Trade union participants of a parallel event to the 2nd Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) on Monday doubted that the outcome of the Civil Society Days conference will be incorporated in the inter-government forum.

“The Civil Society Days of the GFMD offers a venue to assert migrant workers’ rights, but will not change the orientation of the GFMD in just two days,” said Ambet Yuson, regional representative of Building and Woodworkers International (BWI), a member of the Global Union Federation (GUF).

Yuson said their group is not optimistic that human rights and migrant workers’ rights will be successfully included in the GFMD proper.

The BWI and other trade unions are participants in the alternative Peoples Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights.

In a press statement, trade union members of the GUF said they do not expect any tectonic shift in the over-all direction and orientation of discussions at the GFMD events.

“Already, the International Labor Organization has sounded off the prospect of 20 million jobs being lost by 2009, and we fear that this trend will affect migrant workers the most,” said Yuson.

Job losses

Yuson said that in the US, 160,000 jobs in the construction industry have been lost and will probably increase to half a million before the year-end.

Christopher Ng of the Union Network International (UNI), another GUF member, said they cannot simply expect “entrenched attitudes to change all of a sudden”.

“The primordial concern for both sending and receiving countries has always been maximizing economic benefits from migrant workers, especially remittances, and this resource pool takes on more significance given the slump most countries are bound to find themselves in,” Ng said.

In the health profession, Annie Geron of the Public Services International (PSI) said some 200,000 jobs will be lost worldwide.

“And these developments prove that in a volatile world economy, migration cannot be touted as an engine of development without ample attention given to the rights and welfare of migrant workers. The GFMD remains divorced from migrant workers’ rights, because this means respecting and promoting ILO core labor standards and union rights,” added Geron. 

Geron said that with the financial crisis, migrant workers’ rights to organize, collectively bargain, right of movement and association, and to work in safe and healthy environments simply won’t be on top of the agenda.