National Seminar on
Worker's Rights in the SAARC Social Charter
Organised by NEFAS/FES

July 21, 2002

A one day seminar on the inclusion of the worker's rights in the SAARC Social Charter was organised in Kathmandu by Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies in cooperation with FES of Germany on July 21. The draft social charter is being prepared at the moment by the Marga Institute of Sri Lanka and it is reported that the worker has not even been mentioned by it, although other social issues have been comprehensively taken up. This was the second time the worker's rights was being discussed in Kathmandu with regard to the South Asian regional organization. The select gathering of about forty people concerned with labor unions, Industrial Relations Forum, regional cooperation, political scientists, economists, government officials, ILO representative and university teachers discussed the plight of the laborers in South Asia and Nepal at length and suggested some ways out of the problem. After Ananda Srestha welcomed the participants and presented some highlights of the seminar, Yadav Kant Silwal, the former SAARC secretary general, who also chaired the seminar said that the holding of the meeting was timely. "The Council of Ministers are meeting in August where the Social charter draft is expected to be presented," he said.

Discussing the preparatory stage of the draft charter, Mr. Silwal said that a clear perception has not yet emerged as to what the charter should contain, although SAARC has taken up many social programs in the past fifteen years. "The perception differs among the different countries. All the countries feel that it needs to be discussed at the macro level. But the problem is that trade unions are heavily politicized. They need to evolve a common platform devoid of politics and color which is dedicated to the worker. That has not yet happened. We need to evolve a culture to make that happen," he said.

He also pointed out the need to create a power lobby to impress upon the seven governments that there is a real need to include the worker's rights in the social charter. "Today, the charter has been drafted and although all the social sectors have been included, the worker has been left out," he said. According to Mr. Silwal it could be that since all the social sectors have been included in the social charter it might have been felt that the worker is automatically included. "We could differ on that perception," he said.

After the opening remarks by the NEFAS executive director and the chairman of the session Dev Raj Dahal made a presentation outlining the state of social commitments of regional organizations throughout the world. The paper was written by him and Hari Uprety. He discussed the labor problems in South Asia and also provided recommendations and the difficulties of implementing those recommendations. The floor discussions began after the presentation. Following are the excerpts of the discussion:

FLOOR DISCUSSION

Dr. Meena Acharya: We need to be a little more innovative. There are two perspectives-- political and economic. Although politically, it may make sense to talk about worker's rights, economically, rights can be implementable only when the labor resource becomes scarce, not when it is abundant. Even in the developed state of the US it is not the blue collar worker who is finding his/her wages rise matching the economic growth. It is the higher management people whose wages are rising unprecedently. It is in this context, that rights should be discussed. And in South Asia, we should ensure that worker's have the right to work on minimum wage rather than looking for other rights. Moreover,

Prof. Guna Nidhi Sharma (TU): The SAARC charter is just in the skeletal phase and details are yet to be spelled out in the coming SAARC meetings. We need to take note of the trends of today while making the charter.

Bishnu Rimal, (General-Secretary of GEFONT): We need to be clear about the Nepalese perspective and South Asian perspective. The social charter should try to address the questions of

There are new issues coming to help the worker. We are talking about business ethics which prompts consumers to boycott unethical producers. Also, ILO declarations will have to be complied if one is a UN member. Lastly, we blame the trade unions for being political, but look at the factionalism among employers- FNCCI and CNI- and we do not take it as political because it is concerned with capital. The suppression by employers is not taken as political only the actions of the workers like strikes against injustice.

Solomon Rajbanshi (ILO): ILO's strategic objectives include- employment of men and women, social protection and social dialogue. Should all the issues just be included in the charter or a new declaration designed as some issues cannot be included in the charter. For example, we give importance to collective bargaining and social dialogue. ILO does not believe in strikes, only dialogues. Nepal has recently signed two new ILO conventions taking the total to nine as of now.

Dr. Krishna B. Bhattachan (TU): The SAARC itself makes unimplementable declarations. Who is going to take it seriously when it says it will make and implement the social charter? For example, how could it promise to eradicate poverty by 2001 when it very well knew that it was not possible?

We need to look at the South Asian context while designing a charter. Metropolitan laborers are considered free and satellite country laborers are considered forced. India can be both free and forced depending on whether you look at it globally or regionally. Are the South Asian states democratic, or predatory? Strong or weak? Disposable or indespensable? These factors affect in having protection clauses. South Asia is heterogeneous. How can a homogenous charter work is such a situation?

Hiranya Lal Shrestha ( former MP CPN- UML): There is a need to include women and children's rights also in the SAARC social charter.

Dr. Posh Raj Panday (WTO CELL): Labor can be talked only in terms of capital. Capital follows the rate of return. So, we should not be raising the cost of labor to such levels that they are shunned altogether. After the Singapore meet in 1996, WTO started talking about labor. If SAARC commitments are non-binding, WTO commitments are. If we make SAARC social commitments binding, the cost of South Asian labor will be raised to uncompetitive proportions. If we can take our social issues to the WTO for resolution it might help but SAARC problems cannot be solved by WTO as some South Asian countries are not yet members of the WTO yet.

Umesh Upadhya (expert on labor matters): The industrial revolution led to the formalization of labor, while globalization led to their disorganization.

Dr. Dwarika Dhungel (Chairman, IIDS): We (IIDS) had provided the inputs to the draft prepared by Marga Institute. Women, children etc were included in the input we provided.

Khilanath Dahal ( Vice-President, DECONT): We are trying to expand our activities to the informal sector. We have seen many labor problems, but we have been talking about the workers according to the amount of work they do, not according to their caste or ethnicity. About 90 per cent of workers are women. We are raising their issues not because they are women, but because they are workers. Similar is the case with the Dalits.

There is a clear bias against laborers when they are blamed for being politicized. This is not the case with labor issues, only on political issues. Why are multinationals not being pro-labor? Maybe it is because of state policy to accommodate them and not because MNCs did not want to.

Nabin Chhetri (UNDP): The charter may only be several pages long and it needs to include the concerns of all the countries. But do labor issues need to be looked at from the caste-ethnic perspective as well. Not everything under the sun should be looked upon like that. Workers should be seen from the labor viewpoint, not caste or other perspective.

Dr. Durga Poudel (Development Expert): Our laborers are getting exploited in foreign countries. Many of them are jailed there. This is happening because the companies that are sending them there are not held responsible.

Dhurbahari Adhikari (Senior Journalist): The enforceability issue is important. But it should not mean that issues should not be included if they cannot be enforced. May be if the issues are included in the charter they may some day be implemented. If it is not included, it will never be implemented.

At the end of the discussion Dev Raj Dahal replied by saying that he would incorporate the suggestions and take them to the concerned place. He also said that the state remains unbiased between capital and labor. "It should have the capability to mediate between the two and find out an equilibrium," he said.

After the reply by the author, the chairman of the session, Yadav Kant Silwal made his final remarks: There is no "mandate" even with the Secretary General to include the worker's rights in the charter. That is why you will not find it in the draft. But it is important that we include them as the discussions have shown. In August, Nepal can propose that the issue be debated at the national level (about the inclusion of the worker's rights in the charter) in all the capital of South Asia. FES and NEFAS can do more work through regional networking developed from this particular event. Several of us can go to the Prime Minister and ask him to get the August meet to agree on national debates so that all the countries can come out with their own concerns on the labor issue.