News

On the World Day for Decent Work, global union federations demanded an end to corporate greed. Governments and businesses around the world could raise low pay, stop unfair labour practice and respect their workers, benefitting workers and families.

The global supply chain model, which dominates the world economy is undermining decent work everywhere, driving exploitation and inequality. This model, with governments failing to regulate the behaviour of multinational companies outside and often inside, their borders, means:

• Millions of people trapped in slavery and informal work producing goods and delivering services, including for some of the best known global brands
• Poverty wages and insecure, precarious jobs
• Huge death toll and injuries at work
• Suppression of fundamental human rights to organising and collective bargaining
• Environmental destruction
• Undermining of democracy and basic human rights
• Absence of social protection for the vast majority of the world

“Decent work must be at the forefront of government and business thinking,” said UNI Global Union general secretary Philip Jennings. “We need to build a global economy that puts people, not profit, first.”

“Corporate greed is at the center of a broken economic system,” stated ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow. “The majority of the world’s people are living on poverty wages and in insecure and unsafe work. We need to change the model of trade and fight for a minimum living wage, secure work and the right to collective bargaining.

On World Day for Decent Work on October 7, UNI Global Union are highlighting:

• Declining wage share - Even IMF research confirms the economic cost of its decline - they found that the polarization of incomes in the USA had reduced consumer spending by more than 3 % or about $400 billion annually.
• Uberisation - Research undertaken by Oxford University, the World Economic Forum, the OECD and others all points to a bleak future of Uberisation, with employees on zero hours contracts and unable to live on their salaries.
• Zero hours contracts -The number of UK workers on zero-hours contracts has leapt 20% in the last year to more than 900,000, indicating that insecure employment has become a permanent and growing feature of the jobs market.
• Gender inequality – Continued scandal of the gender wage gap. On average, women earn 23% less than men.

There are several solutions available:

• Mandatory supply chain liability: In 2013, one of the worst industrial disasters in recent history took place in Bangladesh, with an eight-storey garment factory collapsing, crushing over 1100 workers. Rana Plaza served as a wake-up call to multiple stakeholders – global and local unions, NGOs and brands have worked together to create the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh which is a legally binding agreement that hold brands accountable for their actions.With over 200 brands working together with unions, government and NGOs, the Bangladesh Accord showed an alternative vision for the future.
• Public procurement legislation: This can require that public bodies to respect collective agreements and ensure decent pay and conditions in companies they buy goods and services from
• Decent pay and conditions: Franchises should be obliged to insist on decent pay and conditions not just the quality of the goods and services.