AFL-CIO endorses child labor campaign

By Fred Gaboury

CHICAGO - International issues were high on the agenda of the quarterly meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Council as its members adopted resolutions dealing with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) campaign to outlaw the worst forms of child labor.

Another resolution adopted by the council called for closure of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (see below).

In its resolution on "justice in the global economy," the council said the WTO had "failed to fulfill" its mandate to lead a global campaign to increase the standard of living through reduced unemployment and increased incomes.

Rather, the 54-member council said, "WTO rules permit and, in fact, encourage the exploitation of labor and the degradation of our environment and do nothing to limit the growing power of multinational corporations and capital."

The statement added that the world organization has undermined national regulations protecting the environment, human rights and public health.

Then, pointing to the upcoming meeting of the finance ministers of WTO-member countries, the resolution said:

"It is time for the international community to stop the heedless rush toward further trade liberalization and focus its attention on how to reverse the pattern of growing financial instability, how to combat increasing income inequality and how to lay the basis for sustained economic development that promotes broadly-shared prosperity."

When the WTO meets in Seattle in October, trade unions and other organizations will be demanding that it incorporate core workers' rights and environmental protection into WTO rules with strong enforcement procedures.

Those protections must guarantee freedom of association, the right to organize and collective bargaining, prohibition of discrimination in employment, as well as a minimum age for the employment of children.

In its resolution calling on the U.S. Senate to ratify ILO Convention 182, setting new standards to prohibit and eliminate the most abusive forms of child labor, the executive council said the 13-million-member federation called ratification the "first critical step" but added that effective implementation and enforcement are also necessary.

In announcing a campaign to win Senate ratification, the AFL-CIO pledged to "work to ensure that exploited children everywhere are removed from danger ... that all children have access to schools, and that their parents have jobs that pay a livable wage, with full respect for fundamental human and workers' rights."

The AFL-CIO said that 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 work in the world's "mines and fields, brothels and basements" and that "far too many are "enslaved, sold into prostitution, forced into debt bondage and pressed into combat."

The AFL-CIO estimates that as many as 800,000 children in the United States work in agricultural jobs and that "untold numbers" continue to work in sweatshops.

"Children are chained to machines, exposed to toxic chemicals, and drugged so that they can work longer and faster," the statement said. "Bent, cowed and crippled, working children are dying from accidents, overwork and abuse."

President Clinton has pledged an energetic campaign to win ratification of Convention 182 and has asked that the U.S. make a $30 million voluntary donation to the ILO to further its activity in defense of working children.

The United States has only signed 12 of the 181 ILO Conventions, the last in 1995. It took the U.S. Senate 24 years to ratify Convention 138 that was adopted in 1957 establishing a minimum age for child labor. It owes the ILO $28.7 million in back dues.