Today, organised labour seeks to bring attention to the plight of families and calls for action at national, regional and global levels to respect citizens’ rights and put social protection systems in place.
In a release to mark World Day for Decent Work, the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) called for the development and enactment of strong national and regional policies to focus on improving the rights and opportunities of the Caribbean people with special focus on unemployment and the working poor.
It quoted Director General of the International Labour Organisation, Juan Somavia as saying: “Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the work place and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and the equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.”
It called on Caricom to dedicate the next decade as a period for full employment and decent work for all in order to achieve the programme they have set themselves.
Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) President Patrick Yarde said the union is crucially concerned that the rights of workers be respected. According to a release, the GPSU as the authentic representative of public servants, is both committed to the ideals of unity and solidarity among workers and is wiling to play its part in furthering the interests of workers and the nation.
And Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, in his message quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.”
He noted that the concept and importance of decent work started to come to the surface during the 1995 World Summit for Social Development. This summit brought Heads of State and Governments together and got them to commit to, among other things, promoting the goal of full employment as a basic priority of our economic and social policies for all.
