KUWAIT: The President of the International Federation of Asian and African Trade Unions Saud Al-Hujailan called on the countries of the Asian and African continents as a whole to support the economy in all its sectors affected by the consequences of the novel coronavirus, whose victims are mainly workers, indicating that any failure to support any of the affected economic sectors will be negatively reflected on the entire country due to demobilization, as unemployment has serious consequences for the society.

He stated in a statement that the economy is an integrated bloc, and any governmental failure to support workers in the private sectors will cause an unforeseeable humanitarian catastrophe, and our role at the International Federation of Asian and African Trade Unions seeks to protect the interests of workers and defend them.

Therefore, the affected private sectors must be supported, and governments must protect the rights of workers from layoffs and achieve job security to protect them. Therefore, developed countries are developing contingency plans to preserve the strength of their economy starting from protecting the rights of their workers in light of the possible wave of collapses.  Hujailan stressed that major countries sensed this matter, as America approved a two trillion dollar economic aid package for all companies affected by the repercussions of coronavirus, which forced them to stop work and production to enable them to retain their employees and avoid devastating losses, in addition to the approval of the German cabinet for aid to save jobs and companies with ongoing studies of labor retention procedures for part-time work.  He pointed out that the economic reality revealed the bankruptcy of the major companies that were able to stand on their feet again because of government support for them and not abandoning them, pointing out that closing any company, institution, factory or sector means unemployment of thousands and spread of chaos and the search for bad sources of income may turn societies into a time bomb.  Hujailan called on the Kuwaiti government to follow the experiences of the previous countries to preserve the rights of workers during this crisis and provide urgent support to prevent the collapse of any economic sector in the country, and recover the affected economic sectors and maintain employment that we will not be able to compensate in the event of their loss and demobilization, indicating that Kuwait was able to attract the most qualified workers from countries and their loss means losing an important part of the Kuwaiti body.

He concluded that we at the International Federation of Asian and African Trade Unions support employees in various fields and strive to give them their full and undiminished rights, explaining that abandoning employees at this time is economic suicide and continuous paralysis that carries great dangers in the long run and very bad results on the international economic body.