Editorial: the price of rights?

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 2 Volume 22 Issue 2 2015 IUR ❐ EDITORIAL Editorial: the price of rights? S even (or eight, depending who you ask…) years into the global financial crisis the world is still very much in turmoil. Throughout Europe workers have seen their rights rolled back in the name of stability or austerity , as collective bargaining systems have been ‘americanised’ (moved from the sectoral to the enterprise level), jobs have become increasingly precarious, and unemployment has rocketed in countries such as Greece and Spain. In the UK John Hendy QC and Carolyn Jones look over a new round of anti-union legislation proposed to further curb strikes, and observe that even the repeal of Human Rights Act has been mooted, as a confidently belligerent government seeks to impose hard-line austerity measures in the name of ‘balancing the books’. All around we see the shrinking value of wages for low and middleincome earners, trade unions and their wage bargaining / regulatory role being rolled back, and a dizzying escalation of wealth pooling into the pockets of those in the very wealthiest echelons of society, a group now frequently referred to as ‘the one percent’ and contrasted with everyone else ‘the 99 percent’ group of society, which seems to be comprised of everyone outside the definition ‘extremely rich’. And so it seemed extraordinary, in this climate, that the IMF should publish a piece of research titled Power from the people, which analyses the trade union role. Ian Manborde takes stock of the current economic situation and its implications for the labour movement, and considers the contribution that the IMF’s report makes to our understanding of the role and position of trade unionists as active regulatory forces within the economies within which they function. ICTUR’s Ciaran Cross, meanwhile, takes issue with one of the fundamental assumptions that underlie the IMF’s report, encouraging readers to question whether any analysis that ultimately measures success only in terms of its impact upon the notion of ‘growth’ is really helpful if it makes our evaluation of fundamental human rights subject to the impact that those rights have on our economies. Cross remind us that the IMF itself has a dramatic impact on the fundamental ways in which we evaluate success, and we are reminded by Kurshid Ahmad of the role that the international financial institutions continue to play in forcefully promoting a privatisation agenda , even where this policy appears to have little support from key stakeholders in the country concerned. And although we give pause for thought around the value of growth as an object in and of itself IUR is also pleased to include a report from Nicolò Giangrande in which examines the economic success and high growth in Uruguary, which he tells us has been combined with redistribution, creating ‘new spaces of freedom , rights and tolerance’. Other themes considered in this edition of IUR include Claire La Hovary’s update on the ongoing wrangle over the right to strike within the ILO system; Isabel Cortes’s report on the harassment and attacks faced by union organisers in Kenya’s key trucking corridor; Eric Lee’s report on an incident in which police (temporarily) mobilised against the subject of a Labourstart international campaign; and Sonja Vartiala updates us on developments in the Thai tuna industry following her NGO’s recent work around migrant workers’ rights. Unfortunately this edition of IUR was scheduled to print just too early for us to include any significant evaluation of the report of the South African Marikana Commission of Inquiry, which was released the evening before this edition went to print. However, ICTUR is dismayed that the report has produced no recommendations for compensation to be paid or prosecutions to be brought. IUR will be returning to examine the Marikana report in detail in our September 2015 edition (IUR 22.3). Daniel Blackburn, Editor Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1,900 words should be sent by email (mail@ictur.org) and accompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Photographs 15 August 2015 if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of IUR. Subscribe to IUR...