*************************************************************************** The electronic version of this document has been prepared at the Fourth World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Secretariat. *************************************************************************** AS WRITTEN STATEMENT TO THE UNITED NATIONS FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN, 4-15 September, 1995, Beijing, ON WOMEN WORKERS Madam Chairperson, Thank you for giving the committee for Asian Women (CAW) this opportunity to address this conference. Before we come here, we have organized a signature campaign on women workers' rights among our network. On behalf of the nearly four thousands signatories of individuals 31 countries all over the world, we would like to present a petition for Asian women workers' situation. We want to draw your attention to the present situation of women workers in Asia and we strongly urge the United Nations and all the governments to take immediate actions to improve the women workers' situation. BACKGROUND Today, the global economy and the new world order dominated by the Multi-national Corporations in the First World countries like US, Britain and Japan are exploiting the poor. In many Third World countries the living standards of the poor have become worse. When we speak of the "poorest of the poor", we are speaking about women. Poor men in the developing world have even poorer wives and children. There is no doubt that recession, the debt crisis and structural adjustment policies have placed the heaviest burden on poor women, who earn less, own less and control less. In societies all over the world, women bear double responsibility as both producers and carers. In the past two decades, the Asian economy has gone through economic restructuring,. It is mainly characterized by The movement of capital from the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) to the developing countries to exploit the cheap land, labor and raw materials; and to develop new consumer markets; There has been a "liberalization" of national economies in the less developed countries in South and Southeast Asia through the introduction of export-oriented industrialization. The government develops Free Trade Zones to attract foreign investment and joint ventures; Due to the economic crisis and the impact of the World Bank and IMF policies, the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP), many Asian countries are compelled to open their economies and invite foreign capital to develop export processing industries. Under SAP, many Third World countries are persuaded to cut the social infrastructural spending and subsidies to basic amenities such as energy sources, sanitation and water supply, and to basic services such as health and education. These policies have more direct effects on living and working conditions of women, who continue to bear the primary responsibility to look after the family and nurture the young. They may be forced to enter the labor market through sheer necessity of economic survival of the household The SAP continues to create exploitative working conditions and increased the burden of women within and outside the household. | IMPACT ON WOMEN WORKERS The present economic and industrial restructuring has affected negatively the nature and conditions of women's work. In fact happens not only in the Third World, but also in the Asian NlCs and the First World, like: CAW's research project and the "Workshop on industrial restructuring" held in March 1995 synthesize the Asian women workers reality as follows: Increase in poverty In South Asian countries, there is an increase in inflation and poverty. More women workers are working in the informal sectors or as home based workers. They have lower wages, less workers' benefits and protection. As they are unorganized, their bargaining power with the employers is low. Due to industrial restructuring and the decline of the workers' condition, the migration of workers increases. Unemployment and underemployment In East Asia, industrial restructuring has led to the decline of manufacturing industries, many factory women workers become unemployed or underemployed casual workers. These retrenched middle age women workers are facing many difficulties in searching for jobs, and discriminated against because of their age and sex. Some of them find jobs in the service sector but there is few laws protecting workers in the service sector, including the lack of limits on working hours. There are many migrant workers in East Asia but they are the most exploited. Casualization of female labor force Women are regarded as the secondary labor force. Women's work is increasingly organized on casual basis and the work pattern is similar to part-time, temporary contract and self-employed work. These casual workers have lower pay and few benefits. They are usually classified as unskilled and have little chance of promotion. There is few protection of these workers in the local labor laws. So, the company bears little responsibility for their rights including health and safety benefit, retirement pension and maternity benefit. So casualisation of work is not only a strategy for cheapening the cost of production but a trend for reconstructing the labor process in a more hierarchical and flexible form in which women workers have little control over production and little bargaining power. This phenomenon is not just common in the service sector in East Asia, but also in the formal and informal sectors of South and Southeast Asia. Deterioration of the situation and status of women worker This is especially obvious in the Free Trade Zones in which 80-90% of workers are young women who are either low skilled or unskilled. Their living and working conditions are very poor and their wages are extremely low. Their workers' and trade union's rights are deprived by the governments to attract foreign investment. Feminization of the Labor Force These includes the segregation of jobs by sex, and discrimination on the basis of age and marital status. These is a common phenomenon in Asian context as the majority of women workers occupy low paid and unskilled work while the supervisory and managerial positions are occupied by men. Violation of ILO Convention on Trade unions and workers rights There are many violation of worker rights by the state, especially against the rights of trade unions and freedom of association. The workshop participants synthesize the common cause of industrial restructuring as the global trend of capitalist free market development. This development model adopted by Asian governments allows the extraction of super-profit by the MNCs, an unequal trading environment and maximization of profits by capital diversification. Under increasing pressure from the IMF and World Bank's international policies for liberalization of economic development, implemented through GATT and WTO, the grassroots people, especially women, suffer the most. The gap between the rich and poor is widening. The environmental and social costs of the present developmental model of free market economy are paid by the poor countries and people. We have the following demands to the UN and all the governments 1. We are appalled at the deteriorating women workers situation in Asia and are deeply concerned about the negligence of the Asian governments to ratify the ILO Conventions. We call on all governments to ratify the ILO Conventions and strictly adhere to the provisions by legislative measures and the implementation of labor law. Those ILO Conventions especially on women workers' rights are as follows: C. No. 3 Maternity Protection Convention, 1919 C . No .89 Night Work (Women) Convention, 1948 C. No. 103 Maternity Protection Convention (Revised), 1952 C. No. 100 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 C. No. 111 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 C. No. 122 Employment Policy Convention, 1964 C. No. 140 Paid Educational Leave Convention, 1974 C. No. 141 Rural Workers' Organizations Convention, 1975 C. No. 142 Human Resources Development Convention, 1975 C. No. 156 Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981 C. No. 171 Night Work Convention, 1990 2. We denounce the tendency among the employers from the Multi-national Corporations (MNCs) to retrench workers and replace them with contract or part time labour who are mostly women deprived of thebenefits granted to other workers under the labour laws of the country. We call on the UN to set up the International Code of Conduct to regulate the investment activities of the MNCs to protect the workers rights, including women workers rights. The Code of Conduct must ensure a decent working conditions and observe all the UN and ILO Conventions related to workers rights. At the same time, the UN also need to set up the monitoring mechanism to ensure the implementation of the Code of Conduct and the MNCs abide by it 3. We express our deep concern at the deliberate failure to enforce the labour laws in the Free Trade Zones which has reduced the workers, of whom 80-90% are women, to a state of neo-slavery and made it impossible for them to organize themselves in trade unions. We note the use of the military, national security and anti-terrorism legislation by governments to repress the independent union movement and workers activists. We demand that this form of repression ceases and that governments abide by the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and ILO conventions allowing the freedom to organize collective bargaining, and trade unions’ rights of workers in formal and informal sector. 4. We call on the governments to commit themselves to promote the full respect for human dignity and to promote the goal of full employment as a basic priority in the economics and social policies, enabling all men and women to attain secure and sustainable livelihoods through freely chosen productive employment and work, at the same time, to achieve equality between women and men, and to enhance the participation and leadership roles of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life. 5. We express our deep concern on the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the IMF and World Bank that have consistently undermined economic and social progress by suppressing wages, undermining the contributions and livelihoods of small producers, and placing social services, particularly health care and education, out of reach of the poor. These programs have shifted an even greater burden onto women, who care for the nutrition, health, well-being and harmony of the family, as well as community relations, exploiting women's time, labor and sexuality. 6. We urge the UN Human Rights bodies to take an active role in monitoring the policies of the IMF-World Bank, GATT and other multilateral agencies to ensure that the skills and energy of women are employed in full equality with men, and benefiting from valuable traditions and new technologies. At the same time to ensure that their policies are in accord with UN and ILO standard of workers' and women's right. 7. We call upon the UN, ILO and the governments to play a greater role in protecting the interests of women workers in the formal and informal sector through advocating the equal rights of all workers and the enforcement of economic and social policies nationally and internationally. 8. We urge the World Conference to recommend more effective UN implementation procedures to eliminate the exploitation and discrimination of women workers; to ensure the right to just and favorable working conditions; to prohibit discrimination against women and the implementation of the guarantees established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and all the ILO Conventions. | Thank you very much. Madam Chairperson. | (by Ms. SHUM Yun Shan, sponsored by Committee for Asian Women (CAW), 4th Sept., 1995.)