Hilary Rajakarunanayake, Asian Tribune Editor in Sri Lanka
Colombo, 08 May, (Asiantribune.com): The protection of the rights of Sri Lanka migrant workers in Arab states is at the centre of a major cooperation agreement signed on Thursday in Colombo by the leaders of the Sri Lanka trade unions and their counterparts from Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait - three important destination countries for Sri Lanka migrant workers. The agreement was aimed at granting Sri Lanka migrant workers "the full panoply of labour rights included in internationally-recognized standards"
Delivering the keynote address at the workshop, Mr. Sunil Sirisena, Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare said "It is not appropriate to justify the wages received by the migrant workers for the work they are doing in these countries, because they are definitely contributing tremendously to the achieving of the development targets of these countries", and stated that "although comparative benefits are not demanded, we strongly believe that the basic rights and the dignity of workers should be preserved as indicated in the National Labour Migration Policy".
The text of the agreement, which is based on a model developed under the aegis of the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) and its Bureau for Workers’ Activities, is the first of its kind covering Asian migrant workers active in Arab States. According to the statistics by the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, there are over 300,000 Sri Lanka workers in Kuwait, over 75,000 in Jordan and 45,000 in Bahrain.
The signing of this trade union agreement, coincides with the ratification of the National Labor Migration Policy by the Sri Lankan Cabinet last week, which was formulated through a tripartite consultative process with technical assistance from the ILO. This landmark event reiterates the Government’s commitment in promoting bilateral co-operation in protecting the migrant workers’ rights as clearly articulated in the new National Labour Migration Policy.
Ms.Tine Staermose, Director of the ILO Sri Lanka Office said: "We believe trade unions have a special role to play in relation to migrant workers as this group of workers have weak bargaining power in the labour market, because they often are not organized in trade unions and sometimes not allowed to join trade unions".
Based on the shared conviction that the benefits of labour migration for the above-mentioned countries, their national workers, and the migrant workers themselves, can best be maximized through the effective promotion and respect of workers’ rights, including basic human rights, and fundamental principles and rights at work enshrined in UN and ILO Conventions, and through the promotion of decent work for all, the trade union agreements, signed in Colombo, go on to detail a number of joint activities to be developed by the trade union organisations both in the country of origin and in countries of destination of Sri Lanka migrant workers.
These include action to "ensure that labour legislation and collective agreements fully protect all migrant workers, including those involved in temporary labour migration programmes", the development of a model and unified employment contract for migrant workers, based on the provisions of international labour standards and enforced through national legislation and labour inspection and support for immediate action to denounce abusive practices and to find solutions to them through legal remedies or other available dispute-resolution mechanisms.
Efforts will also be made to encourage governments to ensure the strict supervision and control of activities by recruitment and employment agencies (in conformity with ILO Convention No. 181 on Private Employment Agencies), and subcontractors, as well as eliminating abuse of sponsorship schemes.
Follow-up mechanisms to the agreement include annual evaluation meetings, the preparation of information material on migrant workers’ rights to be made available to would-be migrant workers in Sri Lanka and access to trade unions in the countries of destination. As an immediate result of the agreements, Sri Lanka trade union leaders have been invited by their counterparts in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait to visit the three countries of destination and acquaint themselves of the situation.
The trade unions will also encourage governments in their respective countries to establish tripartite (Employers/Workers/Government) mechanism to address issues related to labour migration.
The 4 national trade unions in Sri Lanka and their counterparts in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait all belong to the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation, the largest global trade union body.
The Colombo agreements have been facilitated by the ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities with support by the ILO International Migration Programme in Geneva as part of their global project on Effective Action for Labour Migration Policies and Practices funded by UK-DFID and by the Government of Norway in their support for the promotion of social dialogue.
- Asian Tribune -
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