Fred van Leeuwen called on the ILO to reassert its vital role in defending workers’ rights.
Deploring the breakdown of social dialogue generally and the employers' boycott of the ILO supervisory mechanisms at the ILO Conference, he condemned attempts to decouple labour and social rights from human rights as a response to the economic crisis in many countries. Van Leeuwen stated that teachers’ human and trade union rights were being widely ignored while their employment terms and conditions were being attacked and disregarded.” The education sector is suffering from de-professionalization, which is undermining the status of teachers and directly affecting education quality,” he stated.
Invoking the name of workers, such as the detained leader of the Bahrain Teacher Association, Mahdi Abu Dheeb, who expected the ILO to intervene to improve the deplorable circumstances under which they are living or being detained, Van Leeuwen stated that this year's unfortunate developments should not mislead the ILO from its core mandate and responsibility for defending workers’ rights.
Van Leeuwen concluded his EI intervention to the General Assembly of the ILO conference by transmitting EI’s full support to the upcoming ILO Director General, who was a former General Secretary of the ITUC: "We expect Guy Ryder to maintain the strong tradition of the ILO in defending workers’ human and trade union rights and EI will continue to assist the ILO by supplying the evidence required for its investigations."
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