UN, trade groups to lobby for transport worker health and travel rights

’Ongoing immense pressures and difficulties’ facing the world’s transport workers are the impetus for a newly formed joint action committee composed of transport lobby groups and UN special organisations.

WHO and ILO announced the formation of the group after WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and ILO director-general Guy Ryder met with International Air Transport Association director Willie Walsh, ICS secretary general Guy Platten, International Road Transport Union secretary general Umberto de Pretto and International Transport Workers’ Federation general secretary Stephen Cotton.

The groups pointed to new travel bans and a recent retightening of travel restrictions in response to the Omicron coronavirus variant identified in South Africa in late 2021 that is rapidly spreading internationally.

"The most recent travel bans and border closures implemented after the emergence of the Omicron variant are worsening this crisis," a statement from the group said.

"Some of the travel restrictions that have been put in place across countries as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic continue to undermine the health and safety of transport workers and pose a threat to the continuous functioning of the world’s supply chains."