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What is Solidarity Center?
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What is the role of INTUC in Trade Union Capacity Building
and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care?
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Why Trade Unions should Play Active Role in HIV/AIDS
Programs and Intervention?
The
Solidarity Center
 Solidarity
Center is a nonprofit institution supported and funded by
the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial
Organizations, the national federation representing 13
million working men and women in the United States. The
Center provides a broad range of education, training
research, legal support, organizing assistance and other
resource to help build strong and effective trade unions and
more just and equitable societies. Working through 26 field
offices, the Center offers support for working families and
their unions in 55 countries in Africa, America, Asia and
Europe.
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Role
of INTUC in Trade Union Capacity Building-HIV/AIDS
Prevention & Care
BACKGROUND
 The
INTUC, in collaboration with the Solidarity Center, has been
successful in initiating a project on 'HIV/AIDS prevention
and care at the workplace' with the active involvement of
trade union leadership at regional and national levels.
The first such program was organized during December 1999 in
new Delhi. The six-day training program centered on gender,
sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention and care, including policy
development issues at the workplace. A total of 25
participants from the INTUC, including members of coal
mining, plantation and port and dock unions, took part in
the training. It was the first time ever that the INTUC, or
any other national trade union center, had incorporated
HIV/AIDS into the workers' rights issues they address. A
training manual on the issue was field-tested and developed
through this training process.
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 The
second training program was held at Mumbai during October
2000. Twenty-Five participants from the port and dock,
transportation, coal mining and textile industries attended
the six-day training program. After these two training
programs, INTUC unions started follow-up camps and programs
on a local level.
INTUC supported the ICFTU Wold Congress resolution on
HIV/AIDS at Durban in April 2000. During the same year,
there was an HIV/AIDS resolution at the ILO conference at
Geneva. The seventh item of the agenda of the governing body
during November 2000 concerned "HIV/AIDS and the world of
work."
ILO conducted a tripartite meeting of experts on HIV/AIDS
and the world of work in Geneva during May 2001, attended by
INTUC representative K. S. Murty. That meeting approved a
draft code of practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work,
which now is being implemented. The ILO area office in new
Delhi initiated a project titled "Prevention of HIV/AIDS in
the World of Work; a Tripartite Response," with the first
stakeholders meeting held in new Delhi in July 2001.
Chandidas Sinha, the INTUC secretary, represented workers in
that committee.
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INTUC
railway unions are conducting regular programs, material
development and translating codes of practice, etc., at
their own workplaces. Topics covered by the programs
include:
* Awareness generation;
* Safer sex promotion;
* Diagnosis & treatment of sexually transmitted
diseases (STDs);
* Care, counseling and support for workers and their
families;
* Women's role in trade unions;
* Equal rights and opportunities at work; and
* Prevention of HIV/AIDS at workplace.
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CURRENT
INITIATIVES
 The
training programs conducted jointly by INTUC and Solidarity
Center in December 1999 and October 2000 proved to be both
ground breaking and a learning process. The Solidarity
Center and the INTUC both realized that without further
technical and financial support, it would be difficult for
INTUC to conduct these training sessions at their workplace
or with their local union. Thus Since 2001, Solidarity
Center has been closely associated with India National Trade
Union Congress (INTUC) on the project "Trade Union Capacity
Building - HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care".
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KEY
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this project is to provide the skills,
information and motivation necessary for workers to:
* Reduce
the level of HIV transmission through education and
information
* Design
effective behavior change communication (BCC) strategies for
HIV prevention within worker populations
* Promote
corporate sector coalitions and multi sectoral efforts to
combat HIV/AIDS -Workers/trade unions/ labor management
participation in HIV/AIDS prevention programs, including
policymaking.
NGO linkages
have also been created and are being strengthened in every
state in order to reach out to larger number of workers
including women workers and unorganized labor force.
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GEOGRAPHICAL
LOCATION
This project is being implemented in six states of India -
new Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata
(West Bengal) and Karnataka.
TARGET POPULATION
Primary Level:
*
Trade union leaders and union members, particularly from
INTUC
*
Workers from unorganized informal sector, particularly
migrant workers and women workers
Secondary
Level:
* Corporate
sector and business associates; NGOs and relevant
Government agencies.
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Trade
Unions and HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs
Why Trade Unions should Play Active Role in HIV/AIDS
Programs and Intervention?
 Workers
in India suffer from inhumane working conditions,
particularly migrants and those in the unorganized sector.
They work extremely long hours in unsafe conditions and with
no job security. There are no labor laws that can be
enforced for protecting their rights. Their living
conditions are equally unsafe and unsanitary. Women migrant
workers suffer even more hardships and adversities. They are
given less pay than men for equal or more work and are
further faced with sexual harassment and exploitation. Trade
unions traditionally have found it difficult to organize the
unorganized, despite having special programs. Migrant
workers have been seen as being outside the mandate of the
trade union movement.
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Given
this dismal picture facing workers and trade unions, what
impact is HIV going to have on their lives? Unfortunately,
HIV still is seen by most as not merely a health concern but
as an uncomfortable sexual health problem that technically
doesn't have much to do with workers' lives or the
conventional union agenda-wages and working conditions. But
the fact is that HIV is not a health concern, but a
development issue. It is the lack of socioeconomic
opportunities, particularly for women, that force people to
migrate, which put them at a greater disadvantage including
increased risk of HIV/AIDS.
Workers are being victimized at the workplace because
they are HIV-positive. Unfair dismissals, mandatory
pre-employment tests, harassment, lack of confidentiality
and denial of promotion or vocational training are among the
abuses suffered worldwide by HIV-positive workers. Some
unions have taken such issues to court and a few have been
successful in fighting for protection of workers affected by
HIV/AIDS. But such isolated struggles obviously are not
enough to effect policy-level changes. Workers have the
right to a safe working environment in which they are
treated with dignity and respect, and one in which they can
organize freely to defend and promote their rights and
interests. That requires a joint and concerted effort of
unions and other such relevant organizations as employer's
associations, labor organizations, non-government
organizations (NGOs) and government agencies.
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Trade
unions are uniquely placed to fight the pandemic, as the
workplace/world of work could be a major "entry point" for
HIV/AIDS prevention and rights campaigns. Among the measures
unions can take are prevention and protective clauses in
collective agreements in partnership with employers. Unions
even can seek "zero tolerance" for discrimination at the
workplace and in society. Given how central the world of
work is in the lives of families and communities, workplaces
can be promoted as centers for a continuum of care,
encompassing HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and
support.
Union members can emphasize anew the need for a
workplace policy and a participatory process for unions and
employers to jointly work toward such goals. The policy
framework for the world of work needs to be realistic and
should cover minimum basic rights issues as follows:
*
Non-discrimination at work;
*
Protection against dismissal based on HIV/AIDS;
*
Recruitment and employment testing
* Medical
confidentiality;
*
Prevention and transmission risks;
*
Workplace accommodation and working time flexibility;
* Early
retirement options;
* Medical
and pension coverage; and
*
Education campaigns.
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These
issues can be negotiated among employers, workers and, where
possible, representatives of persons living with HIV/AIDS.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in India is progressing unabatedly
while the national response has been slow. Unfortunately,
denial and stigma exist at all levels and impede action.
There clearly is an urgent need to fight denial and stigma
so that intervention strategies can be employed effectively.
Trade unions and NGOs alone cannot generate the
resources required to create HIV/AIDS awareness and to
provide services. What is needed is the global and national
political will to link all the available resources-medical,
human and financial-with the existing initiatives. The
magnitude of the HIV/AIDS crisis also must be addressed.
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