THE Vienna Conference AIDS 2010 theme, Rights Here, Right Now, emphasises the critical connection between human rights and HIV. A rights-based approach to HIV/AIDS action at the workplace is the core of the trade union strategy. Stigma and discrimination are major barriers to HIV prevention and treatment scale up. They also contribute to misguided polices and misallocated resources. The private health insurance anti-discriminatory policies and procedures that are currently in place within organisations need to change, we recognise that the trade unions have played a leading role in advocating for government to play their part in ensuring that treatment is available to all.
The trade union movement celebrates the adoption of the first international standard to focus explicitly on HIV/AIDS and the world of work adopted by the International Labour Conference on 17.06.2010. During the process of its adoption the workers stayed united, focused and committed. All members, representing trade unions from all over the world, got involved in tireless negotiations and building partnerships with the Governments and Employers. The Recommendation is a guidance instrument which does not require ratification for being used at country level. That is why the trade union movement feels that ours can start immediately. Trade unions intend to focus on developing strong partnerships on national, regional and international level to secure the widest and most effective implementation of the new Recommendation. Our goal is to demand the establishment of the national workplace policies on HIV/AIDS that fully respect the standards set-up in the instrument.
As the following step, we intend to demand development of national strategies on implementation of these policies. HIV/AIDS pandemic has the face of a worker since over 90% of people living with HIV/AIDS are of working age. Workplace needs to be a key focus for interventions because it brings together those in the peak reproductive years, it suffers from diverse and specific vulnerabilities – including stigma and discrimination, and it offers structures and mechanisms for effective responses. Trade unions have a role as gatekeepers to the world of work, the partners of employers as well as defenders of workers’ rights and promoters of their wellbeing. We now have an instrument that should be a source of pride for the ILO its constituents as it finally gained an unprecedented support from all the partners. We have no time to waste however. The engagement of those that have given birth to it – the governments, employers, workers, as well as all stakeholders – will be crucial to the development and implementation of national workplace policies anchored in human rights and directed at overcoming discrimination.
We remain united in the global response!