25th Session of the ICTUR Administrative Council
On Saturday 13 June 2009, ICTUR hosted its annual Administrative Council discussions in Geneva, Switzerland. Trade unions, lawyers, and human rights organisations attended the meeting, including representatives of trade unions from Australia, Colombia, Egypt, France, Japan, Spain, Venezuela, Guatemala, France, Sudan, Russia, Switzerland and the Global Union IUF, together with lawyers and NGO representatives.

Interpretation was provided in English and Spanish.

The meeting was chaired by ICTUR Vice President Professor Keith Ewing.

Miguel Puerto presented ICTUR’s annual report on behalf of Daniel Blackburn, Director of ICTUR. The Council approved the report.

40 years without civil rights: Moroccan migrant workers in Gibraltar
Guest speaker Charles Sisarello, District Officer of Unite, presented the situation of Moroccan migrant workers in Gibraltar. The issues include serious problems faced by the Moroccans, of inequality between themselves and their Gibraltarian neighbours in the areas of: family reunification; housing; voting rights; access to public services and welfare; and naturalisation procedures. Mr Sisarello argued that the Moroccans had resided in Gibraltar as working tax-payers in some cases for more than 40 years, that they had helped the British MOD at a time of need, and that the discrimination between Moroccans and Gibraltarians was unacceptable and a violation of human rights.

Daniel Retureau of CGT France opened the discussion, pointing out that the United Kingdom has ratified ILO Convention 97 regarding migrant workers, and recommending that the situation of Moroccan migrant workers in Gibraltar should be made known by the ILO and taken up by the Committee on the Application of Standards. Mr Retureau said that similar situations existed in other countries, and pointed to Israel as an example. In France, he said, there was a war against migrants, and this was a situation that was affecting both women and immigrants. Finally, Mr Retureau proposed that Gibraltar should be ‘decolonised’ like many other parts of the world.

Tarcisio Mora, President of CUT Colombia, thanked ICTUR for its work on Colombia. He said that the case of Gibraltar should be understood as a new figure of slavery that was happening in many regions of the world. Latin-American workers in Europe suffer similar situations. Mr Mora denounced the situation, which he said was happening in many countries that have ratified ILO Conventions. Finally, Mr Mora said that NGOs like ICTUR are doing import work to denounce the violation of human and trade union rights and needed support.

Alison Tate of the ACTU Australia said that the discussion was important and that Australian trade unions were happy with the work taken up by ICTUR. In previous ICTUR meetings the situation of Australian workers had been discussed and this had been helpful for the campaigns they were undertaking to improve their rights in Australia.

Mostafa Rostom of ETUF Egypt said that Egyptian migrants have similar problems, especially in some European countries like Italy. Recently, he said, there had been an agreement signed between Italy and Egypt to improve that situation of those workers.
Luis Narvaez a Colombian lawyer said that this situation should be submitted to the relevant Working Groups and Committees of the UN system. Mr Narvaez offered his assistance to ICTUR to support this kind of legal action.

Professor Ewing summarised the findings of these points:
 The issue of Gibraltar is very important and raises concerns about similar denials of rights for migrant workers around the world;
 The ILO has specific Conventions and enforcement machinery that can be very useful for the protection of migrant workers;
 The machinery of the UN System should also be used as a tool to denounce this situation.

General discussions:
Daniel Retureau said that in several European countries general strikes were being held: for better working conditions; for a decent work; and to support those who have lost jobs. He believed that the employment situation in Europe would become more difficult given the new composition of the European Parliament and the majority of right-wing parties.

Elena Gerasimova of the Centre for Social and Labour Rights Russia said that the Russian Labour Code was very restrictive and contained violations of basic trade union rights. The law made it ‘nearly impossible’, she said, for workers to go on strike. Collective bargaining was taking place, she added, but salaries were being defined directly by the government. Ms Gerasimova further described restrictions for the registration of trade union and creation of trade unions in Russia. There were more than 10 million migrant workers, said Ms Gerasimova, many of them undocumented and suffered violations against their rights. They did not have political rights and were living in conditions similar to slavery. Ms Gerasimova said that Russian trade unions had not addressed the issues of migrant workers.

Kirill Buketov, of the foodworkers’ global union IUF, spoke about a campaign to denounce the precarious condition of work in many countries and said that multinationals were destroying decent work and permanent work. The issue of subcontracting work must be controlled, he argued, because this can lead to a degradation of workers’ rights.
Efren Sandoval, a lawyer from UNSITRAGUA Guatemala said that in Guatemala, like than the rest of the world, precarious employment conditions were widespread. The Government had taken advantage of precarious work to address the economic crisis. But Decent Work should be the starting point. Mr Sandoval called for ICTUR to conduct research on the outsourcing of work and precarious employment conditions.

Reports from previous sessions are available online: 2008; 2007; 2006.