MANILA - A high level team from the International Labor Organization (ILO) will hold an 8-day fact-finding mission this month to look into the state of trade union rights violations in the country.

The high level fact-finding mission was triggered by the complaint filed by the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) labor movement before the ILO, which found the surge of killings of labor leaders and activists from 2004 to 2008 as alarming.

Last year, the ILO’s Committee on Experts, composed of 20 eminent jurists who assess a country’s application of labor standards, requested the government to submit a report on its efforts in the “prompt investigation, prosecution, trial and conviction of those found guilty or murders and other violations against trade unionists.”

It urged the government to accept a request for a mission to probe the killings but the Arroyo administration rejected the proposal.

In this year’s International Labor Convention, the government finally relented and agreed to the request.  The ILO team will conduct its probe from Sept. 22 to 29.

ILO Conventions 'violated'

KMU information officer Wendell Gumban said that at the very least, the ILO mission will “reveal” to the international community the violations committed by the government on the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, which the Philippines has ratified and vowed to observe.

Due to the unsolved killings, another ILO convention that the government is accused of openly flaunting is the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention.

Gumban said that 1 out of 9 extra-judicial killings committed since Arroyo assumed power in 2001 has been from the labor force.

The government has told the ILO that many of those killed were insurgents using the labor rights issue as cover. It told the ILO that “a distinction should be made between legitimate trade union activities….and the commission of crimes against the State that the State has the right to prevent.”

Nearly 100 leaders killed

Citing data from the human rights groups Karapatan and the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights, Gumban said 92 trade union leaders and members have been killed since 2001.

On top of the murders, trade union rights are also under constant threat, with military camps being put up beside factories to discourage workers from forming or joining unions.

The ILO mission itinerary will include inspection of two major manufacturing plants in Central and Southern Luzon.  They will also meet with the families of victims and survivors of extra-judicial killings.