Several countries in Southeast Asia are among the world’s worst to work in, with workers suffering from regular rights violations, according to a new labor rights index.
Several countries in Southeast Asia are among the world’s worst to work in, with workers suffering from regular rights violations, according to a new labor rights index.
The International Trade Union Confederation’s Global Rights Index assesses where workers’ rights are best protected by evaluating 97 indicators, including the ability of workers to join unions, organize strikes and access legal protections. It then ranks them on a scale of 1 (best) to 5 (worst).
Among the 139 countries surveyed, Southeast Asian countries came in at the bottom half of the index, with Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos and the Philippines scoring a 5. The trade union alliance said in its report that workers in those countries have no “guarantee of rights.”
Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, fared better with a rating of 4, an indication of “systematic violations,” with governments or companies engaged “in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers, putting fundamental rights under continuous threat.”
The U.S. also scored a 4, which the report’s authors said was an illustration that a country’s level of economic development does not necessarily indicate its respect for rights that include decent working conditions or collective bargaining.
“We are looking at real world violations of workers’ rights,” said report author Makbule Sahan. “However, there is no necessary correlation between economic development and respect for rights.”
The best performer in Southeast Asia was Singapore, with a score of 3, which implies “deficiencies in laws” or certain practices, such as restrictions on union formation and being excluded from the right to hold strikes, that make frequent violations possible.
The report found that authorities in at least 35 countries have arrested or imprisoned workers over the past year as “a tactic to resist demands for democratic rights, decent wages, safer working conditions and secure jobs.” Laws and practices in at least 87 countries were found to exclude certain workers from the right to strike, according to the report.
Within Asia, Japan came out in the lead with a score of 2. Countries with strong labor laws, such as Germany and Norway, received the top score of 1, meaning collective labor rights are “generally guaranteed.”
According to the report’s methodology, a country is given a point for every one of the 97 indicators it violates. The score is then translated into ratings, where countries with zero to eight points are rated as 1 while countries rated as 5+ have 36 points and above.
Only Denmark achieved a perfect score of 0 for respecting all 97 indicators in the index. Eight countries, including Somalia, received rating of 5+, indicating that labor rights couldn’t be guaranteed because of breakdowns in rule of law.
