As part of cooperation with journalists within the project “Strengthening of Legal Aid Providers to Fight Gender-Based Discrimination in the Labor Market in BiH”, we bring you cooperation with the Interview.ba portal.
While in the countries of Western Europe employers are thinking about introducing paid menstrual sick leave, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina experience and suffer sexual harassment at work, mobbing, non-payment of overtime hours, denial of days off and use of paid vacations, termination of employment due to pregnancy or maternity leave…
Difficult experiences
These are the findings of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banjaluka, which in the past four years conducted three researches on the topic of gender-based discrimination at work in BiH.
– Working on these researches, we communicated directly with victims of gender-based discrimination. And we heard different difficult experiences of women all over BiH, from the fact that, in order to get a job, women were conditioned to sign an annex to the contract stating that they would not get pregnant, to those who voluntarily had to put on the hijab to try to stop sexual harassment at workplace. There were also cases in which women’s advancement was conditioned by sexual favors. Some of them fell ill or experienced trauma due to bullying at the workplace, which forced them to go to a psychiatrist or quit their jobs – says Željka Umičević from HCA BL.
The rule, not the exception
Mersiha Beširović, president of the Trade Union in BiH, testifies to the same.
– Discrimination is increasingly the rule, not the exception, and this is evident in the trade sector, where around 150,000 women work. According to our observations and records – it is present during employment and that as direct discrimination during the actual employment, assignment of the job. Young women discriminated as ‘less desirable workforce’ because of the possibility to start a family. And middle-aged women are assigned to places ‘far from contact with customers’ because of their age and often because of their health – says Beširović.
She emphasizes that these are not the only, but are the most common, examples of discrimination encountered in this branch.
Who is the “duty culprit”?
Beširović warns that the trade union movement in BiH is in disarray, and that an individual struggle cannot produce results, especially not in the sense of some workers’ action.
– In addition to the unions themselves, the workers are partly responsible for such a situation. Instead of using the union to have an organized force that knows the procedures and practices and can lead an organized struggle, they see the unions as the ‘duty culprit’ for everything. And that is where their need for a union ends. And that is the biggest mistake that workers today make towards themselves – says Beširović.
– In order for the union to have the legitimacy to protect the rights of workers in front of the employer and institutions, those people must formally be able to prove that they are members of the union. Although we at the Trade Union try to be available to everyone in need, regardless of whether they are members or not, or even whether they work in our sector or not, the fact of the number of members shows that not even 10 percent of workers are covered with protection of the trade union, explains Beširović.
The role of unions
She emphasizes that women, as well as men, in terms of protecting their rights in the field of work, need good connection and availability of protection mechanisms.
– It is especially important that these mechanisms are really available in the sense that they are free of charge and easy to use. This is where I see the most important role of the union because it is the union that can and must offer this to its members – says Beširović.
According to available research, women employed in the textile and wood processing industries have particularly difficult working conditions. But anything about their situation is difficult to document because they rarely talk about their problems. The reasons are simple – they are afraid of dismissal, unions do not exist in their companies because the owners do not allow union organizing, and they do not allow activists who conduct union education to enter the factories.
Umičević appreciates that in such an environment civil society organizations can do what they do – inform and educate female workers on how to recognize discrimination based on gender, what their rights are and who to report violations of.
That, she says, is the first necessary step in order to change anything at all.
Free legal aid
If the workers decide to report the employer, they have civil society organizations at their disposal that provide free legal aid and will advise or represent them.
– Considering the actual situation in companies, where mobbing, sexual harassment, various forms of discrimination based on gender are present, we still do not have a sufficient number of reports against employers who violate rights. According to the results of the research of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banjaluka from 2021 – 46% of women and 15% of men were victims of gender-based discrimination in the workplace, but even 78% of women and 69% of men who experienced this discrimination did not report it to anyone. Mistrust in institutions and fear of further victimization and loss of job are most often cited as the reason for not reporting – says Umičević.
She points out that strengthening the position of women workers and encouraging them to report gender-based discrimination is a process that civil society organizations like HCA will continue to work on, providing help and necessary information to workers who want to report their employer.
Transition and tradition
As the transition from socialism to capitalism in the countries of the Western Balkans brought new challenges in the field of work that traditional unions cannot or do not know how to deal with, new unions began to emerge, such as the Solidarity Union in BiH or the New Union and the Union of Precarious Workers SKUPA in Croatia and the like.
The New Union was founded in 2002, and in that short period of existence they organized more than 20 strikes, seven times occupied factories with workers for a period of three days to three months, and organized a large number of protests. They also note that discrimination is most prevalent in the textile and wood industries.
Mario Iveković from Zagreb’s New Union says that the most common problem is related to childbirth and motherhood. It begins, therefore, with questions about a woman’s intentions to give birth. Wherein the stated intention is considered an aggravating circumstance for establishing an employment relationship.
Humiliation and devaluing
Fixed-term employment contracts are not extended to women who have become pregnant. Often, a woman who returns to work after giving birth has her employment contract canceled or is offered less favorable workplace or working conditions because they are not allowed to do this during pregnancy and maternity leave.
– Often, the problem is a misunderstanding of the need for leave related to child care, especially sick leave for child care, although the health system still covers the costs of such leave in full or almost in full. For women with small children, any advancement is often impossible. Regardless of their ability to work, skills, knowledge, education and commitment at work. Obvious examples of discrimination are some industries where women work predominantly, but men are in better-paid positions. I also encountered several cases of sexual harassment at the workplace, most often the humiliation and devaluing of a person who refuses immoral offers – says Iveković.
Pay equalization
He notes that the lowest paid jobs are reserved for women, even in companies where they make up more than 90% of the workforce.
– In the Administration, there are mostly men, as well as in the jobs of technologists or other better-paid jobs. In one factory in the wood industry, until recently, we had a case where women were prevented from advancing or increasing their salaries, while they were constantly negotiating raises individually with men, who are in a significant minority. We ended such a situation in the last collective negotiations, where the most important demand of the New Union was the equalization of salaries in workplaces where women work with those worked by predominantly male workers. The collective agreement has made significant progress, although we are not completely satisfied yet – says Iveković.
Without risk there is no progress
He emphasizes that the union’s strongest weapon in the fight against discrimination is precisely negotiation and education of workers to recognize discrimination.
– As for the ban on organizing, it is always and everywhere a problem for workers. They can resist only by organizing. Because even though the employer defends it – organizing a union is a human right guaranteed by many international documents, but also by the laws of all countries in the region, including BiH. It is important to note that due to changes in the labor market, which is reflected in a significant lack of workers, now is the best time for union organizing ever. Unfortunately, in our region, it is still associated with a certain amount of risk, but without struggle and risk, there never was, nor will there ever be progress – explains Iveković.
Beširović believes that better or more qualitative protection of women at work requires a wider coalition and alliance with the non-governmental sector.
– We found a way to join forces. Although we believe that it can be even better. The goal of that coalition must be the interests and needs of workers, and not be part of the program or even the conditions of the grant. In this way, it will be effective and long-lasting and not ad hoc while a project is ongoing – says Beširović.
Global network
She explains that through the global networks of unions, they have been given the opportunity to join a series of global campaigns and programs that have similar goals.
– The main mechanism is global collective agreements that prescribe minimum standards in certain companies at the global level. Our problem in this sense is that there are not many multinational companies present in BiH in the trade sector. But recently, using this very mechanism, we organized the workers of the H&M company, and now we are preparing for the arrival of Lidl in BiH. And with colleagues from the Western Balkan region, we have been working for the second year on the organization of unique unions in companies that are present throughout the region. Unions must join forces, and if things do not go as they should in BiH, on the contrary, we try to increase our strength through association and work with trade unions in the region and globally – Beširović explains.
A mirror of global exploitation
New Union from Zagreb is a member of the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), a network that advocates for the improvement of the status of textile workers throughout the world.
– Although we have organized a relatively small number of textile workers in our 20 years of existence (there are about 10,000 of them in the whole of Croatia today), we decided to operate within the network. First of all, because the textile industry is the best mirror of the global exploitation of workers. Textile workers around the world are paid the lowest and work in the worst working conditions. On the other hand, textile manufacturers are among the richest people in the world. Here I am not referring to local factory workers who are only part of the chain of global exploitation of workers and often without any influence, they are only beneficiaries of a small part of the profits, but to rich brand owners. If working conditions improve and the salaries of workers in the textile industry rise, we are convinced that there will be a global improvement in salaries and working conditions in all industries – says Iveković.
He adds that it is necessary to change the relations in the global distribution of capital and keep a larger part for workers and production costs, while reducing profits at various levels.
– In the last few decades, we have witnessed a complete disruption in the distribution of capital, because the owners of capital have assumed a significant role in making political decisions, directly or through governments that they have placed in a dependent position, and by buying and blackmailing them to make political decisions that are increasingly in their interests capital, and against the interests of workers, explains Iveković.
Violations of workers’ rights
Since HCA is also a member of the CCC, Umičević explains that this is important, among other things, because I can hear from colleagues from Croatia, Serbia, the region, but also from the whole world how they are fighting for a better position of workers.
– From them we learn about new methods of influencing the authorities, but we also get the opportunity to influence the adoption of new European Union directives, such as the Corporate Responsibility Directive, which was strongly advocated by CCC activists and our partner New Union from Zagreb. That Directive will oblige companies to operate responsibly and to guarantee the right to freedom of association, health and safety at work, as well as a decent salary to millions of workers engaged in the production of clothing around the world – explains Umičević.
Non-government organizations that advocate a higher degree of respect for workers’ rights suggest that employers, especially big brands, pay a higher purchase price for products and that they take care that workers receive a decent salary, and that they monitor suppliers in BiH regarding violations of labor rights and that they take care that workers are treated with dignity.
Laws and amendments
At the same time, the institutions of the government system recommend the adoption of a new or amended labor law or the adoption of by-laws that will define minimum labor rights and thus overcome the violation of labor rights due to the absence of a collective agreement, increase the minimum salary to the level of a decent salary and intensify the work of the labor inspection.
Despite promises of change, the voluntary commitments made by some companies were not enough to significantly change the lives of textile workers. Today, workers, citizens and civil society around the world are demanding a law that would protect workers, communities and the environment around the world, and hold companies accountable for the negative consequences of their operations.
International initiative
In this context, CCC, as an international initiative dedicated to improving working conditions and empowering workers in the global clothing industry, gathers hundreds of organizations and unions around the world that are equally represented in the countries of production, i.e. countries of cheap labor to which companies most often outsource production and developed consumer countries from which companies most often originate and for whose market clothing items are mainly produced.
Such representation enables CCC to identify local problems and goals and transform them into global actions. The goals of the CCC are, among other things, that all workers, regardless of gender, age, country of origin, residence, legal status and form of employment, have the right to good and safe working conditions, to join unions and conduct collective negotiations, as well as to they earn a salary that will enable them to live a dignified life; to be aware of their rights within national and international laws and agreements; that the public is aware of the facts of where and how the clothes and shoes they buy are produced; the possibility of carrying out an action in order to support the fight for better working conditions for textile workers…
Among other things, the CCC advocates that unions and non-government organizations cooperate at the national, regional and global level in order to improve working conditions in the textile industry, with the fact that this cooperation between unions and non-government organizations is based on mutual respect for different roles and methods, open and active communication, consensus building and constructive criticism.
Full article available at: Diskriminacija doseže vrhunac
Photo taken from: Interview.ba
