 |
Against Labor Code of Slavery in Russia! |
The VII International conference, organized by the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples and the Political Union of Workers (UCPO - Union des ?ercles pour une Politique Ouvriere) convened in Geneva on June 11. Its theme was: “Defending the Independence of Labor Unions and ILO Conventions ”.
The conference coincided with the yearly ILO Conference and was devoted to the defense of the ILO convention N 103 on the protection of women’s labor, which is under threat of revision and denunciation by a number of the countries.
About 100 delegates from more than 60 countries participated in the conference. The conference was well organized and provided parallel translation in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
The representative of the Russian Interregional Alliance of Workers’ Trade Unions (IAWT) "Defense of Labor," the co-chairwoman of Samara Association of Workers’ Trade Unions "Defense" Svetlana Baiborodova was invited to the conference by French comrades. She made a report on “The Russian Government Plans to Abolish Fundamental Labor Rights.” We express big gratitude to the Organizing Committee of the conference and to Max Robert, personally, for their help in preparing Russian documents for distribution among the participants and the attention shown to the problems of Russian labor movement.
The set of the documents, distributed by our representative at the conference, included: the report of the representative of the IAWT "Defense of Labor", the press-release on the All-Russian Campaign in Defense of the Labor Code (“DOWN WITH THE NEW LABOR CODE, THE CODE OF SLAVERY!” the leaflet with the information about the IAWT “Defense of Labor”, and the appeal of Committee of the Russian-Kazakhstan Solidarity (“STOP THE NEW WAVE OF REPRESSIONS IN KAZAKHSTAN!").
At the end of the report about the government’s draft of the Labor Code, Svetlana Baiborodova described the struggle of our Kazakhstan comrades, the repressions of Nazarbayev`s regime against them and their urgent need in international solidarity.
The reception of this report was very warm. The participants showed great understanding of all issues raised in it. Two short statements were made on behalf of the Conference: the protest against the government’s draft of the Labor Code to the Russian authorities, and the demand to stop reprisals against labor activists to Kazakhstan government.
Our representative received the copies of telegrams and faxes sent by labor organizations of France, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland to President Putin and the State Duma with their protests against the government’s attack workers’ rights.
The appeals on the Labor Code and repressions in Kazakhstan were also distributed at the ILO Conference among the delegations. The French comrades provided IAWT "Defense of Labor" with a complete set of materials of the 88-th ILO Conference.
As the result of the Conference, we have established contacts with the representatives of labor organizations of Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Egypt, Portugal, Pakistan, and some other countries.
The delegates described the social-economic situation in their countries, the situation with the ratification and implementation of ILO conventions, and the struggle of labor activists for observance of labor rights. Comrades from Pakistan informed the Conference about the arrests of their labor leaders--which took place several weeks ago in the wake of the large-scale strikes--and called to organize international protest. The Conference issued a statement in support of the Pakistani comrades, and the declaration on the inadmissibility of denunciation of the ILO Convention N 103 on the protection of women’s’ labor and the need to continue the international campaign of the protest against the revision of the ILO conventions.
Press-service of the IAWT "Defense of Labor"