Updated at 17:53,27-03-2024

Belarus Is Among World’s Worst Countries To Work In, Global Rights Index 2019

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Belarus Is Among World’s Worst Countries To Work In, Global Rights Index 2019
Belarus is among the world’s worst countries for employees, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)’s 2019 global rights index has revealed.

According to the index, Belarus is among 33 countries (along with Greece and Ukraine) where workers have ‘no guarantee of their rights.’

Other five categories include sporadic violations of rights, repeated violations, regular violations, systematic violations, and no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law.

Nine African and Middle Eastern states are included in the worst category, twelve are in the best category (eleven countries of Northern, Central and Southern Europe, as well as Uruguay).


No guarantee of rights

Conditions in Europe worsened in the last year due to an increase in violent attacks against trade union leaders. Besides, there’s a growing trend of charging and sentencing workers for their participation in strikes and protests.

“The breakdown of the social contract between workers, governments and business has seen the number of countries which exclude workers from the right to establish or join a trade union increase from 92 in 2018 to 107 in 2019.

The greatest increase took place in Europe where 50% of countries now exclude groups of workers from the law, up from 20% in 2018. Decent work is being affected and rights are being denied by companies avoiding rules and regulations,” said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, ITUC.

The police violently dispersed the protests and took into custody over 400 workers. In Europe, workers were arrested and detained in 25% of countries.

In Belarus and Kazakhstan, the authorities maintained their repression of independent unions, prosecuting and sentencing trade union leaders on trumped-up charges.


De-registration

The right to official recognition through legal registration is an essential facet of the right to organise.

Between April 2018 and March 2019, authorities impeded the registration of, de-registered or arbitrarily dissolved unions in 86 countries out of 145.

Many unions in all regions faced difficulties in registering including in Argentina, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama.

The ITUC has been collecting data on violations of workers’ rights in the world for about 40 years. This year report indicates the three global trends for workers’ rights.

Democracy is in crisis, governments are attempting to silence the age of anger through brutal repression, legislative successes for workers’ rights are still being won.