CIOs Addressing the Impact of Covid-19: Young Workers, Informal Economy Workers, Migrants and Women are the Most Vulnerable
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Brussels (IYCW News) - KAB Deutschland in collaboration with JOC Europe, the European Christian Workers Movement (ECWM) and other faith-based workers’ organizations, held a virtual webinar, a discussion based on the ILO Addendum to the 2020 General Survey on promoting employment and decent work in a changing landscape, on May 27, 2021.
ECWM President Olinda Marques opened the session, saying that together we do better and can reflect on the very important question of promoting employment and decent work in a changing landscape.
IYCW President Sarah Prenger made a comment on the ILO addendum. She emphasized the enormous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young workers and jobs.
"The pandemic is affecting young people in different ways: disrupted education; difficulty in finding work and re-entering the labor market; reduced earnings; and deteriorating conditions of work. Precarious jobs are on the rise,” said Sarah. To meet the challenges, Sarah placed the accent on the need to strengthen social protection, health care and education, and to ensure infrastructure improvement. "Care" activities also need to be recognized as work with legal status, wages and protection.
The IYCW Stands Strong with Colombian People for Peace, Ending Human Rights Violations
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Brussels (IYCW News) – At least fifty-eight people have been killed by police and dozens of others have gone missing since the outbreak of social unrest in Colombia last April 28, 2021. Riots have occurred in various cities at the expense of young workers, women, peasants, fishermen and the urban poor. Police and soldiers have brutally fought the demonstrators in downtown streets.
Colombia is a country that has had a succession of neoliberal governments, which for decades have been implementing a series of anti-people reforms and laws in the areas of health, education, social security and labour, supported by a strong military and police system.
The government's latest attempt at fiscal reform, the cynicism of the ultra-right imposing their neoliberal measures, unleashed a massive popular rebellion, highlighting the structural crisis that the country is going through and the failure of this model on the continent. The government's response to demonstrations has been more than distressing: armed repression, human rights violations, disappearances of social leaders, sexual abuses and real urban massacres in different regions of the country.
The IYCW Echoes the Workers’ Voice in ILO Conference: Act for Social Justice and Respect Everyone’s Dignity
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Brussels (IYCW News) – In the midst of the cries and screams of millions of contract workers who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IYCW continues to speak out to the world at the International Labour Conference which has been taking place virtually at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ana Cecilia Salazar, a leader of the YCW Americas Team, took the floor at the labour conference bringing her lament about the fate of a contract worker from Peru who lost her job due to the pandemic. "I had a temporary contract. When the lockdown was decreed, the company suspended the work. The contract will end and there will be 50 of us young people jobless," Ana read aloud as she shared the testimony of the Peruvian contract worker.
Contract workers are the most vulnerable workers and the first to be fired when the company has to terminate the employment relationship. In her statement, which was read from Peru, Ana emphasized that the phenomenon of easy layoffs for contract workers occurs in almost all countries and has affected millions of contract workers worldwide. This form of work, as well as all forms of precarious and informal work related to online platforms, is increasing even more in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The IYCW called on 187 ILO Member States to Act in Solidarity for Stronger and Transformative Social Protection System
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Brussels (IYCW News) – Basma Doka Louis, the African YCW coordinator, read a statement at the International Labour Conference (ILC) addressing one of the main topics in the conference in the social protection committee - A recurrent discussion on the strategic objective of social protection (social security), under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on social Justice for a Fair Globalization.
In her statement, she emphasized that young workers need to feel valued by living a recognized life. The full implementation of ILO convention 102 and recommendation N. 202 is crucial in order to guarantee a just social protection system for all.
Basma also shared the testimony of a restaurant worker in Australia who was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic: “I was working in the restaurant as a cook. When Covid hit and the government provided a form of crisis social security payment, I was not eligible for it and the business let me go. I had to depend on charity events for food and groceries. It impacted my mental health.” The statement was read out from Egypt in a virtual ILC.
International Day of the Domestic Worker: A look at the Brazilian YCW and the problem of domestic workers
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Domestic workers have always formed a significant group of the Brazilian workforce. According to the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 2020, there are 4.5 million domestic workers, 12.8% of which are aged 14 to 29. Women represent more than 92% of the people engaged in domestic work, of which more than 65% (3 million) are black women. The typical domestic worker is a young unschooled woman originating from the countryside or an impoverished urban area. Working hard and long hours from a young age onwards, earning very little money in return, these young women all too often remain unschooled and unable to escape the tangles of unregulated domestic work. Given this precarious situation, it is no surprise that domestic workers have been a focal point for the Brazilian YCW (JOC Brasileira) ever since its foundation. On the occasion of the International Day of Domestic Workers, KADOC lets the IYCW archives and the Brazilian YCW speak about the issue of domestic work in Brazil.
