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ILO to host high-level conference on the state of labour market regulation

The Second Conference on Regulating for Decent Work will be held on 6-8 July at the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, with the theme of “Regulating for A Fair Recovery”.

Press release | 30 June 2011

GENEVA (ILO News) – The Second Conference on Regulating for Decent Work will be held on 6-8 July at the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, with the theme of “Regulating for A Fair Recovery”. Some 300 participants, including academics, economists, lawyers and representatives of governments, trade unions and employers’ organizations from around the world will examine the state of labour market regulation in the wake of the global economic crisis and how to forge a fair recovery for workers, with a special focus on wage and income inequality.

Organized by the ILO, in collaboration with the University of Manchester's Fairness at Work (FaW) Research Group and the University of Melbourne's Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law (CELRL), the Conference will look beyond the deregulation/regulation dichotomy by focusing on how to make regulation more effective for the benefit of governments, employers, workers and society as a whole.

The Conference will also examine the role of labour market regulation regarding wages, inequality and growth, as well as its potential for ensuring decent working conditions and other issues of interest to academics, researchers, policymakers, the labour and business media and others interested in international labour regulation and law, and the role of international organizations including IFIs.

More than 140 papers have been submitted to the conference, which will include four plenary discussions, a number of parallel sessions, two book launches and the award of the Regulating for Decent Work prize.

The conference – held every two years in Geneva – is organized by the Network on Regulating for Decent Work – an international and interdisciplinary network that encourages and highlights research for a more balanced perspective on labour market regulation.

The Conference will also host the launch of two new publications: Regulating for Decent Work: New Directions in Labour Market Regulation (Sangheon Lee and Deirdre McCann, eds), based on contributions to the inaugural RDW Conference, held in Geneva in July 2009, and The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy: Negotiating for Social Justice (S. Hayter, ed.) .

Journalists interested in attending or arranging interviews with participants, please contact the ILO Department of Communication and Public Information on +41 22 799 7912, communication@ilo.org.

List of keynote speakers:

  • Stale Einarsen - (University of Bergen) “Workplace bullying: the case for regulation”
  • Katherine Lippel - (University of Ottawa) “Regulatory action against bullying and harassment in the workplace in an international perspective: progress and challenges”
  • Mark Freedland - (University of Oxford) “Regulating for decent work and the legal construction of the personal work relation”
  • Adriana Marshall - (CNIC, Argentina) “Assessing labour regulation in Latin American countries: recent trends”
  • Jayati Ghosh - (University of Jawaharlal) “The potential for employment and wage led growth in developing countries”
  • Michael Reich - (University of California) “Do frictions matter in the labour market?: accessions, separations and minimum wages”
  • Changzheng Zhou - (Nanjing University) “Increasing wages without collective bargaining?: experience from China”
  • David Weil - (Boston University) “Fissured employment: impacts and implications for creating decent workplaces”