February 14, 2001
Labor leaders from the United Kingdom and the Americas said Wednesday they will ask companies and governments around the world to publicize the International Labor Organization's fundamental rights of workers.
The Geneva-based U.N. agency's 1998 ``Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work'' include workers' rights to reject child labor, to refuse forced labor, to work free from discrimination and to bargain collectively.
``I challenge really any corporation to stand up and say that they are for child labor, for forced labor and discrimination and deny the freedom to organize,'' said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. ``I think they'll find themselves out there alone.''
Other labor leaders joining the campaign that officially begins on May 1 are Bill Jordan of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, John Monks of the Trades Union Congress in the United Kingdom, Bill Morris, of the U.K.'s Transport and General Workers' Union, Ken Georgetti of the Canadian Labor Congress, Luis Anderson of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers and Luis Garzon of Colombia.
``The initiative we will launch on May 1 to post the ILO principles will be the largest public campaign ever undertaken by the worldwide labor movement and we expect it to have enormous impact,'' Jordan told a news conference at annual winter meeting of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations).
The leaders will seek to have the worker rights be posted in workplaces, governments and union halls in 148 countries and territories. The declaration was supported unanimously by the business and labor members of the ILO in 1998 and received overwhelming support from government members, the labor officials said.
Barbara Shailor, international affairs director of the 66-union AFL-CIO labor federation, said that of the four principles, the U.S. Senate has ratified only the one against child labor.
More Information om TNC's
See GPF's paper on Corporate Accountability
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