World Solidarity

Le ministre du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Sécurité Sociale du Togo, Mr. Octave Nicoué Broohm, a accueilli ce mercredi 2 mai une délégation de représentants d'organisations syndicales et sociales du Togo, du Burkina Faso, de la Guinée, de la Mauritanie, de la RDC et de la Belgique dans le cadre de l'atelier continental de restitution de l'étude sur les conditions de travail des mineurs togolais et burkinabés, organisé par WSM et SADD. Il s'est engagé à l'élaboration d'une convention sectorielle pour le secteur des mines, la redynamisation de l'inspection du travail et la ratification de Convention 176 de l'OIT.

The Cambodian Working Group for Domestic Workers (CWGDW) released a Call to Action for the governments of Malaysia and Cambodia to act expeditiously to enact effective protection measures for domestic workers, including ratifying ILO 189: Decent Work for Domestic Workers.

Together with more than 60 Cambodian and international human rights groups and trade unions World Solidarity calls on Cambodia and Malaysia to reach a bilateral agreement that would guarantee strong labor rights and working conditions for Cambodian maids employed in Malaysia.

"The time is ripe for the Cambodian and Malaysian governments to take measures to ensure the rights of domestic workers, including a decent minimum wage, and define the rights and responsibilities of domestic workers, employers and recruitment agencies," the Cambodian Working Group for Domestic Workers said in a statement. The groups want both governments to reach an agreement that would protect the rights of Cambodian maids in accordance with the International Labor Organization (ILO)'s Convention Concerning Decent work for Domestic Workers, which was adopted last year.

Read the call for action here.

Five months after they were fired for trying to establish a union, 67 employees of the Angkor Village Hotel in Camodia continue to demonstrate daily at the the entrance of the hotel to challenge their dismissal. They are supportd by CTSWF, the tourism union of CLC, trade union partner of World Solidarity and ACV in Cambodja. The hotel owners simply ignored the court's verdict to annul the lay-off.

After 11 months of negotiation, a major Nike supplier has agreed to pay $1m to Indonesian workers for 593,468 hours of unpaid overtime. For the 4,500 workers the deal means that they receive an average of about US$ 220 each.

The settlement covers a period of two years and concerns workers of the workers of the PT Nikomas Gemilang IY plant. This agreement sets an important precedent. ‘This has the potential to send shock waves through the Indonesian labour movement,’ says the union’s chairman, Bambang Wirahyoso of Indonesian trade union federation Serikat Pekerja Nasional (SPN). He continues: “Now that the precedent has been established, the leadership at SPN is gearing up to take on the fight for any workers who have been subjected to forced overtime without pay. We have only just begun’.

Upon request by our Cambodian partner organisations C.CAWDU and CLC’s, we (World Solidarity, ACV-CSC and Clean Clothes Campaign) have been writing protest letters to denounce the lack of respect for the Cambodian workers and trade unions’ labour rights. This action has proven to be successful! Thanks to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), ACV-CSC and World Solidarity, the large number of unjust dismissals and the arrest of Sous Chanta (June 2011) were put on the agenda of the annual International Labour Organisation’s Conference. In the Committee on the Application of Standards, the Cambodian government was twice called to account because it did not comply with the international labour convention on freedom of association. For more information about the protest letters and the discussion on this topic in Geneva, see the next page.