45
International Labor Criteria
The international labor organization defines the right to syndicate organization and collective negotiation as workers' right to be represented to settle any conflicts they might have with the work owner.
And it has defined arbitrary work as any type of work or service imposed by force on anyone against his will under threatening or punishment.
According to international agreements, government must work on eliminating the following:
• All forms of slavery and similar actions.
• Using children in prostitution or in any other illegal activities, like producing and smuggling drugs.
• Any type of work that endangers workers' mental and physical health and life.
The international labor organization agreements no. 100 and 111 state that workers have the right to the following:
• Freedom from any type of discrimination based on race, color, gender, religion, political opinion, nationality, disability, legal status (migrant) … etc.
• Equality in opportunities and treatment.
• Equality in wages and salaries when doing the same type of work. This includes compensation when facing injury or illness.
To achieve all that, governments must work on applying the following:
• Issue appropriate and suitable legislations.
• Disable any decisions, laws or policies that contradict with these legislations.
• Implement nondiscriminatory policies when it comes to professional training and employment.
• Support cooperation between work owners and workers.
We cannot talk about guaranteeing the international labor criteria without talking about the negative effects of implementing the trade liberalization agreements that have led to the increase of unemployment and reducing workers' fees.
That is why we all must support fair international work criteria everywhere and refuse using them as means for pressuring the governments of developing countries. They must be a goal for all labor movements. In this regard, we must put the following in mind:
• That fair work criteria are like other economic and social rights in facing violations.
• The prices of violating policies are paid by the weaker social classes especially in Southern countries.
• That all promises made the World Trade Organization to support development and increase investments in developing countries didn't lead to any actual developments, while liberating trade has led to the collapse of basic national industries in Southern countries, as it has led to creating unequal competitions and the increase of unemployment.
• Unequal competition have led to using strict working conditions with low fees, like child labor.
• Most governments have withdrawn from positively supporting the economic fields.
• Supporting fair working criteria means providing developing countries development opportunities, stop the impoverishment policies and spending more money on basic rights like health and education and respecting people's right to life.
The situation in Egypt
Implementing the free market policies in Egypt has led to collapsing national industries, like the textile industry that was unable to break though to international markets and lost its local market.
These policies have also led to the privatization of the public business sector companies by selling with the cheapest prices, while the private sector is unable to provide real development under the current economic conditions.
These policies also allow work owners to freely determine the amounts of fees and salaries they pay their workers and their working hours, while not providing them with any work advantages, like social security or health insurance regardless of what the law states in this matter.
This way workers have no legal protection. Instead of correcting these violations, instead of fixing the defects in the labor legislations, instead of the labor laws standing up for the rights of the weak social classes, implementing these laws provides evidence to violating international labor criteria.
In this context, it is obvious that no one should ask for the interference of the WTO in the labor criteria because of the following:
• The WTO lacks the obligation and questioning mechanisms, as many of its signed agreements are simply violated without any consequences.
• The WTO has witnessed disequilibrium in the past few years, as the influence og businessmen has become stronger.
• The crisis that syndicate organizations have been passing through internationally has negatively affected their ability to improve their performance. Since these organizations represent workers in the WTO, the WTO's ability to activate and support fair work criteria has also been affected.
Workers worldwide are the ones who suffer from all of this, which means that they must develop movement and resistance mechanisms to defend their rights.
For fair work criteria to exist, there must be mechanisms capable of imposing them. International labor movements impose their influence through their syndicates and organizations to improve their conditions and guarantee their economic, social, cultural and civil rights that include stability, safety, freedom and equality.