Trade union rights

A global union federation mission to South Korea has made a strong statement after standing alongside Korean public sector workers staging their largest strike in 20 years. Korean unions are fighting back against government plans for a performance-related pay and termination system that threatens public safety and public interest.

Korean trade unionists are still struggling against ongoing regressive labour reforms in the country, including the Park Geun-hye government’s imposition of a discriminatory performance-related pay and termination system on public workers.

The All India Government Nurses Federation (AIGNF), has been engaged in a fierce battle with the Central Government for more than nine months over pay and working conditions in public facilities. The basic demand is for a better entry-level pay-scale, which is due for correction since the Fifth Central Pay Commission (CPC) of 1996.

The Tripartite Technical Meeting of Experts to Develop Guidance on Fair Recruitment held at the ILO in Geneva on 5-7 September adopted the General Principles and Operational Guidelines on Recruitment that will be submitted for approval by the ILO Governing Body in November.

On 8 September, a criminal court sentenced Lee Jong-hwa, President of the Korean Plant Construction Workers’ Union, a BWI affiliate, to 6-month imprisonment, in relation to the Mass People’s Mobilization of 14 November 2015.

PSI affiliate, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union (KHMU) has decided to hold two general strikes at the end of September and October, to protest flawed labor market reforms. The union is also striking for 2016 collective wage bargaining and to secure a sufficient number of healthcare workers in hospitals.

In the early morning of 29 August, the police occupied the offices of the teachers’ union, UNE, in Quito and Guayaquil. On 25 August, a trade union mission visited the country to express solidarity with the union, which the Ministry of Education has threatened to dissolve.

Liberia has three health workers per 10,000 people and was the third and worst hit by the Ebola crisis of the three nations of the Mano River basin with more than 4,800 dead and 10,672 becoming infected. [ [This article is an extract from the 2016 Update "PSI trade union response to the Ebola Virus Disease".]