BANGKOK (ILO News) - Expressing grave concern at the deterioration in labour and social conditions in East and South-East Asia, representatives from governments, workers' and employers' organizations from 8 countries - China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam - and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, have outlined the priority steps required to address the social dimension of the unfolding financial crisis.
A set of recommendations aimed at mitigating the impact of the crisis and at laying the groundwork for a sustainable recovery was adopted this afternoon in Bangkok at the conclusion of a three day "High-level Tripartite Meeting on Social Responses to the Financial Crisis in East and South-East Asian Countries" convened by the ILO.
Coming after decades of sustained high growth, the "totally unanticipated" crisis has led to "a swift and substantial" rise in unemployment, underemployment and poverty. The Meeting acknowledged that "it is only in the context of sustained economic growth that durable solutions to social problems are to be found" and called for renewed efforts to "establish appropriate regulation of financial systems, improve corporate governance and the functioning of markets".
The Meeting emphasized that "respect for basic international labour standards provides fundamental enabling conditions for independent, strong and representative workers and employers' organizations to develop productive social partnership" and called on the countries of the region to respond to the ILO Director-General's campaign for the ratification of core international labour standards. These concern freedom of association, the abolition of forced labour and of child labour and the principles of equal pay for equal work and non-discrimination at work on the basis, among others, of race, sex or religion.
Enhanced international cooperation, especially at the regional level will greatly facilitate the restoration of growth, states the Meeting's conclusions. Similarly "increased consultations between the social partners and (international and regional) financial institutions on the design and implementation of economic adjustment programmes will strengthen social support for them and hence significantly improve the prospects for successful implementation".
The Meeting identified several priority areas for action:
- Maximizing the rate of sustainable and productive employment creation by strengthening "the capacity of governments to monitor the employment implications of overall economic policies".
- Investing in human resources development: "the continual upgrading of the educational and skill levels of the labour force", must become "a major objective of employment policies".
- Strengthening the institutional capacity for designing and carrying out active labour market policies including the redeployment of displaced workers, the development of comprehensive labour market systems and the establishment of effective public employment services "fully capable of facilitating job search and placement, of organizing retraining for displaced workers, and of implementing cost-effective employment promotion schemes".
- Providing badly needed short-term relief to the unemployed through "an expansion of direct employment creation schemes" including "employment-intensive infrastructure development" projects, the promotion of self-employment in the rural and informal sectors, and assistance to micro and small enterprises.
- Collecting more information on the impact of the crisis on vulnerable groups including migrant workers and women and developing appropriate responses to prevent any possible discrimination against them. The Meeting also called on the ILO to continue monitoring developments affecting the child labour situation in the region.
- Promoting sound enterprise development strategies, particularly for small and medium enterprises, as well as enhancing the productive job creation capacity of the rural and informal sectors. A variety of ILO action programmes can provide targeted technical assistance in this regard.
- Creating a business environment that promotes investment, including foreign direct investment, and enterprise activities. "Such an environment would include transparency in economic management, stable macro economic policy, open markets, investment in human resource development, avoidance of excessive regulation, responsive labour markets and sound industrial relations".
- Introducing, as a matter of priority, unemployment insurance schemes drawing on the practical experience and advice of the ILO.
- Ensuring "adequate protection of workers' wages and severance pay" and "strengthening the capacity of the labour inspectorate to ensure effective protection of workers' rights".
- In the long term, providing "a basic minimum pension to the large and growing number of people too old to work and without other forms of income".
- Improving "the governance of social security systems" through better "compliance, record keeping and administrative efficiency" and improved cost control.
- Broadening the base of social systems to include informal workers in urban and rural areas who currently enjoy no social protection whatsoever in a number of countries.
- Improving respect for the freedom of association principle thus ensuring "that employers and workers can enjoy their fundamental rights of association and free collective bargaining". The Meeting emphasized that priority should be given to "the reform of labour laws in order to remove obstacles to freedom of association".
- Strengthening collective bargaining and labour management cooperation at enterprise level.
- Preventing costly labour disputes "through building or strengthening workplace cooperation" and improving "the mechanisms and institutions for the prevention and settlement of disputes, including the drafting of relevant legislation".