GENEVA – Further to the Human Rights Council side event on freedoms of association and of peaceful assembly in the workplace which took place on Monday 6 March, and on the occasion of a key meeting of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, is recalling that the right to strike is a fundamental one enshrined in international human rights and labour law, and that its protection is necessary in ensuring just, stable and democratic societies: “As the 329th session of the Governing Body of the ILO starts today, I wish to reiterate the utmost importance of the right to strike in democratic societies. As stated in my 2016 thematic report to the General Assembly (A/71/385), the right to strike has been established in international law for decades, in global and regional instruments, such as in the ILO Convention No. 87 (articles 3, 8 and 10), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (article 8), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 22), the European Convention on Human Rights (article 11), and the American Convention on Human Rights (article 16). The right is also enshrined in the constitutions of at least 90 countries. The right to strike... Continue reading →
In recent decades, globalization has led to a rise in economic productivity and wealth, but it has also contributed to a dramatic increase in the power of large multinational corporations and concentrated wealth in fewer hands. At the same time, States’ power to regulate these business entities has eroded -- and in some cases been voluntarily ceded in order to attract these businesses. This new global economic order has had a profound impact on workers' ability to exercise their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. Labour’s traditional tools for asserting rights – trade unions, strikes, collective bargaining and so on – have been significantly weakened across the globe. The majority of the world’s workers find themselves excluded from national legal protective frameworks, while some are not even defined as "workers." This situation has left vast swathes of the world's labour force unable to exercise their fundamental rights to associate or assemble, and without access to remedies when their rights are violated. In this report, the Special Rapporteur examines how and why this has happened, focusing on the most marginalized portions of the world’s labour force, including global supply chain workers, informal workers, migrant workers, domestic workers and others. He finds... Continue reading →
