The Council of Global Unions declared this year’s Human Rights Day on 10 December as a global day of action for the international trade union movement to focus on the Philippines where, it stated, “there is a systematic campaign against labour and human rights defenders.” The CGU urged its global trade union affiliates to organize protest actions in front of Philippine embassies in their respective countries and solidarity actions for Philippine workers’ unions.

On 8 December, the CGU asserted, “President Duterte has overseen a brutal reign of terror, with countless people indiscriminately killed and detained, including many trade unionists, since beginning his ‘war on drugs’ in 2016.”

Sharan Burrow, CGU Secretary and General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation said, “This government has failed to protect its citizens, has violated basic human and unions rights, has allowed the killings of union activists to continue with impunity… There must be an immediate end to violence in the Philippines and thorough investigation into the crimes committed.”

She said the Duterte government must accept “without delay” a high-level tripartite mission of the ILO to enforce the conclusions of the 2019 ILO Committee on the Application of Standards. Among other conclusions, the ILO called on the Manila government to “take effective measures to prevent violence” against workers exercising their legitimate rights and “to immediately and effectively undertake investigations into allegations of violence… with a view to establishing the facts, determining culpability and punishing the perpetrators.”

Burrow said, “But ultimately, we want to see this regime changed. We want to see a government that stands up for democratic rights and freedoms.”

The CGU is composed of the ITUC, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD and nine global union federations, including the Education International, IndustriALL Global Union, International Federation of Journalists, International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and UNI Global Union. ITUC is the world’s largest international federation of national centers with about 207 million members spread in 163 countries.