send news and information to [email protected]. Any feedback on the format and contents of the e-bulletin is also welcome.

ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work

In March 2007, the Governing Body of the ILO decided to place on the agenda of the International Labour Conferences for 2009 and 2010 an item intended for “the development of an autonomous Recommendation on HIV and AIDS in the world of work.”

The ILO has begun work towards the adoption of a Recommendation in 2010. Under the Constitution and Standing Orders, five reports have to be prepared within specific time limits, with each report to contain specific information. The first report, called a “Law and Practice Report,” provides an overview of national and international measures taken with respect to HIV/AIDS. This report was published and sent to governments in January 2008.

The Law and Practice Report, which is available at www.ilo.org/aids, also contains a questionnaire to which governments, in consultation with employers’ and workers’ organisations, are to provide replies to the ILO by the end of July 2008. Consultation usually occurs through national trade union centres.

The ICEM calls on its affiliates to get fully involved in this process and make sure that substantive replies, with comments which reflect the views of workers, are provided in time. It is only in this way that the second report, which will be prepared by the ILO on the basis of the replies received, reflects the views of workers and their unions. It is worth noting that workers’ organisations may also provide their comments directly to the ILO.

(The item above appeared already in the May issue of the e-bulletin. Because of the importance of the campaign, it is repeated here)

17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, 3 – 8 August

The International AIDS Conference (IAC), organised by the Geneva-based International AIDS Society, takes place every two years. The last one was organised in Toronto in August 2006. The Conference is the largest meeting on HIV/AIDS worldwide. Some 25,000 scientists, politicians and activists are expected to participate in the event. This year’s IAC is first ever held in Latin America.

Conference organisers are developing a wide variety of plenary sessions around the theme, “Universal Action Now.” In addition to these sessions there are satellite meetings, exhibitions, and the Global Village.

It is important that union HIV/AIDS activists participate in this event so that labour’s voice is heard. In Toronto, the labour movement was well represented, highlighting the impact of HIV and AIDS on the workplace and emphasising the role of workers’ organisations in fighting the pandemic.

As in Toronto, the Conference in Mexico will be preceded by a Labour AIDS Forum organised by the Global Union AIDS Programme. The Labour Forum will prepare union representatives for their role in the IAC and will deal with topics such as the challenges at the workplace and raising resources at national level.

Botswana Mine Company Launches HIV Survey

The ICEM-affiliated Botswana Mine Workers' Union (BMWU) is involved in an HIV prevalence survey launched by BLC mine to determine whether current prevention efforts are effective.

The exercise will enable the company to have data on the size and distribution of the epidemic among its workforce, and also to help management assess the dynamic and growth of the epidemic since the last survey in 2003. It will also enable BCL to re-plan its interventions, including resource mobilisation for the programmes if the outcome indicates that the current prevention efforts have been ineffective.

The survey of all employees is an anonymous exercise and is not a substitute to voluntary counselling and testing.

(Source: Africa News, 29 May from The Reporter, Botswana)

South African Military AIDS Policy Faces Court Challenge

The South African military's blanket exclusions of HIV positive members is not medically justified and ignores government policy. A lawyer for the South African Security Forces Union, which is attempting to force the military to review its HIV/AIDS policy, said the army had failed to implement its own and the government's policies.

"The HIV policy adopted by the cabinet in relation to the military and the Department of Defence is not consistent with the policy implemented by the SANDF (South African National Defence Forces)," lawyer Gilbert Marcus told a hearing at the high court in Pretoria. "The cabinet has adopted a policy that HIV status should not exclude candidates from appointments to the SANDF, although it may preclude their appointment to positions that require extreme physical fitness."

President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang are respondents, alongside the military.

According to Marcus, the SANDF has admitted that some 23 percent of its members are HIV positive. "It is simply impossible at this stage to have an HIV-free defence force. The question is how we accommodate this."

(Source: Pretoria News, 15 May)

PEPFAR Re-authorisation

Treatment clients from free clinics run by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in South Africa, Botswana, and Rwanda lobbied US legislators to ensure that access to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment remains a key component of PEPFAR.

The PEPFAR legislation, which is up for re-authorisation by the US Congress, currently requires that a minimum of 55% of funds be spent on treatment, a provision that has been completely removed from the re-authorisation bill. The group also calls for a significant increase in PEPFAR's treatment goals – up only 50% in the re-authorisation despite a 330% increase in overall PEPFAR funding.

PEPFAR was the result of the 2003 State of the Union pledge to bring two million HIV positive Africans and others into treatment and prevent seven million new HIV infections via a five-year, $15 billion US-funded program. It currently operates in 15 focus countries and claims to support antiretroviral treatment for 1.4 million people worldwide.

(Source: Africa News, 10 May)

The World Bank’s Commitment to Fight HIV/AIDS

A World Bank report says African countries must continue to champion HIV prevention efforts to slow and reverse the rate of new infections. According to the report “The World Bank’s Commitment to HIV/AIDS in Africa: Our Agenda for Action, 2007-2011,” for every infected person starting antiretroviral treatment, another four to six become newly infected, even as regional figures show falling prevalence in some countries.

“With AIDS the largest single cause of premature death in Africa, we can’t talk about better, lasting development there without also committing to stay the course in the long-term fight against the disease,” said Elizabeth Lule, Manager of the Bank’s AIDS Team for Africa (ACTafrica).

With this new Agenda for Action, the Bank is moving away from its initial “emergency response.” It would commit at least US$250 million a year over the five-year period for HIV/AIDS initiatives built on strategic objectives. It will also establish a grant incentive fund of US$5 million annually to promote capacity building, analysis, and HIV/AIDS project components in key sectors.

(Source: World Bank Press Release, 14 May)

Comment by the editor of the e-bulletin:

While this long-term commitment is laudable, it is surprising that after the Global Union/World Bank consultations on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in Washington in December 2007, workers’ organisations or trade unions are not even mentioned among the organisations which were consulted in devising this new strategy. It is also surprising that the World Bank stresses the importance of providing people with integrated health services when its policies over years have helped to dismantle public health systems.

Following the consultations last December, the ICEM is pursuing a selective approach, in the sectors it represents, to get its affiliates involved in projects financed by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. The objective is to devise effective workplace activities and capacity building for unions.

ILO Says Caribbean Making Progress on AIDS in Workplace

The "Saving Lives, Protecting jobs" report (see e-bulletin no. 32, May 2008) indicates that 70 enterprises in Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago have implemented policies and HIV/AIDS education programmes to promote responsible sexual behaviour, and reduce the level of discrimination faced by people living with the disease.

The report shows a 34% increase in awareness about HIV/AIDS services on the job among workers in the tourism, manufacturing, banking, and finance sectors, as well as taxi drivers. Guyana's largest employer, the Guyana Sugar Company, has been lauded for sustaining the initiatives it implemented five years ago.

It has adopted an HIV/AIDS workplace policy and offers HIV services to workers and managers. An official of the Guyana Trade Union Congress said that 78% of partnering enterprises in Guyana have allocated official working hours to HIV/AIDS education during the last six months.

Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were also praised for their efforts to target members of the informal economy. The governments of both countries have adopted national policies on HIV/AIDS and recently Trinidad and Tobago took it a step further by launching a National Workplace Policy on HIV/AIDS.

The ILO report, however, pointed out that despite the progress being made in some countries, the region continues to grapple with rising levels of infection, even as treatment reaches more people. The Caribbean has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world, after Sub-Saharan Africa.

(Source: Caribbean Media Corporation website, Bridgetown, 21 May)

Commentary: Dropping the Ball

(The following is an abbreviated version of an article which appeared in the Global Fund Observer No. 87, 17 April 2008. It was written by Wycliffe Muga, a Kenyan journalist who is the BBC World Service’s “Letter from Africa” correspondent)

If you stopped an ordinary man in the street here in Kenya and told him that there is a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria which gives money to help Kenya fight the three diseases, he would probably be pleasantly surprised. For not many people here have any idea that such a fund exists.

And if you then told him that at present, Kenya is only receiving about half of the money it could receive from this fund – not because the money is being diverted to private bank accounts, but because the people charged with preparing proposals and submitting them to the Fund have been unable to come up with proposals which are acceptable – the likely response would be one of outrage.

In a country where far too many people die of the diseases which this money is intended to fight, anything less than a perfect proposal prepared well in advance would seem like criminal negligence.

For each of Rounds 1 through 6, the Global Fund's announcing of its “Call for Proposals” led to a flurry of activity in most developing countries: CCMs met, task teams were put together and consultants were sought. As the deadline for proposal submission got closer, people got more and more frantic.

It was largely because of this “controlled chaos” that the Fund agreed two years ago that the Call for Proposals will always be on March 1. Thus, people know months beforehand when the Call will be issued. The idea is to enable CCMs to spend those extra months planning what their forthcoming proposals will focus on and seeking technical support.

So it came as a real surprise when one month AFTER this year's Call for Proposals, rather than two months BEFORE it, UNAIDS headquarters sent out an email to UNAIDS offices around the world, instructing them to take action supporting CCMs as they prepare their proposals and seek technical support.

This was not some unexpected deadline which was arbitrarily imposed on the CCMs. It is a deadline that comes around every year, on a date that is known well in advance. How can it possibly be justified that this great effort is being made this late in the day?

Everybody dropped the ball here – the civil society groups that pressured UNAIDS to take action, but didn't do so until well after the Call for Proposals; UNAIDS itself, for not getting moving on this until it was pushed by the civil society groups; and those many CCMs that delayed strategizing regarding their Global Fund applications until months later than they should.

News from the Global Union Programme and Global Unions

The Global Union AIDS Programme is organising an HIV/AIDS African Regional Consultative and Planning Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 12-13 June. The ICEM will be represented by Project Management Assistant Paula Ndessomin.

In its most recent HIV/AIDS Update (No. 42 of 1 May 2008), the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) (www.itfglobal.org) gives a detailed analysis on travel restrictions against people living with HIV. The creation of an International Task Team is a critical opportunity to move towards the elimination of all travel restrictions against HIV-positive people.