International Labour Conference 2017

Day 8

Last intervention today on India’s Labour inspection problem. It is simply incredible that the Special Economic Zones are inspection free. Of course this leads to terrible workplaces and horrific injuries and deaths and the Indian Government want to liberalise the OHS law.

I am in the Committee room at the moment and they are hearing about the lack of free association in Egypt. The yellow unions, those established and/or paid for by the employer are very covert. The Egyptian TUC denounced the Chair of the Worker Group and then gave the Government representative a standing ovation!

There was a fantastic intervention by a woman from the Arab Trade Union Confederation – they were shouting her down and she was giving as good as she got!

Its Andrea’s last night tonight so we are going out - should be good.

I am quite satisfied with our work this time around - we achieved what we had set out to do which is to help out the SE Asian comrades (I spoke on four of their five cases) as well as getting an opportunity to help out the English TUC.

I have met some great people – and worked with some super talented brothers and sisters.

Day 7

Yesterday I did my intervention on the complaint against Afghanistan for breaches of the worst forms of child labour focusing on child sex trafficking and prostitution in that Country.

It was pretty heavy but it went OK.

What was really nice was Azima and Niazi our Afghani comrades were very happy.

Azima, the women embraced me after outside the Committee room and said: “Thank you for being our friend” and gave me a sensational gift of some beautiful Afghan saffron.

Last night the Aussie Government delegates took us for informal drinks at the funky bar called La Scandale. This was appropriate because Ged smacked down the Employers anti union rhetoric at the Plenary yesterday. Apparently the Africans and South Americans liked it!

I am waiting to go on Cambodia – which I have been revising all day. Tommorrow I am doing India which will be my last one.

Day 6

Sunday is a day off from the ILC. I got up and composed my intervention for Cambodia concentrating on anti union discrimination and violence in that Country. It took three or four hours so I was free by about 1PM and went for a walk around the City. I turned the corner and bumped into Paris Aristotle [my son Nick and his kid Callum played footy together for years]. He is in Geneva to talk to the UNHCR. He took me to a coffee placed owned by Melburnians - so it was just like Liaison! He was telling me the Dutton purge of the Refugee Review Tribunal has been savage - 12 of the 14 Melbourne registry members have not been re-appointed. While this is happening the Government is appointing its mates to the Tribunal - including a bloke who used to work in Abbott's office as a Senior Member on 250K a year!

The whole Aussie worker delegation went out to dinner last night at the Private UN club on Lake Geneva which was glorious. We then went back to the hotel and Andrea and I helped Ged with her speech to the Plenary this morning. I have got the Afghanistan intervention today. Cambodia tomorrow and then India. Getting tired now and running out of clean shirts.

Day 5

Its 3.30 on a Saturday afternoon and I am sitting in the CAS.

The case up before us is Venezuala - its starting in an minute.

I have prepared the case for Afghanistan - it really is a horror story - widespread sex trafficking of boys and girls [read this if you can stomach it: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2015/06/16/sexual-exploitation-in-afghan...

So I am ready to go on that -

Sunday I will be drafting my fourth intervention against Cambodia - which is the full catastrophe - extra judicial killings, affronts to freedom of assembly, repressive labour laws, successful worker arbitrations that are never enforced etc etc so that should be good.

I am getting more efficient in drafting so its good.

The Cambodian union guys were quiet but pretty resolute about what they wanted from us - which was very helpful.

After Cambodia we will have India - and that will be it for me.

I think five interventions by an Aussie is a record here.

The strategy of going up to Manila to help the SE Asian comrades was a good one because they have treated me as one of the team.

Brother Patuan took a photo of me while I was making the UK intervention

I had hoped that we would be able to go out tonight but Ged and Andrea are working to midnight on their drafting committees.

Day 4

Overnight I prepared an intervention on the case against the UK government for it's failure to meet the standards in the social security convention.

I am now 'full bottle on' the English social security system and precarious work in the UK. The hardest 1000 words I have ever produced.

Anyway its all done now and everyone is happy with it.

I am making the intervention at the 6.30 session tonight - for all you fans of unsociable hours that is on a Friday night!

The Europeans are freaking about the UK election - our leader Marc Leemans, the huge headed Belgian lawyer gave me the double kiss this morning and said in his best French/Belgian/Aussie Accent: " Its a beauty mate!"

This morning I went to the co-ordination meeting for the Afghanistan case which was brought by the employers of Afghanistan for breaches of the convention against the worst forms of child labour.

The Afghani comrade risked life and limb to get here - the Norwegian unions paid for them to participate in the Convention.

As you might anticipate the stuff he told us was a horror story.

The Afghan Government, DAESH and the Taliban all exploit children in three ways: conscript them into armed conflict, sell them into child prostitution and there is little or no provision for education.

I am doing the intervention on child prostitution - suffice to say what is seen and heard cannot be unheard or unseen. A lot of the boys and girls who are subject to this nightmare are not much older than my daughter Sofia so its tough going.

I will be drafting the intervention tomorrow and have some concrete cases that I have to draw on.

The Afghani union guy cried while he talked to us and said "how can we have a future if we are killing and torturing our children" - its devastating.

I will be doing four interventions in four days.

Ged and Andrea are working hard as well and we have not had much opportunity to spend time together.

It's hard and emotionally draining but if you believe as I do that organised labour is the hope of the world we have to do our bit for our brothers and sisters in other nations.

I really want to thank the CPSU for supporting me to do this valuable work.

Day 3

Yesterday was another full on day. I lost my CAS virginity and made my first intervention on the application of Convention 19 on Nepali Migrant workers in Malaysia. I did not know I was going to make that submission until the morning of the CAS.

There are 700K Nepali workers in Malaysia who have either no or little access to accident compensation. They get injured or killed they get shipped back home. They generally work in the super safe industries of mining, plantations and manufacturing. The Malaysian economy which is now producing sustained growth is built on an underclass of migrant labour. There are 9 deaths of nepalis in Malaysia every week. Bottom line is - our cause is just and the Malaysian and Nepalese comrades seemed to like my submission.

Anyway - I must have done OK because I was immediately asked by the English Comrades to help them with their case tomorrow. We are having a meeting about it this morning.

Some of the horror stories you hear in this place are almost unbelievable - apparently the North Korean Government are shipping hundreds of workers to Eastern Europe to work in factories and shipyards - there wages are paid to minders and they are paid almost nothing and held in barracks. The North Korean government made about 6 Billion Euros from the backs of forced labour last year which all goes back to the Government. People only found out about it because some poor welder was burnt alive because he was working without safety equipment. To its credit the Polish Government is cracking down on this practice and kicking them out.

Ged and I went out with the NZ comrades in the old town last night. It was good to have some laughs. Have not seen much of Andrea we are all working very hard. The Aussie Government are acting like hillbillies on Labour Migration and Refugees.

Day 2

Yesterday was another full on day. I made my first intervention on the application of Convention 19 on Nepali Migrant workers in Malaysia. I did not know I was going to make that submission until the morning of the CAS.

There are 700K Nepali workers in Malaysia who have either no or little access to accident compensation. They get injured or killed they get shipped back home. They generally work in the super safe industries of mining, plantations and manufacturing. The Malaysian economy which is now producing sustained growth is built on an underclass of migrant labour. There are 9 deaths of nepalis in Malaysia every week. Bottom line is - our cause is just and the Malaysian and Nepalese comrades seemed to like my submission and I must have done OK because I was immediately asked by the English Comrades to help them with their case tomorrow. We are meeting about it this morning.

Some of the horror stories you hear in this place are almost unbelievable - apparently the North Korean Government are shipping hundreds of workers to Eastern Europe to work in factories and shipyards - there wages are paid to minders and they are paid almost nothing and held in barracks. The North Korean government made about 6 Billion Euros from the backs of forced labour last year which all goes back to the Government. People only found out about it because some poor welder was burnt alive because he was working without safety equipment. To its credit the Polish Government is cracking down on this practice and kicking them out.

Ged Kearney and I went out with the NZ comrades in the old town last night. It was good to have some laughs. Have not seen much of Andrea as we are all working very hard.

The Aussie Government are acting like hillbillies on Labour Migration and Refugees.

Day 1

First day was absolutely full on in the Committee on the Application of Standards.

This is the peak of the supervisory apparatus of the ILO because it is basically the enforcement mechanism for egregious failures of the Nation States to comply with the fundamental conventions. The first day is taken up with drafting the general remarks about the Committee of Experts report on the various complaints received since the last ILC. The preliminary remarks have to be negotiated with the workers group. Our Chair person is a magnificent Belgian lawyer with a big Jacobin head named Marc Leemans - he took statements from the floor.

The method by which individual cases come before the CAS is that a list of 24 cases are negotiated with the employers from a "long list of 43". The exercise involves a lot of compromise and tactics. This method inevitably means that some cases miss out. There was broad consternation that the cases of Brazil (where workers are being stripped of rights - including a law which permits agricultural workers to be paid in kind!) and Colombia (where 100s of union people have been disappeared) did not make the list of 24. The South American comrades are understandably pissed off about it. Like a true leader comrade Leemans said it was his fault and that he feels ill every time a list is created because of the deserving cases that miss out. He also made the point that the negotiation system is shithouse but the alternatives: a ballot system or; a rotation between worker and employer lists was worse. The compromise was that we would submit that the workers group were bitterly disappointed those countries missed out. We ended up with a "presente!" for all the suffering comrades in Brazil, Honduras and Colombia - which is always inspiring.

The good news is the SE Asian ITUC cases ( we went up to Manila to negotiate them) got 4 of their 6 cases up - which is great. I was stuffed after 12 hours of negotiations on the first day. I made the fundamental error and checked the Melbourne time when I walked out of the room at 9.30PM - it was 5.30AM Melbourne time - no wonder I was having an out of body experience.

Ged arrives today so it will be good to see her. I will probably be making an intervention for the Malaysian comrades tomorrow - I will try to write something every day. The hotel the Australian delegation is staying in is a early 20th century job with the cage door on the lift. Keep expecting Hercule Poirot to walk around the corner.