Fiji union unhappy with government agreement

Transcript

A Fiji union says government efforts to address workers rights do not go far enough, and it's asking the International Labour Organisation to continue to pressure the government to rectify these issues.

An agreement on labour laws was recently reached between the government, employers and the Fiji Trades Union Congress, following an ILO mission to Fiji.

However another union, the Fiji Islands Council of Trade Unions, met with its members on Saturday, to discuss what it says are major issues that have been omitted from the agreement.

Its general secretary, Attar Singh, says these include the reduction of the essential services coverage, the restoration of the collective agreement, the political parties decree, which he says restricts political rights, and the freedom of association provisions.

ATTAR SINGH: So these issues have been cited by the ILO and the three parties who signed the agreement, who unfortunately and for reasons unknown to us decided not to make any mention of these issues. There for the meeting has noted the agreement has been signed, we note there is little progress that has been made but these option issues are crucial and we have therefore taken the position to inform the ILO of our position and to call upon ILO to continue to pressure Fiji government to bring about changes to these outstanding issues.

LM: Because the minister is saying that the parties have agreed that they will ask the ILO to discontinue the pursuance of article 26. So you are basically asking them to stick around?

AS: Not necessarily, you see the ILO's mechanism has got different levels of action that they can take and the commission of enquiry is the ultimate. Now even if the declaration of inquiry were to be called off we are saying that the supervisory committees must not let Fiji off the hook. Until such time as they have rectified these other issues that I have mentioned and I think they could do so by continuous and ongoing pressure on the Fiji government calling on them to bring about law reforms. And until such time those are completed then only Fiji goes off the agenda.

LM: And apart from asking the ILO to continue to pressure the Fiji government is there any other forms of action that you can take? Will you be meeting with the Fiji government or the other unions to discuss these matters?

AS: Absolutely, I think one of the major omissions in the procedure also was the disagreement before signing should have come to the employment relations advisory board of which we are members. And the full board should have had the opportunity to look at the agreement and comment on it before it was signed. Even if members on the board did not agree to it. But the disagreement wasn't brought to the I-rep board before signing so that is a major omission of the procedure and therefore a violation of Fiji's Labour Laws in that respect. So what we will do is we will be writing to the chairman of the labour advisory board and to the minister for labour. Bringing this to their attention and according for these matters to be placed on the agenda for the next meeting which is in March.

LM: Was there anything else that you thought was important to add at all in terms of where you will be taking this from here?

AS: No, we have given a media statement to the people of Fiji so the people of Fiji know where we stand, workers of Fiji know where we stand. And I think it is a very, very crucial issue and we would like the workers of Fiji and for the wider public to understand that we at FICTU do not wish to be the party who do not wish to endorse an agreement that in our view is likely to enslave Fiji's workers as well for yet another generation. These are the issues of rights and on issues of rights there can be no halfway house. We need to continue to make the demands to make sure that Fiji's labour laws are compliant with the ILO standards and until the standard is done one cannot rest.