Respect At Work Has To Become The New Normal:
International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 190 and Rebuilding For a Fairer Economy
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into stark relief the direct correlation between the exploitative labor model that fuels our global economy and the systemic racism and discrimination that leads to attacks on Black people’s bodies and lives. It is a system rooted in discrimination and oppression, one which strategically devalues and dehumanizes Black and Brown workers, particularly women. Returning to ‘normal’ is not an option or even desirable–we must instead rebuild an economy designed to meet human needs and protect fundamental rights, including safety and respect on the job.
After years of campaigning by the global labor movement, on June 21, 2019, workers, governments and employers came together at the International Labor Organization to negotiate a global standard to end violence and harassment in the world of work. The ILO Convention that resulted from those discussions, “C190”, was the first international treaty to recognize the right of every worker to be free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment, and the responsibility of governments and employers to ensure safe, respectful workplaces. Uruguay recently was the first country to ratify the convention and others are soon to follow their lead. One year later as we confront racial, economic and health crises, the convention takes on an even greater role in addressing the many forms of work-related violence and harassment workers are reporting related to the pandemics.
With increased incidences during the current crisis of domestic violence and health and safety violations, unions are using the C190 framework to negotiate with employers and governments for policies that address the ongoing forms of violence they confront. Women workers throughout the global economy are often the first to lose their jobs as the economy contracts or forced to work in low paid positions with few health and safety protections. C190 requires that employers recognize gender-based violence and harassment in their safety and health protections. It is clear that the convention provides an important framework for addressing the systemic discrimination and exploitation workers are facing around the world.
Rebuilding our economy will require that we proactively design and implement systems that empower and protect workers and address systemic power imbalances. As countries shape policies for re-opening and rebuilding economies, the C190 framework provides guidance on how to ensure workplaces are safe and address the continuum of violence workers often experience. C190 calls on all governments to address the root causes of violence and harassment at work, including discrimination and deelop strategies to address the underlying factors that support these systems.
Women, particularly women of color, have been on the frontlines of the pandemic, many working for very low wages. Overall, frontline workers are 64% women, and disproportionately people of color. According to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, 73 percent of Black immigrant domestic workers report not being provided any form of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from employers. Women particularly overrepresent care work, making up more than 85% of childcare workers and 75% of health care workers. Caring for others sustains our communities and allows our economy to function, but it has long been dismissed as women’s work and systematically devalued, informalized and underpaid. Not coincidentally, these professions also face high rates of violence and harassment of the job.
In addition, women, along with marginalized groups including migrant workers, BIPOC, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming individuals, are disproportionately pushed into the precarious workforce. And while precarious work arrangements–AKA corporations using subcontractors, franchises, and gig models to get out of a formal employment relationship and escape liability for some or all labor rights–have predated COVID-19, the pandemic has thrown how these jobs get away with little to no disregard for worker safety into the spotlight.
C190 explicitly requires governments to address precarious work arrangements and ensure that everyone in the working world has legal protections from violence and harassment. It also contains protections for other individuals in the workplaces who are often not protected by labor laws or social protection systems, including people looking for work, unpaid interns and apprentices. As unemployment rises and state re-openings foreclose many from qualifying for emergency assistance, people will become increasingly desperate for income and can be forced into more dangerous and exploitative situations.
Critically, C190 also recognizes the importance of addressing underlying power relationships at work. Ending violence and harassment requires shifting more agency and control into the hands of workers themselves. This pandemic has made clear that far too often, workers are not viewed as human beings deserving of dignity and safety, but as expendable cogs in a machine. Violence and harassment exists in this system not as a glitch, but a feature–a tool of control used to reinforce hierarchy both within the workplace and in society.
And to get all of this done, we need to build alliances across our movements. Feminist, worker, climate, racial justice, migrant and human rights organizations must build joint analysis and campaigns that work towards ratification and implementation of C190. All workers must have the ability to organize collectively to proactively shape their own working conditions. A union is how change is made, and one of the few bright spots inspiring outcomes of the pandemic has been seeing new waves of worker and community organizing. Going forward, we must create an enabling environment for organizing to demand respect on the job by protecting everyone’s fundamental right to come together and act in concert to demand better.
One of the most heartbreaking elements of the COVID-19 crisis is that so much of the suffering was the result of political choices, made to prioritize the stock market and uninterrupted markets, rather than human life. C190 provides us a framework for worker-centered response and recovery that builds systems for all workers and addresses the power imbalances created by systemic discriminnation. We can and must make different, better choices–choices to recognize the inherent dignity and value of all workers, to require respectful, safe working conditions and to allow people more agency in shaping their working lives.
