We've moved to a new site!

Join us at publicservices.international - for all the latest news, resources and struggles from around the world.

We are no longer updating world-psi.org and it will be progressively phased out: all content will be migrated to the new site and old links will redirect eventually.

STOP Gender-based violence at work!

June 10, 2019
We have entered a decisive period in time: In one month’s time, at the ILO Conference on 10-21 June 2019, the second discussion and last round of tripartite negotiations will take place on the ILO instruments with a view to adopting an ILO Convention and Recommendation.

Join the campaign to convince governments to support an ILO Convention and Recommendation on “Ending violence and harassment in the world of work”. An ILO Convention and Recommendation will send a strong message that violence is NOT part of the job. The standard and guidelines will also strengthen workers’ voices as they stand up against gender-based violence, and negotiate collective agreements that address GBV. #StopGBVatWork

Latest news:

06-052019 -ITUC Newsletter English - Français - Español

We have entered a decisive period in time: In one month, at the ILO Conference on 10-21 June 2019, the second discussion and last round of tripartite negotiations will take place on the ILO instruments with a view to adopting an ILO Convention and Recommendation.

It is critical to continue to reinforce our lobby and advocacy campaigns

Please read carefully the ILO blue report,which forms the basis for the discussion at the ILC in June and provides important insights for your lobby and advocacy strategy.

  • Report V(2A): Contains responses of governments, employers and unions to the ILO’s brown reportandcomments of the ILO Office. The responses provide useful insights and information on the positions of governmentsand employers–in your country and region–which are supportive and/or critical ofvarious elements of the ILO instruments.
  • Report V(2b): Contains the proposed texts of the ILO Convention and Recommendation,which will form the basis for the second discussion at the ILO Conference in June 2019.

10-03-2019 - The ILO has released the "Ending violence and harassment in the world of work” (Blue Report) available for download in English, French and Spanish on the ILO website as follows: Report V(2A) and Report V(2B).

Report V(2) is published in two volumes. Report V(2A), has been prepared on the basis of replies received from governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations, and contains the essential points of their observations. Due to a logistical problem, a few replies that were sent within the deadline of 8 November 2018 have not been included in the present report. In order to avoid delaying the publication of the report, the Office will issue an Addendum with those replies.

Report V(2) is published in two volumes. The present bilingual volume, Report V(2B), contains the English and French versions of the proposed texts of the Convention and Recommendation, amended in the light of the observations made by governments and by employers’ and workers’ organizations and for the reasons set out in the Office commentaries in Report V(2A) - to be published by 11 March.


On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, PSI underlines that it is not only in the extreme conditions of conflict zones that workplace violence occurs. The recent deaths of two young women health workers in Nigeria, Saifura and Hauwa, are the latest tragic examples of the dangers faced by workers when delivering public services. Read more

In an op-ed published around the world, PSI Gender Equality Officer, Verónica Montúfar, writes about how sexual harassment and assault are part of most women’s professional lives. Even though men can also suffer violence and harassment in the workplace, stereotyping and inequality in power relationships make women much more vulnerable to it. Read more

PSI affiliates in the Asia Pacific region have launched a campaign for universal paid leave for survivors of domestic violence as part of a push to strengthen labour laws and policies that can help stop violence and harassment. PSI has developed a toolkit to support affiliates and allies in campaigning for a broad and ambitious ILO Convention and Recommendation. Read more

 

PSI Asia Pacific Campaign Toolkit: Advance Labour Rights! End gender-based violence.


Use the toolkit online: http://paiddvleavenow.com/

 

Download a PDF of the toolkit

 


03-10-2018 - Solidarity Through Diversity: no discrimination, no exceptions. No to violence and harassment in the world of work.

Speak out against discrimination, inequality and violence and harassment by sharing ITUC infographics below on social media or producing and circulating your own infographics to show our strength through our diversity.

Use and share PSI campaign materials below. Share your infographics and updates with the ITUC on the campaign Facebook page


02-10-2018 - The International Labour Conference (ILC), to be held in its centenary year on 10-21 June 2019, will take a decision on the new Convention and Recommendation on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. Governments have up until 8 November to send their amendments and observations on the draft Convention and Recommendation prepared by the ILO Office in its recently released Brown Report.

PSI presented its priorities to the discussions on violence and harassment in the world of work at the ILC’s Standards Setting Committee in 2018. PSI is now calling on its affiliates to lobby their national governments to ensure that crucial text be included in the replies that member states must submit by November.


04-06-2018 - A Convention supplemented by a Recommendation was approved in the Standard Setting Committee: agreements on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work.

The Committee adopted the draft resolution to place an item entitled “Violence and harassment in the world of work” on the agenda of the next ordinary session for the second discussion with a view to the adoption of a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation.





28-05-2018 - The Standard Setting Committee: Violence and Harassment in the World of Work saw heated debate, with employers and some governments expected to oppose attempts by unions to push for an International Convention on the subject. Read more and listen to PSI's intervention.

Campaign update, April 2018 - Newsletter 2

The  ILO  yellow  report is out! Read carefully the report and proposed conclusions. The report will form the basis for the first discussion at the ILO Conference in June 2018. Fifty governments have already indicated support for an ILO Convention and  Recommendation! But our work is far from over. We need to keep lobbying to ensure more  government support, as well as to keep the support we have so far.  For more information,  check the global map on the ITUC campaign page.

Between 14 February and 8 March, unions in more than 50 countries, including the Global Union Federations and their members, responded to ITUC’s call for action in support of an ILO Convention and Recommendation to eradicate violence and harassment, including  gender-based violence, from the world of work. Check out the ITUC Storify page and photo album.  

Background

Whilst both women and men experience violence and harassment in the world of work, unequal status and power relations in society and at work often result in women being far more exposed to violence and harassment. Violence against women creates and prolongs inequality, affecting the well-being of current and future generations. Violence and the threat of it deprives women of their basic human rights.

There is currently no internationally agreed law that deals with the many different forms of gender-based violence in the workplace!


An ILO Convention and Recommendation would send a strong message that violence is NOT part of the job. It would help to give workers a voice to stand up against gender-based violence, and negotiate collective agreements that address GBV.

 

 

Ending violence against women is a top-priority for PSI. Trade union leaders, specifically male participants, at PSI's Congress in November, pledged to end violence against women including actively supporting campaigns against gender violence and to bring about gender equality in the home, workplace, community, economy and all institutions including the union.

It is not too late to sign the pledge!

 

PSI is pleased to present the updated report entitled “Tackling Violence in the Health Sector - A Trade Union Response, a consolidated research effort first released in 2016. The 2018 updated version of the study integrates the latest achievements of our affiliated unions in the health sector.

Globally, violence in the health and social care sector is widespread and constitutes at least 25% of all violence at work. Studies as well as anecdotal evidence from health care workers in PSI’s global family demonstrate vividly that while both men and women in the sector suffer from all forms of violence, the power relations in society that see women as second-class citizens, translate to the reality that women health care workers are especially targeted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 PSI fully supports the ITUC campaign for this new international labour standard and invites all affiliated unions to join the campaign. Your mobilising, organising and lobbying is critical to build and ensure governments’ support for an ILO Convention and a Recommendation at the ILO Conference in June 2018.

 

CAMPAIGN MATERIALS


 


 

 

 

 

 

For more information :

PSI Report - "Tackling violence in the Health Sector - A Trade Union Response":

Case studies on violence at work:

Also see:

"The Standard Setting Committee: violence and harassment in the world of work" at work saw heated debate, with employers and some governments expected to oppose attempts by unions to push for an International Convention on the subject.

https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents...

Also see