|Your Health and Safety at Work: A Collection of Modules - Aids and the Workplace (ILO, 1996, 84 p.)|
All over the world the labour movement has long been in the forefront of the historic struggles to eliminate prejudice and discrimination from the workplace, to establish safe and healthy working conditions, and to provide basic health care and social insurance for all workers. The AIDS pandemic threatens each of these objectives.
HIV/AIDS is a disease that does not discriminate. It is found in every age group and race, in men and in women. Although the disease cannot be spread by casual contact, there may be prejudice and fear both at work and outside the workplace, and workers with HIV/AIDS may face discriminatory attitudes and practices from both employers and co-workers. Workers with HIV/AIDS therefore need emotional support as well as practical support from their unions.
In the vast majority of occupations and occupational settings, work does not involve a risk of becoming infected with HIV. However, HIV/AIDS is a health and safety issue for those workers who do risk exposure at work (see section IV).
For a union member with HIV/AIDS, it is important that the union try to protect the worker's access to medical benefits and right to remain at work as long as he or she is physically able. The union can make a difference in the AIDS crisis. Your local union's response to AIDS in the workplace can help bring about greater understanding or greater fear, greater safety or greater risk.
Successfully resolving workplace AIDS problems involves the same union principles and skills that you use to solve any other workplace problem. The struggle to protect members' rights when they are ill is no different from any other union struggle. It requires educating yourself and others, building determination to defend members' rights, and compassion.
Unions should become involved when discrimination or benefit problems arise. These decisions should not be left to management. A management that violates a contract and stretches the rules to penalize a worker with HIV infection or AIDS may feel free to violate the rights of other workers when handling other issues. When dealing with cases of discrimination, outside agencies can often be helpful, but they are no substitute for real, active union involvement.
Some local unions have had great success in dealing with the problems resulting from AIDS. Out of these struggles, they have sometimes built a stronger and more active union.
Points to remember about AIDS as a trade union issue
1. The AIDS pandemic threatens the fundamental objectives of the labour movement.
2. Workers with HIV/AIDS may face discriminatory attitudes and practices from both employers and co-workers and therefore need the support of the union.
3. While in most occupations work does not involve a risk of becoming infected with HIV, the disease is a health and safety issue for those workers who do risk exposure at work.
4. For any member with HIV/AIDS, a union must try to protect the access to medical benefits and the right to remain at work for as long as the worker is physically able.
5. Successfully resolving workplace AIDS problems involves the same union principles and skills that you use to solve any other workplace problem.
6. Some local unions have had great success dealing with the problems resulting from AIDS.