World Movement of Christian Workers

World Day for Decent Work: Decent Work, a Core Commitment for Peace and Social Justice

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In a world beset by conflict, marked by deep inequalities and ecologically unsustainable, decent work represents a route to peace and social justice. In fact, as the Universal Church1 states, it is access to free, creative, participatory and inclusive work, as well as land and shelter that enables each of us to earn a dignified living. It also ensures that we are collectively able to take care of the planet and make this world a more habitable and beautiful place. Decent work enables us to walk together as a people towards a more dignified life. Access to work for all is an inalienable priority.

We have embraced His Holiness Pope Francis’ appeal to remain engaged and move forward together on the path of intergenerational dialogue, education and work.2

We condemn the exclusion of many migrant workers from employment and social rights. Workers who provide essential services often lack sufficient social recognition and decent working conditions. Working conditions, resulting in increasingly impoverished working families, do not ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met, nor are they compatible with personal and family care needs, particularly in a global context of soaring prices and rampant inflation.

“Informal” work does not promote personal, family and community development and endangers the fundamental principles underlying social cohesion, peaceful coexistence and social justice. It does not promote the implementation of collective social achievements and does not offer many people, particularly young people and women, any prospects for the future.

INFOR June 2022: Globalization

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The globalization is the highest state of internationalisation. The process of exchange among countries, which has marked the development of capitalism from the mercantile era in the XVII and XVIII centuries, was expanded with industrialization, gained new bases with the big industry at the end of XIX century, and today it is acquiring more intensity, more extent and new functionalities. The whole world is involved in all kind of technical, commercial, financial and cultural exchanges. We are living a new period of human history.

The basis of this real revolution is the technical progress, obtained as result of scientific development and based on the importance that technology is achieving, the so-called science of production.

7th October: Workers Worldwide Struggle for a Universal Basic Income

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“But let justice roll on like a river,righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

(Am 5:24)

7th October has to be an imperative framework in the fight for decent work, as proposed by the ILO - International Labour Organization. In the light of advances in technology, we affirm that work, today and in the future, can be carried out in freedom and creativity, has to correspond to the needs of people and communities, it needs to respect the environment and the natural resources and must be a factor of cohesion, integration and fair distribution of wealth.

We, the activists of the World Movement of Christian Workers (WMCW), express our concern, indignation and disquiet at the way the dominant political and economic classes lead to the social and labour crisis that devastate the workers in the world and affect to the population without distinction, but especially to the most impoverished. With high unemployment rates, increasingly precarious employment, labour rights and social protection in regression in so many countries and nonexistent in many others, we are a voice of denunciation and commitment in the fight against the devaluation of human labour and to the discard of the workers.

May 1st: Covid19 Lockdown And Its Impact On Workers

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Confinement due to Covid-19 began two years ago and in Uganda, after almost two years workers have experienced unspeakable stories of suffering and despair. Many workers have lost their jobs due to the long period of confinement and unemployment levels have risen.

Uganda was one of the countries with the longest lockdown period, from 1 April 2020 to January 2022, when the economy was fully reactivated. Informal entrepreneurs had no income during this period and had to dip into their own savings, rely on government food aid or seek help from family and friends to survive. This means that during the period of closure, most workers found themselves in a subsistence economy.

The conditions of confinement have affected almost all sectors of the labour market. The number of people employed in Uganda has declined from 9 million in 2016/17 to 8.3 million in 2019/20. This led to many wage earners losing their jobs. Other workers were forced to close their businesses.

Due to the unemployment situation in the country, even before the pandemic, Uganda used to export labour to the Middle East, especially to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This was despite reports of poor working conditions. The number of Ugandan migrants has decreased from 25,363 in 2019 to 9,026 in 2020, due to the effects of the pandemic. This explains the extent of the impact of confinement on workers in Uganda and globally.