(The Associated Press circulated the following article on October 18.)
BRUSSELS, Belgium — Attacks on unions have increased over the past year as millions of workers continue to be denied their rights and face repression, a labor group said Tuesday.
A total of 145 people worldwide were killed because of their union activities in 2004, 16 more than in the previous year, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions’ survey of worldwide working conditions.
Those figures reveal ”just how far many governments and employers are prepared to go in suppressing workers’ rights to seek a competitive edge in increasingly cutthroat global markets,” said Guy Rider, general secretary of ICFTU, a group representing 234 labor organizations globally.
Labor unionists around the world also suffered more than 700 violent attacks and received nearly 500 death threats, according to the survey.
The report examined working conditions in 136 countries on five continents and was compiled using questionnaires sent to the ICFTU’s member organizations.
While the majority of serious violations took place in Asia and South and Central America — Colombia topped the list with 99 trade unionists murdered — the United States stood out among industrialized nations as being tough on unions.
American employers often hire special union-busting companies to discourage workers from organizing, require workers to attend anti-union meetings and threaten to shut down plants when the work force opts to join unions, the report said.
Esmeralda Aguilar, spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO, which represents 53 American unions, said the National Labor Relations Board under President Bush’s administration has rolled back critical workers’ rights protections, like one that allowed graduate student workers to organize.
The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has ”turned union busting into an art form,” according to the report, by interfering with union elections, questioning union support and offering workers incentives to vote against organizing.
Wal-Mart representatives declined to comment, saying they had not yet seen the report.
The survey said trade unionists in South and Central America experienced the highest number of murders and death threats, the report said, and Asia has the most workers behind bars.