The conference aimed at bringing the significance of decent work in the context of creating new areas of employment in the word of cooperatives, rights in working life, social protection and social dialogue into the spotlight.

“When we talk of decent work at the ILO, we mean rights at work, employment opportunities (not only more jobs, but also jobs with better terms and conditions), enhancing social protection and strengthening social dialogue on work-related issues,” said Numan Özcan, Director of the ILO Office for Turkey. “As the ILO, we look forward to working in advancing together on how cooperatives can and do contribute to more and better as well as decent jobs,” Özcan said, pointing out that cooperatives comprise a strong pillar of social economy.

“We believe, with their strong potential in creation of decent jobs particularly for women, cooperatives can be an important player in the world of work,” Özcan noted, also calling on the cooperative movement to look into the possibility of utilising cooperatives for generating income for the Syrian refugees.

In his keynote address, Jürgen Schwettman, former Director of the ILO’s Department of Partnerships and Field Support, said cooperatives should be able to demonstrate that ‘decent work for all’ was possible even in a post growth context as long as the cooperatives became the integral part of the changing world of work. “The true power of cooperatives does not stem from their size or economic might; the true power of cooperatives comes from their distinct nature, characteristics, values, principles and governance structure,” noted Schwettman.

Pointing to the significance of organization of such a conference, Simel Esim, Head of the ILO’s Cooperatives Unit, said “This conference comes at a time when the world of work issues are high on the 2030 sustainable development agenda and cooperatives have been identified as means of implementation for the goals."

“This is a time of need for social and organizational innovations beyond technological ones in enterprises. And taking stock of the research on how the cooperative model behaves in comparison to the conventional firms on these aspects is essential," concluded Sonja Novkovic, Chair of the International Cooperative Alliance Conference’s (ICA) Cooperative Committee on Research.

The ILO historically has viewed cooperatives as an important element in the advancement of labor practices since cooperatives view all members as having equal rights; gender equality and all workers are trained as well as fully participating in the financial remuneration of the cooperative.

The ILO conference, which runs on Nov 8-10, 2015 in Antalya Turkey, will be followed by the biennial International Cooperative Alliance Conference (ICA) providing nearly a week’s worth of debate and discussion on the future of work, the role of cooperatives on the global stage and other relevant topics.