INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU)
155, Bld. E. Jacqmain, B-1210 Brussels, Belgium

DEPARTMENT OF TRADE UNION RIGHTS
phone: (32.2).224.02.03 fax: (32.2) 224.02.97 E-mail: [email protected]

ICFTU GENEVA OFFICE: 46 avenue Blanc, CH- 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
tel. (++) (41.22)738.42.02, 738.42.03, fax 41-22-738.10.82,
E-mail: [email protected]

ICFTU BRIEFING NOTE

This document constitutes an appendix to ICFTU Circular 12(1999), sent in January 1999 to all ICFTU-affiliated organisations around the world, all International Trade Secretariats (ITS) and other interested organisations. It is designed as a lobbying instrument for the international free trade union movement, aimed at promoting and supporting the movement’s concerns on trade union and other human rights during the 55^th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). As is the case each year, the ICFTU will participate in the work of the Commission, and its representatives will intervene in the debate pertaining to the defence and promotion of trade union and other fundamental human rights. This document aims at assisting ICFTU affiliated and friendly organisations in lobbying their national governments, which prepare their position on the different UNCHR agenda items long before leaving for Geneva.

(Following is an extract from the original report on the grave trade union rights situation and violations of human rights in Pakistan)

Pakistan, where trade union rights continued to be violated throughout 1998 has seen the year ending on a sour note: on December 22, 1998, the Pakistani President promulgated a decree Presidential Ordinance depriving Wapda - Pakistan’s water and energy authority’s workers of their fundamental rights concerning freedom of association and collective bargaining. The suspension of the trade union rights at Wapda, which involves affects more than 130,000 employees, has put the company in the hands under the direct control of the armed forces, threatening the very existence of the Wapda Hydro Electric Central Labour Union and the trade union movement in general in the country. Earlier in the year, violations of elementary trade union and other human rights continued at a construction project building a huge hydro-electric power facility on the Indus river in 1996, the Ghazi Barotha Hydro Power Project. The project is being constructed by a consortium of companies, of which the Italian multinational Impreglio is the major partner. Violations included mass arrests and physical abuse of workers by both management and security forces. Union leaders’ relatives were also detained and sometime tortured.