WDDW2008: Trade union and human rights - speech by Shane Enright, Amnesty

World Day for Decent Work

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Speech by Shane Enright, Amnesty International UK

I am pleased to be here from Amnesty UK in support of the World Day for Decent Work.

This year marks not only a decade since the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, but it also the sixtieth anniversary of the of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the adoption of ILO Core Convention 87.

And as we look back at the aspirations contained in these solemn promises of governments, it is clear that we still have a long way to go if the rights contained in these texts are to become a daily reality for many millions of people.

I want to use my brief time to highlight the ways in which Amnesty is engaging with the Decent Work agenda, and renew our calls for an ever-stronger partnership and common endeavour to make decent work a reality to the millions to whom it is denied.

But before I do that, I think it is worth stepping back for a moment to acknowledge that trade unions have been, and remain, in the forefront of the wider struggles for universal human rights.

We are proud in the UK section of our long-standing engagement with trade unionists, as members and affiliates, and as partners in human right campaigning.

There is much we have in common - the labour movement and amnesty are both activist movements that recognise the power of solidarity. We are both rank-and-file movements, reliant on the energy and commitment of our members and supporters.

And we are each motivated by, and committed to, shared values of justice, equity and dignity. Crucially, we are both global movements, recognising that an injury to one - anywhere in the world - is an injury to us all.

The union movement knows too, perhaps better than any other civic force, that rights are generally won, not given, and that once won they need to be defended through vigilance and commitment.

In an era of globalisation and growing economic disparities the labour movement and Amnesty worldwide share, more than ever, a profound understanding that civil and political rights are indivisibly intertwined with social, cultural and economic rights: that poverty is an injustice, and dignity a right; that racism, sexism and homophobia are fundamental abuses that diminish us; and that equality and self-determination are the foundations for social justice and personal liberty.

The strength of the Decent Work Agenda is that it not only embeds the absolute minimum of the ILO's Core Labour Standards as 'enabling' rights, but intertwines these with a notion of qualitative employment - work that brings economic security and opportunity, work that is free from discrimination, an economic framework that includes social protection and mutual solidarity.

Poverty and economic exclusion are the most corrosive of abuses. Worldwide, a billion people live in inadequate housing; every minute a woman dies in childbirth through lack of medical care; seventy percent of the 1.3 billion people living in absolute poverty worldwide are women. Even here in the UK, there are obscene inequalities in income and opportunity. Amnesty applauds the work of the TUC's Commission on Vulnerable Employment which prints a grim picture of the extent and pervasiveness of 'indecent' work in Britain today.

Worldwide, women make up the overwhelming majority of the working poor. In the formal economies, women are disproportionately segregated into precarious, unprotected, low-paid jobs, and often too, trapped in the informal economy or home working, or in unrewarded domestic and caring roles.

Migrant workers across the world are marginalised and exploited. It is shameful that here in the UK asylum seekers are forced into destitution, this is an issue that Amnesty has been campaigning on for years, and I am delighted that the British trade union movement is taking up the cause of the right to work as a fundamental right of all - including for Asylum seekers. Indigenous communities and ethnic minorities also suffer systematic exploitation and exclusion from economic opportunity in many parts of the world. Decent work is their right too.

And, as we grapple with the most extraordinary economic turbulence and the abject failure of laissez-faire capitalism, even many of those who enjoy something approaching decent work today, may not do so tomorrow. Decent work is not just about having a good job, and a union to protect you, it is also crucially about the quality of public services and the safety nets and social support we offer as a society.

Amnesty was formed to struggle for the civil and political rights of individuals, and we are proud of the work we do in defence of these rights, but over the years we have broadened our mandate to cover all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration - recognising that rights are indivisible and interdependent: that personal liberty goes hand in hand with social justice.

I am proud that next year Amnesty will be launching a global campaign on poverty and human rights. This will focus on maternal mortality, on housing rights, on the rights of indigenous minorities.

The right to live a life with dignity - with access to health care, education, secure housing and adequate livelihood - is a fundamental right in no less a way than the right to express yourself or to have a fair trial when accused of a crime. The message of this campaign will be that it is impossible to ensure freedom from fear without freedom from want.

In taking this global campaign forward, I want to acknowledge straight away that trades unionists remain at the forefront of the struggles for economic justice and against poverty, exploitation and marginalization. These struggles have often placed trade unionists in the front-line as human rights defenders and put them at risk at the hands of despots, dictators and abusive employers.

Of course, if we are to achieve Decent Work that means redoubling our solidarity with trade unionists in Colombia, Iran, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, but it also means showing solidarity at home with the marginalized and excluded: with asylum seekers, with isolated domestic workers, with those at the margins of the formal economy, and those who may fall through the gaps of the inadequate welfare net.

As we take the Poverty campaign forward it is important that we don't only articulate the human rights abuses that we are challenging, but that we also set out the solutions that we require from governments and those with power.

The best solution to poverty is decent work. The best guarantee for individuals to be able to thrive is through environmentally sustainable and socially just economic development. The Decent Work agenda is the responsibility and the ambitious of us all, and I am pleased to be able to reiterate Amnesty's commitment to work with trade unions, development NGOs and rights-holders both here and around the world in seeking this goal.