BWI leads calls to create Labor Migration Working Group

Delegates of the Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) to the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in Morocco led trade union and civil society calls for the UN to create a Labor Migration Working Group under the UN Migration Network.

Speaking as rapporteur at one of the last plenary sessions on the final day of the GFMD Civil Society Days, Julius Cainglet, vice president of the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), a Philippine affiliate of the BWI, said that, “considering majority of migrants are actually economic migrants or migrant workers, it is of strategic importance that there is a Working Group dedicated to labour migration.”

The GFMD comes at the heels of the formal adoption of the “Global Compact on Safe, Ordery and Regular Migration,” also in Morocco. Cainglet added that “since the ILO takes the lead in global labor migration governance, it should lead this Working Group.”

The Global Compact on Migration is a non-binding international instrument composed of 23 objectives and commitments. It provides internationally accepted guidelines that trade unions can maximize to promote the core international labor standards, especially the right of migrant workers to form or join unions and bargain collectively.

The BWI delegation to the GFMD is composed of affiliates from the Philippines, India, Zimbabwe and the Regional Offices of Africa-MENA and Asia and the Pacific.