The Kilusang Mayo Uno Labor Center (KMU) today filed a complaint to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) regarding violations on labor rights and welfare of Filipino workers. KMU International Affairs Department secretary Tess Dioquino handed the complaint with its annexes to the Manila office of the ILO, which will send it thru diplomatic post to the ILO headquarters in Geneva. The Committee on Freedom of Association of the ILO will examine the complaint.

The complaint was filed by the labor group against the RP government due to violations on the conventions on Freedom of Association and on Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining. Specifically, the government is criticized for the killing of 64 trade union leaders, members and supporters, abduction of trade union leaders, harassment, intimidation, militarisation of workplaces and illegal arrests.

Prominent among the killings were trade unionists of the Hacienda Luisita, where seven people were killed during the strike dispersal that resulted in a massacre on November 16, 2004. Also included are the cases of killings of Diosdada Fortuna, leader of the union of Nestlé Cabuyao, Ricardo Ramos, leader of the union at Central Azucarera de Tarlac, Edwin Bargamento, Mario Fernandez and Manuel Batolina, leaders of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW-KMU) based in Bacolod, among many other cases.

“Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed presidency in 2001, we have seen a tremendous increase in trade union and human rights violations. Sixty-four trade union leaders, members or supporters have been killed. Most of them were KMU members. These 64 are trade union activists; they are only a fraction of the 770 political killings counted since the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Note that the 770 killings is five times more than the supposed number of deaths for which Saddam Hussein is pursued for today.” said KMU Secretary General Joel Maglunsod.

KMU holds President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo responsible for the continuing political killings and other trade union and human rights violations. Apart from the killings, many other violations of trade union and human rights are noted in the complaint. The ILO - Committee on Freedom of Association will be in charge with the complaint.

“We believe this is part of a deliberate policy of the Macapagal-Arroyo government to prevent the workers’ from assessing their rights and to fight for better wages and better working conditions. We hope that thru international pressure we can stop the violations of workers’ and human rights and expose Arroyo’s false and fake “human rights concerns”, concluded Maglunsod.”

Background on ILO for the Press (see also)

The International Labour Org’anization is the UN specialized agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights. It was founded in 1919 and is the only surviving major creation of the Treaty of Versailles which brought the League of Nations into being and it became the first specialized agency of the UN in 1946.

The ILO formulates international labor standards in the form of Conventions and Recommendations setting minimum standards of basic labor rights: freedom of association, the right to organize, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labor, equality of opportunity and treatment, and other standards regulating conditions across the entire spectrum of work related issues.

The Governing Body is the executive body of the International Labour Office (the Office is the secretariat of the Organization). It meets three times a year, in March, June and November and takes decisions on ILO policy, the agenda of the International Labour Conference and the draft Programme and Budget of the Organization for submission to the Conference.

The Committee on Freedom of Association is a tripartite organ of the Governing Body. The Committee examines complaints of infringement of freedom of association and submits its conclusions and recommendations to the Governing Body.

The “Convention on Freedom of Association” or Convention nr. 87, guarantees workers and employers organisations to have the right to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organize their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes. Workers' and employers' organisations have the right to establish and join federations and confederations and who have the right to affiliate with international organisations. Public authorities must refrain from any interference that would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise of this right. Member-states also have to take all necessary measures to ensure that workers and employers may exercise freely the right to organise.

The “Convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining” or Convention nr. 98, gives workers shall protection against acts of anti-union discrimination in respect of their employment. Workers are protected from acts making the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall not join a union or shall relinquish trade union membership; from acts causing the dismissal of or otherwise prejudice a worker by reason of union membership or because of participation in union activities.

Conventions nr. 87 and nr. 98 are ratified by the Philippines on December 29, 1953.

Download attachment for actual Complaint to the ILO