Beginning in 2008, the International Trade Union Council, ITUC, has designated October 07 as the World Day for Decent Work (WDDW). On this day trade unions the world over organize, mobilize, agitate, stand up and speak out in defense of decent work for all people.
While actions in different countries will cover a wide variety of issues, the primary focus this year is on tackling precarious work and promoting global regulation of the finance sector. WICSU/PSU through this medium is pleased to be associated with affiliates worldwide in the herculean task of ending precarious work among all peoples, and of promoting global regulation of the financial sector as a means of ensuring sustainable economies in developed and developing countries.
In defining the focus of this year’s activities, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow has said, "Working people, having already bailed out the banks, are now paying for the crisis again as public sector cuts reduce or eliminate crucial services and benefits. Business, supported by some governments, has also launched a relentless attack on wages and job security." According to Burrow, "Decent work must be at the centre of government actions to bring back economic growth and build a new global economy that puts people first. Sonesta Maho Beach Resort, take notice.
The ITUC General Secretary place a major share of the blame on government leaders, in that governments are guilty of promoting precarious work either by commission or omission. There is abundant evidence of this in the case of St Maarten where the government adopts a hands-off approach while security firms, employment agencies, hotels, school boards and various other employers wage relentless attack on defenseless workers. Unscrupulous employers are guilty of subjecting their employees to precarious work by means of irregular employment contracts worded in favor of the employer, limited or no social benefits and statutory entitlements such as vacation days, high degrees of job insecurity, low job tenure, low wages and high risks of occupational injury and disease, to mention a few. Domestic workers, security and construction workers are especially exploited, being made to work twelve hour shifts, any day, every day, under irregular terms.
Can our government say that it is doing all it can to promote decent work? Is the government helping ordinary men and women to earn an honest living. Only recently government itself made its own attack against ordinary people whose only wrong is their ambition to make an honest living – a double assault was launched when the Labor Department announced that it would no longer offering free legal council to expatriates, i.e. those most likely to be victimized, and who comprise almost 70% of the workforce, and that fishermen will now be required to obtain a license for fishing via fish-pots. Whatever the intent of this requirement, the reality is that certain privileged individuals will hoard these licenses, and later peddle them as they please, as is the case with so many other regulated businesses/services. If this is not a double assault on the people at the bottom of the wage scale, nothing is. The government first condones or unwittingly practices atrocities against vulnerable workers, then it turns around and deprives them of any real chance of redress they have by withdrawing the legal assistance they would have relied on, were they courageous enough to challenge their employer.
Government must take the lead in eliminating precarious work, or risk further damage to our fragile economy. defenseless (…)Decent work must be at the centre of government actions to bring back economic growth, one that puts people first. This is the global imperative; it is our country’s imperative. Secure jobs, decent work, generates disposable income, it creates real spending power, stimulating the economy, resulting more jobs and produces revenues for government.
Day of change – October 07, 2011 – World Day for Decent Work