ITF translations available: English, Deutsch

Google free translation: Italiano, Norske, Português, Türk, 中国的, 한국의, Bahasa Melayu, ภาษาไทย, हिंदी, اردو, தமிழ், Kiswahili, Español, Français, Svenska, Русский, العربية

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has hit transport workers particularly hard, leaving trade unions with an urgent fight on their hands. Kay Parris reports

Long periods spent far from any kind of work base, and in many cases, far from home. Hours to kill between shifts, or at border check points, or in port, when there might be no accessible place to go for rest, relaxation, or medical attention.

Routine experiences like these help to explain why transport workers are especially vulnerable to HIV. One survey at a truck stop in South Africa, where over 10 per cent of the population are living with HIV/AIDS, showed 75 per cent of the drivers tested were HIV positive.

When you look at the scale of the problem worldwide - 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS, 26 million of them workers - it becomes clear that this should be an issue of paramount concern to the transport industry in the worst affected regions. Africa has by far the largest number of cases at 29.4 million, but Asia has a serious problem, with 7.2 million cases, and in the Caribbean the adult prevalence rate has reached 2.4 per cent, second only to Africa.

For transport workers, HIV/AIDS is an industrial problem. The same basic issues that transport unions have been campaigning on for decades - long hours, cases of discrimination, unfair dismissals, lack of rest facilities, lack of investment in health and safety - are now exacerbating the scale of HIV infections, economic hardship, suffering and death.

Travelling AIDS counsellors in Uganda In Uganda the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU) and the Uganda Railway Workers Union (URWU) are implementing a UNAIDS-sponsored project to take accessible information to transport workers all over the country. more >>

A workplace issue

The ITF has been campaigning for 10 years for recognition of HIV/AIDS as a workplace issue. It is working to support transport unions in their efforts to bring HIV/AIDS into the collective bargaining process. Many unions, for example in Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia have already been successful in securing support from their employers for specific peer education and counselling initiatives. Others, for example in Zimbabwean and South African railways, have also gained funding for the care and treatment of employees who are living with HIV and AIDS.

Where these kinds of initiatives have been framed into workplace policies they gain formal recognition by the employer, and may expand to spell out important principles, for example against compulsory testing or discrimination. Few employers to date have been willing to incorporate such policies into legally binding collective bargaining agreements, but the sheer scale of the crisis must soon begin to win the argument.

The Dockworkers Union of Kenya secured HIV/AIDS related provisions in its collective bargaining agreement in 2002, following an ITF planning workshop sponsored by Dutch confederation FNV. This agreement bans discrimination against workers living with HIV/AIDS, and outlaws screening for employment purposes. It provides for HIV/AIDS training of all shop stewards, and 90 minutes awareness training per week at each workplace.

As the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to grow and spread, more employers may be forced to take on their share of a permanent and far-reaching approach to fighting the disease.

Even the most cynical business view shows what is at stake for employers. In parts of Africa, affiliates report that more than 10 members per month die of AIDS-related illnesses. Thousands take extended sick leave, or get dismissed or laid off as unfit for work. Employers have invested huge amounts in a relatively highly trained and experienced workforce. Now they are digging deep to cover the costs of lost skills and productivity while foreign investors look elsewhere.

A permanent programme of prevention, medical care and treatment would reduce infections, secure many years more productivity from workers living with HIV/AIDS and work out cheaper for employers' groups than replacing sick staff. The Dockworkers' Union of Kenya reports that a few years back it was losing four members per week to HIV/AIDS. Since the introduction of HIV/AIDS provisions in its collective bargaining agreement, it claims, this figure has dropped to one person per month.

Trade unions need to seize the initiative, campaign for minimum standards of health education, training, care and treatment, and share the responsibility for implementing any agreement.

ILO Code of Practice The starting point for bargaining on HIV/AIDS. more >>

Facing Facts

Up to 88 per cent of HIV/AIDS transmission derives from heterosexual intercourse, according to the World Health Organisation. While little statistical information is available, it is known among trade unions in Africa that large proportions of mobile transport workers employ the services of commercial sex workers. Many fail to protect themselves, or the sex workers, or their families back home, by using condoms.

According to the ILO, around 10 per cent of African workers do not believe that HIV/AIDS exists, while up to a third believe it can be cured. The truth is that HIV/AIDS is currently incurable, yet workers who contract the HIV virus can go on living and working productively for up to 15 years, given enough education and resources to ensure a healthy lifestyle. If patients are offered antiretroviral treatment when it becomes necessary, the prognosis may be far better still.

The right to treatment In 2001, Vuyani Jacobs, 32, contracted severe TB and an extreme form of bacterial meningitis. more >>

Winning agreement

Many transport unions in Africa have been focusing on realities like these, exploring their options and taking them to the bargaining table at work. In South Africa ITF affiliate Satawu called a national road workers strike in 1997 after two years of negotiations failed to elicit any commitment from the Road Freight Employers Association to help tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic. After just one day of industrial action an agreement was reached to launch a major education, counselling and care project, "Trucking against AIDS", to be funded jointly by the trade union and the RFEA.

Trucking against AIDS Trucking against AIDS emerged from an agreement between ITF affiliate Satawu and the Road Freight Employers' Association (RFEA) in 1997. more >>

In Uganda the main transport unions ATGWU and URWU are implementing a UNAIDS-sponsored project which focuses on peer education, counselling and voluntary testing. The unions have gained support from employers to train counsellors and actors (including transport workers and commercial sex workers) who travel around the country giving talks, staging dramas and offering counselling.

The ITF believes that the best way for trade unions to secure and build upon these kinds of initiatives is to work towards the formulation of workplace policies agreed with the employer and ultimately, where possible, towards their inclusion in binding collective bargaining agreements. It contributed to the formulation by the International Labour Organisation of a code of practice on HIV/AIDS, which provides guidelines to employers and trade unions who want to establish policies in the workplace.

The code is based on 10 essential principles, including commitments to prevention, care and support, and the banning of compulsory screening, discrimination and dismissal for positive HIV status. Governments and major employers are encouraged to sign up to the whole code, but even the smallest enterprise can be urged to agree to individual principles or guidelines.

ITF affiliates in Africa pooled their experiences of best practices at a seminar in Cape Town in March this year. The seminar formed the basis for new education materials specifically developed for transport workers in the region, and for a new commitment to regional networking and cooperation among affiliates. At the ITF, plans are underway to build on the African experience and develop long term projects in South Asia and the Caribbean. Other global union federations and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions have also increased their HIV/AIDS programmes and are committed to close cooperation in the future.

The experience of HIV/AIDS varies enormously in every country, but transport trade unions have in common a unique position of understanding and access to the most vulnerable workers. At the same time, the workplace is, in many countries, a primary source of health information and basic medical care.

Workplace policies and collective agreements have proven to be extremely useful where they have been agreed, and these will continue to be at the centre of the ITF's activities. However, unions continue to report great difficulties with their bargaining efforts. Negotiating teams have requested training and reference to clear written guidelines with sample policies. Many are struggling to develop strategies that take into account national legislation, and country and industry-specific difficulties.

Trade unions must cooperate more fully to devise joint strategies for negotiating with multinational enterprises. At the same time they need to share their experiences of dealing with small local employers - a particularly difficult area where progress has been extremely limited. Most ITF affiliates acknowledge it cannot be too difficult to agree with employers on education and awareness programmes, or even non-discrimination clauses. Indeed, many have had successes.

Extended health care, and particularly the provision of antiretroviral treatment, are harder to negotiate. However there is a compelling case for all unions to make these demands now, to convince employers that tackling this crisis is in their interest too, and that the different stakeholders must jointly look for the necessary resources.

Too many productive transport workers have been consigned unfairly and unnecessarily to unemployment and premature death. Trade unions and employers must work together in facing up to their responsibilities.

Drop-in centres in Bangladesh In Bangladesh the international NGO Care is working with road transport and port workers associations on two HIV/AIDS prevention programmes based around drop-in centres, which are located at truck stops and in the ports. more >>