Trade Union Rights During the Pandemic: Urgent for Health and Frontline Public Workers

Abstract

24 | International Union Rights | 27/1-27/2 FOCUS | UNIONS, WORKERS’ RIGHTS, AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Trade Union Rights During the Pandemic: Urgent for Health and Frontline Public Workers The COVID-19 pandemic has had deep impact on virtually every aspect of social life globally. These include the sphere of labour relations and particularly trade union rights. The pandemic also shows the interconnectedness of the diverse aspects of our collective reality. Trade union and labour rights, such as have to do with workplace safety for example, have been constricted due to economic reasons. The Great Lockdown also became a seeming justification for curtailing workers exercising the right to organise. More generally, it has also brought the impact of digitalisation on the world of work into sharp relief, highlighting the importance of trade union rights in the context of 40% of workers working from home. The public health emergency has been a spark igniting an economic crisis waiting to happen, and worsening this as the world is hurtled into what is panning out as a global recession worse than 2007/9, mass layoffs and cuts in wages erodes the right to work for hundreds of millions of workers, further undermining their combinational powers. To defend labour rights, trade unions have responded to this complex situation in diverse ways. They have; armed members with information on the COVID-19, negotiated safe working practices, influenced governments policy process and embarked on strikes where social dialogue failed to achieve the desired results. The results of these efforts have been mixed. The dynamics of successes and failures also point to the fact that the trade union movement would need to advance radical priorities that change how society as a whole runs, to effectively defend and extend trade union and labour rights in the world of work, in the unfolding period. The primary place of workplace safety From the onset of the spread of COVID-19 in January, occupational safety and health concerns have been top priority issues for workers and the trade unions. And health workers on the frontline of the global response have been particularly concerned. Across the world, trade unions have promoted general advice for membership, developed and issued educational bulletins, and provided information for different cadres of (health) workers and advice on the use of personal protective equipment. They also negotiated collective agreements, enabling infected workers to enjoy special leave. One of the earliest instances of these, in February, was with the Australian nurses’ union in Victoria. Occupational safety and health still remain a cause for grave concern for workers – particularly for the frontline workers who kept on working, even during the lockdown period. A global shortage of personal protective equipment has left many of them unprotected or under-protected. These concerns have to be confronted frontally as more countries lift the lockdown. As the ILO noted in the policy brief, A Safe and Healthy Return to Work During The COVID-19 Pandemic, published in May; ‘safe and healthy working conditions are fundamental for decent work and are the foundation upon which policy guidance for the return to work must be based’. And in an earlier policy brief on Protecting Workers in the Workplace, it had called for adjusting work processes and work arrangements. Indeed, a flurry of recommendations – matching the urgency of the times – have emanated from the ILO buttressing the operationalisation of relevant international labour standards for the COVID-19 period. The World Health Organization has also issued documents in a similar light, which have been useful for trade unions negotiations such as Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak: Rights, Roles And Responsibilities Of Health Workers, Including Key Considerations For Occupational Safety And Health, released in February. Of fundamental importance from the WHO, for trade unions in the current situation (particularly those in the health sector), are the recommendations spelt out in the WHO Infection Prevention and Control guidelines. This is largely because WHO guidelines carry the moral weight of scientific evidence, despite not being binding in the sense that international labour standards are, for example. From the on start, though, these guidelines have been considered inadequate for protecting health workers’ safety and health, without prejudice to their usefulness in...