Brussels -- As part of its new global campaign to eliminate child labour, launched early this month, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and International Trade Secretariats (ITS) have pledged to pursue activities and urge multinational enterprises (MNE) to assume responsibility to stop child labour.
The Brussels-based ICFTU launched this two-year campaign involving the trade union movement and the like-minded non-governmental organisations.
In a petition, which is now circulating around the world, employers (including MNEs) are urged to stop hiring children and to take the children who are presently working out of work, rehabilitate them and bring them to school.
The petition will be presented during the UN Special Session on the Rights of the Child in September 2001.
The international trade union movement is seeking to make the elimination of child labour a part of the wider effort to promote corporate social responsibility among MNEs and to link the elimination of child labour to the observance of fundamental rights at work.
"The only guarantee to end the use of child labour is if workers themselves can ensure through trade union organisations that proper practices and conditions prevail day in and day out" says Bill Jordan, ICFTU General Secretary, "and this requires recognition of the fundamental right to organise and engage in collective bargaining".
There are now nine pioneering framework agreements between International Trade Secretariats and multinational enterprises. All of these agreements include provisions to ban the use of child labour linked with the observance of other fundamental workers' rights, including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.
'Almost every multinational represented on the high street is guilty of profiting from child labour. They may not employ children directly but they are invariably doing so through their sub-contractors. MNEs must accept their responsibilities and realise that they cannot demand world class standards whilst paying sweatshop prices', says Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the ITGLWF (International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers' Federation).
In the following months the ICFTU in close co-operation with the International Trade Union Secretariats, will launch more specific action plans at national, regional and international level.
More information about the Global Campaign including a direct link to the petition, is available on the ICFTU web-site at: http://www.icftu.org (Click on child labour).:
