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Article

19 May 2014

Author:
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

[PDF] ITUC Global RIghts Index - The World's Worst Countries for Workers

[W]orkers are struggling everywhere for their right to collective representationand decent work deficits exist in varying degrees in most countries. Abuses of rights are getting worse not better and too many countries take no responsibility for protecting workers rights in a national context or through corporate supply chains. Based on reports from affiliates, workers in at least 53 countries have either been dismissed or suspended from their jobs for attempting to negotiate better working conditions. In the vast majority of these cases the national legislation offered either no protection or did not provide dissuasive sanctions in order to hold abusive employers accountable. Indeed, employers and governments are complicit in silencing workers’ voices against exploitation. The increase in precarious employment relationships has further deepened the vulnerability of workers to discrimination at the workplace...In countries such as Qatar or Saudi Arabia, the exclusion of migrant workers from collective labour rights means that effectively more than 90 per cent of the workforce is unable to have access to their rights leading to forced labour practices in both countries supported by archaic sponsorship laws.