16 June 2011

We're all in this together ...

... unless of course you're a domestic servant - a cook, a nannie or a cleaner. The Guardian reports:

The government has been accused of betraying Britain's 200-year history in the fight against slavery and of isolating itself on the world stage after refusing to back an international convention protecting domestic workers from exploitation.

On the same day that the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, launched an inquiry by the Centre for Social Justice into tackling the "modern slavery" of trafficking, the coalition revealed it would abstain from voting on the International Labour Organisation's convention covering domestic workers.

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills said it would not be ratifying the convention to bind the UK by its rules "for the foreseeable future", so felt it would be wrong to vote for it at all.

The UK is thought to be the only member country of the ILO, a UN agency, set to abstain from the vote in Geneva on Thursday.

Shame.

No comments: