The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on Friday accused France of “police brutality” and “indiscriminate arrests” during protests against pension reform, in an annual report that is alarmed at “record levels” of rights abuses global workers. Protests against raising the retirement age to 64 “have resulted in police brutality, indiscriminate arrests and tear gas attacks”, lists the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in the latest edition of its Global Rights Index, finalized ahead of recent urban riots sparked in France by the death of a teenager killed by a police officer on Tuesday.
France is thus one of the 69 States, among the 149 studied by the main trade union confederation on the planet, to have carried out arrests and detentions deemed “arbitrary” between April 2022 and March 2023. In a country which commits violations ” repeated “of the rights of employees, according to the ITUC, the French unions were “completely ignored” during the protest movement, regretted to AFP Luc Triangle, leader of the ITUC. But the ranking of France remains comparatively advantageous.
The UK is thus singled out for “systematic” rights violations, in a world where 87% of states violate the right to strike. Freedom of expression, assembly or association, social dialogue: violations of the main rights of global workers remain at “record levels”, alarms the Confederation, which claims 338 affiliated unions located in 168 countries and territories.
The ITUC is particularly concerned about the situation in Ecuador and Tunisia, two states that make the annual list of the “ten worst countries for workers”. Conversely, Colombia and Brazil, where the presidency switched at the beginning of 2023 from the far right embodied by Jair Bolsonaro to the left represented by Lula, leave the list.
The situation of workers in Latin America remains nonetheless catastrophic: 18 of the 19 trade unionists murdered worldwide in 2022-2023 (2 more than in 2021-2022) lost their lives there. In Colombia alone, “15 trade unionists were victims of targeted assassinations between April and October 2022”, details the ITUC to AFP. No less than 86 people have also paid with their lives for their participation in strikes or demonstrations.
