19 June, 2009
All workers should enjoy equal rights irrespective of their sex, age, nationality, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or religion. Yet metal industry employers in many countries, including highly industrialised ones, continue to discriminate with impunity against workers precisely on those grounds. The IMF will work with its affiliates to eliminate discrimination in the workplace in all its forms. Many workers throughout the world are subjected to discrimination that deprives them of their rights to freedom of association and collective bargain. That is why IMF will focus its efforts on assisting affiliates to develop specific organising strategies, e.g. to improve unionisation rates among women, migrant and young workers, particularly in EPZs, where labour rights continue to be abused and trade unionism is repressed. There is a clear and urgent need for unions to assess whether new approaches must be adopted to meet the needs and aspirations of women, young people, and migrant workers - groups that are underrepresented in metal unions, but that are entering the industry at an increasing rate. Changes need to be made to union structures, cultures and practices that discourage such workers from becoming union members to ensure that equal rights are extended to all workers.
According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, discrimination occurs if persons with disabilities cannot participate as fully-fledged members in society and if their human and workers' rights are violated. In particular, with respect to elderly workers, many countries need to intensify their struggle against discrimination and social exclusion of older, disabled and health-impaired workers from the labour market and further training.
Discrimination also means that women, migrant and young workers are over-represented in precarious employment. This reaches extreme levels in the case of migrant workers, particularly when dramatic poverty leaves them without protection against unprincipled and sometimes criminal organisations that exploit their vulnerability. The IMF will encourage affiliates to share strategies for making contact with and organising migrant workers, and improving their working conditions by including them in collective bargaining.
The double burden of domestic work that is placed on women can force them into precarious employment situations, with adverse consequences for themselves, their families and communities. The IMF will give priority to highlighting the disproportionate impact precarious work has on women workers and to encouraging measures to address it, focusing in particular on the gender pay gap and the gender segmentation that leads to women being denied access to better jobs.
Women's representation at all levels of trade union organisation is still too low. Efforts by unions to organise women workers are hampered by structures that do not include women as leaders. The IMF will continue to work with its affiliates to redress this imbalance and assist them to remove barriers to women's representation in their union structures and electoral processes. An emphasis will be put on the need to encourage greater participation by young workers in union structures.
The IMF will:
- Assist its affiliates in leading the fight in the workplace against discrimination in all its forms;
- Support organising activities of affiliates in EPZs and encourage the exchange of successful experiences between them;
- Cooperate with ITUC and other GUFs, particularly International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF), in addressing the lack of union organisation in EPZs;
- Assist its affiliates in eliminating constraints that hinder persons with disabilities to get equal opportunities at the workplace. The IMF will also support programs that focus on issues concerning people with disabilities in all trade union and ILO activities;
- Assist affiliates to identify and remove barriers to women's equal participation and representation in their unions;
- Monitor and report on the impact of precarious work on women, migrant and young workers including encouraging affiliates to do their own gender analysis of precarious work and to take action to reduce the double burden of domestic work on women;
- Ensure that measures taken to improve conditions for precarious workers take particular account of the needs of women, migrant, and young workers;
- Provide opportunities for affiliates to share experiences and strategies for making contact with and organising both internal and external migrant workers; and
- Raise awareness of the difficulties faced by young people in finding secure employment with good pay and working conditions, and support efforts by affiliates to respond.