Voice of Electricity Workers

July - September 2001

ICFTU News

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) welcomed the adoption of a Convention and Recommendation on Safety and Health in Agriculture by the 89th session of the International Labour Conference.
        "We hope this new Convention will finally provide agriculture workers with the same basic rights as those provided for in other industrial sectors, namely the right to trade union safety representatives and  the right to refuse dangerous work without being penalised", said Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the ICFTU.

Jordan said that the passage of the new instrument forms part of a body of trade union actions to promote sustainable development in the world food system, one that promotes a 'Plough-to-Plate" approach to resolving some of the most serious problems facing our civilisation. He said the 21st Century
would have to witness a significant growth of participation among workers in the food system to address the problems of world hunger, food safety and public health.
          "Earth Summit II calls on all actors to link desired production changes to new consumer habits", he said, "and this new instrument is a step in the right direction for addressing current problems in the world food system".

He said that provisions for worker participation in decision-making for agriculture, at the workplace level, is a step in the right direction and is a victory for the trade unions who called for such action last year at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

IUF (the food and agricultural workers international) General Secretary Ron Oswald said the passage of the Convention "marks the first time that agricultural workers are formally provided in international law  certain rights and safeguards, already recognised for workers in other industries". He pledged to mobilise the efforts of his affiliates to press governments for wide-scale ratification of the Convention and its accompanying Recommendations for  adoption into national legislation.

Despite the fierce resistance of the employers' group at last year's International labour Conference, the Convention and Recommendation were adopted this year with only two opposing votes.

Agriculture employs an estimated 1.3 billion workers internationally and is one of the most dangerous sectors in the labour market, in both industrialised and developing countries. It is also a sector in which the women and men who work to feed the world are often excluded from systems of social security, medical insurance,  workplace hazard protection, as well as
from measures provided for by  legal structures or  industrial relations. According to the ILO, about  335,000 workers in the world die due to fatal workplace accidents every year. About  170,000 of these involve agricultural workers. Millions more of the world's 1.3 billion agricultural workers suffer serious injury or illness in workplace accidents involving machinery or are poisoned by pesticides and other agro-chemicals.

"It is particularly important that this new instrument expresses in clear language, the specific requirements for the safe use of machinery, chemicals and animal handling and risks from biological agents" Oswald concluded, indicating that his organisation had pressed hard to have language adopted to bring agriculture workers up to par on health protection
issues.

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