The International Trade Union Federation (ITUC) issued its 2014 Global Rights Index at a conference in Berlin. The report rank countries based on their performance on workers’ rights, particularly the right to fair wages, the right to unionize, and the right to collective bargaining,
Israel’s ranking is far from ideal, but it can take solace in the fact that the US ranks even worse. Both countries are far below most European countries, which sit at the top as veritable workers’ paradises.
The document, which received a great deal of media attention in the US, ranks 139 countries by 97 criteria, scored on a scale one to five, with one being the highest and five the lowest. Countries characterized by social and political unrest, with zero protection of workers’ rights, received a score of 5+.
Israel received a 3. The report classifies countries with this ranking as having “Regular violations of rights,” and specifies that “Government and/or companies are regularly interfering in collective labor rights or are failing to fully guarantee important aspects of these rights. There are deficiencies in laws and/or certain practices which make frequent violations possible.”
Israel shares this ranking with a few Western countries: the UK, Australia, Canada, Portugal, Singapore, and Taiwan; two countries that were, at the time, on Eastern side of the Iron Curtain: Bulgaria and Poland; a few Latin American countries; and also Ethiopia, Mozambique, Djibouti, Benin, Uganda, and Tanzania.
The US scored 4, along with countries like Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Mauritania, and Pakistan. The report states that these countries have a “Systematic violation of rights,” and says, “Workers in countries with the rating of 4 have reported systematic violations. The government and/or companies are engaged in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers putting fundamental rights under continuous threat.”
The Palestinian Authority is on the bottom of the list, among a small group of countries with a ranking of 5+. These countries have “No guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law,” according to the report. The Palestinian Authority shared this ranking with Central African Republic, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Ukraine.
Countries with a ranking of 5, “No guarantee of rights,” include: China, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most Gulf states, and surprisingly even Greece.
As expected, most of the countries at the top, with a ranking of 1, “Irregular Violation of Rights,” are located in Europe: France, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Montenegro and Slovakia. The Non-European countries that scored in this category are Uruguay, South Africa and Togo.
The report paints a bleak picture of the state of workers worldwide. For example, just in the last twelve months reports were received according to which at least 35 governments arrested or imprisoned workers in order to thwart efforts to achieve democratic rights, fair wages, safer working environment, and safe jobs that are not likely to be eliminated overnight. In at least nine countries, workers were murdered or disappeared as a scare tactic, according to the document.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 22, 2014
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