International Centre for Trade Union Rights

UK labour laws condemned by international bodiesSource: International Union Rights, Vol. 5, No. 1, Focus on Africa (1998), p. 18Published by: International Centre for Trade Union RightsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41935642 .

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ICTUR IN ACTION n

Kenya READERS WILL be pleased to learn that Dr Omari Onyango, Chair of Kenya's ICTUR Committee is safe and well (see IUR Vol 4.). He was however forced to flee Kenya and is seeking political asylum in the United States.

The situation in Kenya remains extremely tense following the recent presidential and parliamentary elections. Clearly it is -difficult for trade unions and human rights activists to openly work for democratic advance. And it is difficult for IUR to get news out of Kenya. We hope that the position will improve and that we can give readers an extensive report on recent development in the next issue of IUR .

Global march

against child

labour IN JANUARY 1998 the Global March for Labour begins in the Philippines and will culminate on June 18th in Geneva to coincide with the International Labour Conference of the ILO at which a new convention to outlaw the worst form of Child Labour will be discussed and hopefully adopted.

A wide coalition of non- governmental organisation has come together to organise this impressive event which aims to mobilise worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be damaging to the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

The organisers are asking supporters to take the following steps: ■ join the March as it passes through your country; ■ organise public events against child labour during the time of the March; ■ help organise coordinating the national

More than 200 million working children worldwide have little to cheer

programme for the march; ■ write to your government in support of the March demands; ■ encourage other people to join you in the March.

For further details about this massive event contact Global March International Secretariat, c/o South Asian Coalition Against Child Servitude , 74Aravali Apartments, DDA Flats, Kalkaji, New Delhi 110 019 , India. Tel: +91 11 612 0807/643 3099, fax: +91 11 623 6818, email: mukti@saccs. univ. ernet. in

In the UK, contact Anti-Slavery International, Thomas Clarkson House, The Stableyard, Broomgrove Road, London SW9 9TL. Tel: 0171 924 9555, fax: 0171 738 4110, email: antislavery @gn . ape . org

UK labour

laws

condemned by

international

bodies IN A STATEMENT sent to British trade unions December 1997, ICTUR international vice president, John Hendy QC said, "on 4th December 1997 the UN's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • published its review of the application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) to which the UK is a signatory and by which it is bound. Article 8 of the Covenant protect the right to be a trade union member. The committee held:

'the failure to incorporate the right to strike into domestic law constitutes a breach of article 8 of the Covenant. The committee considers that the common law approach recognising only the freedom to strike, and the concept that strike action constitutes a fundamental breach of contract justifying dismissal, it is not consistent with protection of the right to strike. The committee does not find satisfactory the proposal to enable

employees that go on strike to have a remedy before a tribunal for unfair dismissal. Employee participating in a lawful strike should not ipso facto be regarded as having committed a breach of employment contract.'

On 1 5th January 1997 the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe in considering the European Social Charter of 1961 by which the UK is also bound, reached the same conclusion against the UK. This too was not novel since the Committee of Independent Experts and the Committee of Freedom of Association of the International Labour Organisation has made the same findings against the UK on a number of occasions over the last eight years.

In fact the ILO and the Council of Europe have made many other findings against the UK's anti-union law. Most of these were introduced by the Conservative governments since 1979. The change of government in May 1997 has not meant a change of these laws. Before the election Labour made it clear that:

"The key elements of trade union legislation of the 1980s - on ballots, picketing and industrial action - will stay."

These were the very laws for which the UK has been condemned by international law. In fact in an article in The Times of 31st March 1997 Mr Blair was frank enough to write of New Labour's proposals that:

"The changes that we do propose would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world."

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 18 Volume 5 Issue 1 1998

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