In the 150 years that the trade union movement has been fighting slavery, from Lancashire mill workers refusing to touch raw cotton picked by US slaves to the global campaign to end the kafala system of modern slavery in the Gulf States, companies and governments have done their best to deny or hide it. Case by case, workplace by workplace, workers and their unions have been exposing the scandals of modern slavery.
The outcome of the 2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery is not just a new methodology to count a global injustice: it is the recognition of systemic failure in the global economy for working people.
With increasing informality, insecure or precarious work and the complexity of global supply chains with 94 per cent of workers a hidden workforce due the absence of the rule of labour law, the rising number of workers enslaved in the global economy is like the canary in a coal mine – an alarm bell for both the disintegration of the rule of law and rising inequality.
The estimate that some 89 million people experienced periods of or total enslavement in the last five years gives the clearest picture of the experience of slavery for workers.
We understand the challenges of measuring the hidden faces of slavery, and while the new methodology gives the first global estimate for modern slavery, it acknowledges but doesn't count state-imposed regulatory frameworks that induce modern slavery. Where workers are not free to change employers or leave the country without the permission of their employer, workers are de facto in forced labour.
If applied, this methodology would add 17 million workers in forced labour for the Arab States alone. And in Brazil a new law in 2017 allows thousands of agricultural workers to be employed for just food and accommodation – a new law that creates modern workplace slavery.
We need to change the laws that perpetuate modern slavery. The universal ratification of the ILO Forced Labour Protocol, which updated the international regulatory framework making it fit for purpose, would give us the global minimum standard we need to tackle contemporary forms of slavery.
A binding treaty and mandatory human rights due diligence would clean up slavery in global supply chains. Workers demand it and consumers demand it. Ninety percent of people in the ITUC Global Poll want their government to stand up against modern slavery and discrimination.
And workplace rights which allow people freedom of association, minimum living wages and collective bargaining and social protection – this is a simple recipe for all workers, including migrants, refugees, informal, domestic or temporary workers.
We know an organised workforce cannot be enslaved, but when governments fail their citizens and allow corporations to escape the rule of law, slavery can flourish. When governments suppress data, slavery can flourish. And where countries impose forced labour themselves and other nations turn a blind eye, culpability is shared. North Korea is a case in point, finally recognised by the UN last week.
The ITUC Global Rights Index documents attacks on trade union rights throughout the world. Following the global trend of shrinking democratic space, workers are facing increasing obstacles in law and practice to exercise their right to freedom of association and bargain collectively, 60 per cent of countries exclude workers form the right to establish or join a trade union and 82 per cent of countries have violated the right to collective bargaining.
The inclusion of forced marriage in the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery brings attention to this practice, but like child labour, its elimination is in the hands of governments, and law and compliance will go a long way.
Laws like the regulation of domestic work with an international convention and labour laws now in many countries are a huge victory for the labour movement, and allies and have brought millions out of the shadows of the economy and have brought them the protection they deserve.
Countries are united to deliver the global goals and eradicate forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour in line with the Sustainable Development Goals deadlines.
We are determined to eliminate modern slavery, and governments can legislate to end slavery today. 2030 is just too long to wait for freedom.