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The ILO’s Latin
American and Caribbean Regional Specialist in Workers’ Education, Eduardo
Rodríguez Calderón, participated in the Conference on “Spanish Hotel Chains in
Latin America and Union Rights,” where he gave a presentation on the concept of
“decent work” and its social, economic, and political implications. In dialogue
with Sirel, he highlighted the most important aspects of the meeting.
“From the point
of view of the ILO, this Conference marks a milestone, as the sector
represented here has several problems connected with decent labor, and the
conference closed with a joint working program, with greater unity, and with
tasks assigned to each union,” Rodríguez Calderón said.
“Most
importantly, all these efforts will be coordinated through the IUF’s
Regional Office, Rel-UITA, and the HRCT Group –he added. For
instance, it was determined that one of the first actions will be to contact the
heads of these hotel and tourism transnational corporations, with the aim of
reaching framework agreements where the stakeholders will clearly establish the
responsibility that entails observing the workers’ union rights.”
“Participants
–the ILO specialist continued– also examined the relationship between the
sector’s activity and sustainable development, climate change, and the
environment in general, which has involved challenges and commitments for
workers.”
“It is also
clear that labor organizations must use all the experience they have to achieve
a higher rate of unionization. The report presented by Rel-UITA shows
that progress has been made in this sense, but there is still a lot to be done,
as some countries do not have even a single union in this sector. The first
task, then, will be to change this situation, and in those places where unions
do exist, the task will be to extend any improvements in working conditions
obtained for unionized workers to outsourced workers, and to unionize the
outsourced workers in order to make the principle of equal pay for equal work a
reality, as in many cases the same companies that outsource work are the
companies that act as subcontracting agencies, and at other times these are
secretly financed by the main companies,” he concluded.
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