World leaders unite in support of workers rights. Not really.

Leaders of the G20 countries met last week in Brazil.  Among other things, they expressed their full support for workers' rights, including the right to join and form trade unions, and to bargain collectively. Those leaders included representatives of China, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Turkey -- countries where workers' rights are most certainly not respected. It may be a bit premature then to break out the bubbly and celebrate.

Guest blog by Eric Lee

At the recent G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Gilbert F. Houngbo, praised the leaders for recognising the need for social justice and decent work. He was quite specific about what they had committed themselves to. According to a press statement on the ILO website, “The Declaration reaffirmed the leaders’ commitment to workers’ rights.”

And indeed the 22-page long G20 Leaders’ Declaration is quite clear on this:

“We reaffirm our commitments to … protect workers’ rights as described in the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, empowering workers and eradicating forced labor, ending modern slavery and human trafficking as well as eliminating all forms of child labor… and … to promote social dialogue and collective bargaining.”

That original ILO Declaration from 1998, which all those G20 leaders have pledged to support, is pretty clear about what it means by rights at work, specifically mentioning “freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.” The ILO makes clear that all its member states are obligated to respect those workers’ rights, which are universal.

At first, this sounds like really great news. The most important countries in the world have leaders that are fully committed to workers’ rights, including freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively.

Really? Nope.

The G20 includes, among others, Argentina, China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Those countries, and others, are serial violators of workers rights.

The new government in Argentina, led by Javier Gerardo Milei, is currently at war with his country’s unions.

China is notorious as the world’s largest union-free zone. There are no independent, democratic trade unions in the country. Repression against trade unionists was highlighted by the recent sentencing of Hong Kong labour leaders Carol Ng and Winnie Yu to long jail terms.

Saudi Arabia, according to the ITUC’s annual report on trade union rights, completely prohibits freedom of association, including strikes, and does not allow collective bargaining either.

As for Turkey, while independent trade unions are tolerated, there are routine violations of workers’ rights. Just last week, LabourStart was asked to run an online campaign in support of Ismet Aslan, an officer of the Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK).  Ismet was arrested by security forces on 7 October. No one knows why he was arrested or what he is accused of. And his case is not unique. Many leaders of independent, democratic unions in Turkey have faced similar attacks under the Erdogan government.

This should not be news to trade union members, especially those who have taken an interest in international solidarity.  And yet parts of the international trade union movements have uncritically praised the G20 leaders.  It is understandable why this happened.  Unions have been fighting for a “seat at the table” at events like G20 meetings for a very long time.  In recent years they have convened an “L20” consisting of labour leaders from the same countries.  When the G20 leaders say something positive about human rights, or workers rights specifically, of course they are going be positive about it.

But in my view, the G20 leaders’ “commitments” to respect workers’ rights are worse than meaningless. And certainly in the cases of Argentina, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they are brazen lies.  How should trade unionists and socialists respond to such statements from the G20?  I think we should be telling the truth, however painful and difficult that might be, about the state of workers’ rights in so many of the G20 countries.

The workers in those countries deserve nothing less from us.

G20 meeting

Originally published 27.11.24 in Eric Lee's blog