Measuring Democracy - The ICFTU’s Reports on Violations of Union Rights - Artur Victoria Studies

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions publishes annual report about the violations of labor and union rights that is covering 148 countries and territories. The organization is founded in 1949 and has 225 affiliated organizations in 148 countries. Affiliates are unions, union confederations or peak level associations. Association maintains close links with different UN bodies and has consultative status in some of them. The area of concern of this organization are the respect and defense of trade union and workers' rights, the eradication of forced and child labor, the promotion of equal rights for working women, the environment, education programs for trade unionists and encouragement of unionization of young workers. ICFTU annual report covers the area of labor rights violations and actions against trade unions that took place in the year of the report. Countries are divided into five regions: Africa, Asia and Pacific, Americas, Middle East and Europe. Reports are made by local affiliates of ICFTU. Summary statistics are given for different categories of violations of rights of workers and union activists related to trade union activities:
1. Number of cases of deaths and assassinations
2. Number of cases of beating and torture
3. Number of cases of arrests and detentions
4. Number of cases of strikes and demonstrations repressed
5. Number of cases of unfair dismissals
6. Number of cases of government interference
7. Number of cases of restrictive strike laws

Main body of the report are country reports that are organized into regional summaries that give brief picture of the regional situation and individual country reports that can be substantially different in their form. Since the report register only violations the focus and content of report vary sharply from one case to the other, and so does the length of the report, depending on the type of violations observed. Like AI and HRW some reports only mention general data about violations and some go into more detailed descriptions. One of the problems that require care with the use of these reports is that some policy measures of governments are presented as rights violations although they are conducted within the law.

Country reports are not prepared according to a common standard and methodology, so, like AI and HRW, they do not have common indicators of violations and not even common subsections. But in a large number of the reports, though not in all, there are sections that are dealing with the restrictions or with obstacles on the right to strike, legal restrictions on the right to strike and trade unions activity, discrimination of trade union activists and their dismissal, obstacles to trade union organization, harassment and violence against activists, arrests of activists and observance of collective agreements. The data the report provides are almost entirely descriptive. The report is accessible on the web site of ICFTU.

The data that can be found in this report can be used for the assessment that is similar to a set of indicators that is proposed for AI data, or as raw material for some broader set of indicators. Because of type of data and the fact that they are mainly descriptive and record problems or their absence, it is not possible to use more sensitive scale then the one presented for AI. The scale could contain value of 0 for absence, 0.5 for the presence was that not widespread and not result of deliberate policy or deliberate failure to prevent such events, and 1 widespread occurrence or systematic occurrence by government institutions and government unwillingness to prevent it.

The indicators that could be used:
1. The restrictions or obstacles on the right to strike and demonstrations (legal restrictions and limitations of different type and different types of obstacles raised by employers like the threats of dismissal)
2. Discrimination of trade union activists and unfair dismissal (discrimination on the work place)
3. Obstacles or restrictions to trade union organization (legal restrictions and obstacles raised by employers or the state not based on the labor code)
4. Harassment and violence against activists and violent suppression of strikes (of any sort and by any actor)
5. Arrest and detention of trade union activist and workers; death and murder of trade union activists

The scale that could be constructed would look like this:
1.0 indicates no presence of this type of violation.
2.0.5 indicates that the presence was not widespread and not result of deliberate policy or deliberate failure to prevent such events.

1 indicated widespread occurrence, systematic occurrence by government forces and government unwillingness to prevent it.

The countries included in the report divided by regions are:
In the Americas: Argentina, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican, Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St Vincent and Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, USA, Venezuela.

In Asia: Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Brunei, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam.

In Europe: Andorra, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Ukraine, Yugoslavia.

In the Middle East and North Africa: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

In Africa: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, D. R. Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.