Labor Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; Internally As Tawasul is quite a small organization, freedom of association and collective bargaining do not really apply internally. Nevertheless, these issues are very important to us. Nationally In our submission to the UN Human Rights Council, we have written the following: “Oman is a signatory to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and its conventions. Though great strides have been achieved towards fulfilling those conventions and Human Rights principles and instruments, Tawasul wrote in its report that the following issues remain a challenge: 1. Labor/Trade Unions have not formed industry-wide federations, as per the law, mainly due to modest understanding among employers and employees about the use and value of industry federations, leave alone the Human Rights and Legal significance. 2. As per the Omani law, labour unions cannot organize activities nor participate in even local, regional or international without the consent of the General Federation of Trade Unions, which has not been rendering sufficient support to its main stakeholders. 3. Labour regulations do not offer any provisions to help expatriate labour communities to integrate into the community and culture.” Therefore, in its report Tawasul made the following recommendations: 1. Industry wide federations must be encouraged along with limiting the influence of the General Federation of Trade Unions. 2. More efforts need to be exerted by the government and employers to integrate expatriate labor force into the community Inspired by the popular uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-11, Omanis began staging peaceful marches and demonstrations in March-May 2011 to demand economic benefits, an end to corruption, and greater political rights. Tawasul followed the news closely and participated in public discussions. We always engage the General Federation of Oman Trade Unions in our stakeholder activities (Majlis). Also, we share experiences with international labor unions and federations with e.g. representatives of the Dutch Labor Federation (FNV) and Federal Mediation Conciliation Services (FMCS) from USA. In 2012, Tawasul aims to continue to be active in this field. Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor; Tawasul is committed to equality of employment as is shown in our Code of Ethics: “Tawasul shall not discriminate against any person for her or his color, gender, nationality or religion”. All employees are working according to the rules outlined in the Omani labor law.
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