Decent Work. A Better World Starts Here

Do you think you have a good job? Do you think you have a decent job? The new ILO campaign “Decent Work. A Better World Starts Here” aims at helping people find answers to these questions and sensitizing the global community to the need to respond to employment crises and concerns in keeping the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.

The campaign features a set of interactive mirrors in which the viewer can see themselves next to life-sized photograph of a person in a working situation and question who has “decent work.” For example, the question is raised as to whether your job is better or worse than that of the person in the photograph.

• When making this comparison, one should ask several questions:
• What is decent work?
• What does it mean to you?
• Are you among the people with “decent” work and do you think the person in the picture is less fortunate?
• Are you among those who “aspire” to or chose to “help” get decent work?
• Is decent work a universal goal?
• After seeing these mirrors, are you relieved you are among the “lucky” ones or do you still have a long way to go, before getting a job called decent?
• What can you do about it in your country, region, community, village?
• Do you think that before getting a decent job, just a job would solve the problem?

Decent work is more than just a job. DECENT WORK is the primary goal of the ILO, the United Nations agency devoted to advancing opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Decent work links to the most important aspirations of people: a fair income, security at the workplace and social protection for themselves and their families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men. It is ultimately about having a better life, individually and collectively, through a whole lifecycle, from maternity protection to active retirement.

Give your voice to decent work and tell us what you think about your work at decentwork@ilo.org

The Decent Work campaign mirrors will be on display at the Geneva International Airport until 15 September 2009. Further locations will be announced in these pages.