Unions in Mauritius fight for equal pay for immigrants
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/01/unions-in-mauritius-fight-for-equal-pay-for-immigrants/
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 31
August 10, 2020
The Confederation of Workers in the Public and Private Sectors (CTSP) in
Mauritius, backed by other unions, is campaigning for the largely
immigrant workforce in the textile and garment industries to get the
national minimum wage of 9,400 Mauritian rupees per month ($237). The
unions are demanding this be a universal payment for all workers —
immigrant and native-born — who lose their jobs during the government’s
ongoing coronavirus-justified lockdown on most production.
They are also demanding workers still on the job have hygienic
facilities at their workplaces. As a result of the campaign, the CTSP’s
membership is growing.
Mauritius, an island country of 1.3 million people off East Africa in
the Indian Ocean, is home to more than 45,000 migrant workers, many
working in textile and garment. They have been hit by the wave of mass
unemployment sweeping these industries in countries from Africa to South
and East Asia.
Even before coronavirus, they faced low wages, long hours, squalid
living conditions –– sometimes residing in dormitories behind factories
— and risking deportation when they stand up to demand better pay and
conditions.
Mauritius was an uninhabited island network before it was colonized by
the Dutch in 1598, and then French colonial rulers who brought in
African slaves to toil in the growing sugar industry. In 1810, the
British Empire seized the country as a bounty of war. Under pressure
from a growing abolitionist movement at home, London abolished slavery
in 1835, replacing slaves with indentured laborers, largely from India,
over the next few decades. The country won its independence in 1968, but
English domination continued. The garment and textile industry has grown
rapidly since the 1970s.
A common practice among coyote recruitment agencies searching for
workers today, mainly from Bangladesh but also Madagascar, Nepal and
India, is to charge as much as $800 for “training” and travel to
Mauritius. This places the workers in a form of debt bondage that can
take months, even years, to pay off.
After a sustained 16-year campaign of pickets and protests by the CTSP
and other unions, the government finally passed a new labor law last
October that made concessions on the rights of workers.
The Workers’ Rights Act mandated compensation for job termination,
portable retirement benefits, restrictions on contract labor, equal pay
for equal work and paid vacations. It also introduced unemployment
benefits for up to 12 months and regularized hours of work.
However, the bosses seized upon the onset of the coronavirus epidemic
and related government-imposed shutdowns, which gave employers an
opening to pressure the government to suspend or reverse most of these
gains. And they used the threat of job loss and unemployment to threaten
and intimidate workers.
The unions have fought the bosses’ moves to gut workers’ protections,
but so far have only been able to force the government to continue the
Portable Severance Fund, which protects all workers who are laid off.
All employers have to contribute to the fund.
Prime Minister Pravin Jugnauth told the workers the rest of the law
would be suspended until 2024. “Many migrant workers haven’t received
their salaries for over three months,” Jane Ragoo, CTSP general
secretary said, vowing the union will fight to win their pay.
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