CHAPTER TWO AN EXAMINATION OF THE PROVISIONS ON WORKERS' RIGHTS Since the inception of paid/wage employment, a combination of sustained struggles and appeals to the conscience of the rest of society workers, using the platform provided by their organisations(trade unions), have been able to secure for themselves a number of rights. These rights are predicated on, and complemented by, some constitutional provisions which confer certain rights on workers as citizens of their countries. In a most general sense workers and trade union rights are those legal provisions which are meant to protect workers in the course of employment and as producers of national wealth. According to Scherrer and Greven(2001:16)“workers' rights(or labor rights) refer to the core rights of freedom association, collective bargaining, and prohibition of forced labor, child labour and discrimination in employment”. Such rights are conferred on workers and their organisations taking into consideration their special role and the need to protect them from extreme abuse and exploitation in the hands of profit-conscious employers often backed by a collaborative state. These rights are embedded in Conventions and Recommendations of the ILO as well as national legislation. Since its establishment in 1919, the ILO has been the major international and inter­governmental body driving the need to ensure that workers, individually and collectively, enjoy certain minimum rights. The member countries of the ILO are expected to comply with its Conventions and Recommendations while national governments are expected to take a cue from the international instruments to enact similar domestic legislation. It is also important to stress that workers' struggles, based on the need to secure certain measures of dignity for workers, have also assisted in conceding some rights to workers. The need for these rights was also reinforced by Articles 23& 24 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Article 23 says: Everybody has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without 11