Immediate action needed to protect Fijian workers’ rights

Pic: ACTU President, Ged Kearney, and the General Secretary of Fiji’s Trade Unions Congress, Felix Anthony, at ACTU Executive 14.07.11 (Image credit: Rochelle Wong)

The idyllic island paradise travellers to Fiji experience is in stark contrast to the fear and oppression the Pacific nation’s workers wake up to each morning.

In Melbourne recently, the General Secretary of Fiji’s Trade Unions Congress, Felix Anthony painted a horrific picture of the abuse that goes hand in hand with the decimation of workers’ rights by Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s military regime.

Mr Anthony, himself detained and assaulted by the military on several occasions, refuses to accept the regime’s attempts to curtail basic human and workers’ rights.

He presented the harsh and sobering truth of life in Fiji to the ACTU’s international committee on 12 July, before addressing the ACTU Executive on 14 July.

The reality for workers in Fiji is they have few rights; they go to work each day in fear and any attempts to stand up for their rights has grave physical repercussions.

The military has taken over workplaces, acting as management, and applying dictator-style rule to inflict fear-driven obedience from workers.

Union members are routinely physically assaulted and harassed. Employees are too frightened to attend union meetings due to the threat of repercussion. Intimidation rules.

In the Fiji public service, the military has all but taken over, with regime leaders holding the most senior roles.

The ACTU has been disturbed by the dismantling of workers’ rights in Fiji for some time and last month wrote to the Australian Government to raise its concerns.

At the end of Mr Anthony’s account, the ACTU Executive agreed Australia cannot sit back and watch such abhorrent abuse of its Pacific neighbours.

The ACTU Executive resolved to call on the Fiji government to:

-Withdraw immediately all military personnel from all civilian workplaces
-Amend the law to allow unrestricted trade union activities in the country and stop physical harassment of trade union officials
-Immediately revoke the Public Emergency Regulations (PER) enacted in 2006, which allows the regime to operate as an authoritarian government without democratic scrutiny and make a mockery of rule of law;
-Restore the 1997 Constitution as it represents a profound and comprehensive commitment to the principles of equality, non-discrimination, human and trade union rights;
-Reverse the planned cuts to pension annuity rates and workers’ entitlements under the FNPF and ensure proper and transparent governance arrangements for the FNPF Board; and
-Hold immediate elections so that democracy is restored in the country andto set the platform for restoration of international aid and investor confidence, and respect for human and trade union rights.