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* The ILO's Governing Body elected Mr. Jorge Arrate Mac Niven, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of Chile, to serve as Chairman of its 1996-1997 session. Mr. William Brett (United Kingdom) was re-elected as worker Vice-Chairman and Mr. Jean-Jacques Oechslin (France) was re-elected as employer Vice-Chairman.
The Committee on Employment Policy endorsed full employment, insisting that "the objective of full, productive and freely chosen employment through higher, sustained economic growth should remain a major goal of economic, social and employment policies as governments, and employers' and workers' organizations adapt to a rapidly changing global market".
"Full employment remains an achievable goal despite anxieties over the possible job-destroying effects of rapid technological change and intensified international competition," the Committee agreed, adding that "it is therefore imperative to translate the potential benefits of rapid technological change and globalization into reality and distribute these benefits".
The Committee underlined the importance of creating "an economic environment which provides clear incentives to enterprises for investment and job creation". It also agreed that the attainment of full employment requires social policies and institutions which promote workers' involvement and collective bargaining. Among the elements of an enabling environment, the Committee cited "economic and financial stability and the absence of excessive price inflation and abrupt exchange rate movements". Other factors include a legal and institutional framework that guarantees human rights, including freedom of association, secure property rights and enforceability of contracts. Any definition of full employment needs to take into account structural changes in employment including new forms of flexible employment, a higher turnover of jobs and a growing trend towards shorter and flexible working time.
The Committee called for "employability security" by providing "expanded opportunities for training and retraining, continuous skill upgrading and the matching of skills with emerging labour markets".
The ILO was called upon to work with its constituents and with Bretton Woods institutions to examine:
* the impact of trade and financial liberalization on the level and quality of employment;
* appropriate forms of government support for infrastructure development and training;
* forms of support for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises;
* the design of labour market institutions and regulations which can best satisfy the twin imperatives of higher employment growth and competitiveness.
The Conference adopted a Convention and a Recommendation on home work - the first comprehensive international standards in favour of a growing but often invisible workforce. The Convention:
* obliges any ratifying member State to "adopt, implement and periodically review a national policies on home work aimed at improving the situation of homeworkers";
* calls on ratifying countries to develop national policy on homeworkers in consultation with employers' and workers' organizations and other organizations concerned with homeworkers;
* ensures that the national policy "promote[s] equality of treatment between homeworkers and other wage earners" in such areas as the right to organize, protection against discrimination, remuneration, occupational safety and health, social security and maternity protection, and training.
Delegates recognized that home work can be advantageous to employers, workers and national economies. It increases labour market flexibility, reaching out to rural areas and filling gaps in employment, while it can also offer a valid employment alternative for those who are obliged to stay at home. For some professionals, working at home may even be the preferred option.
However, home work is an activity which largely escapes administrative control. The ranks of the low-paid and frequently clandestine force of homeworkers are growing in developing and industrialized countries alike. Women account for the vast majority of homeworkers (as much as 95%) and child labour is often associated with home work. The ILO Convention also calls on governments to include homeworkers in labour statistics and labour inspection systems.
The Convention on home work is supplemented by a Recommendation, which sets out specific internationally-agreed provisions designed to serve as guidelines for national policy. The provisions in the proposed Recommendation call for equal treatment and registration of homeworkers. Collection of data on homeworkers and their employers is mainly intended to provide a basis for the national policy on home work. Finally, member States are called upon to promote and support programmes which provide direct assistance to homeworkers. A whole range of such programmes is enumerated and they cover a wide spectrum of means to improve the social and economic situation of homeworkers.
The cases of Iran, Myanmar and Nigeria specially highlighted the work of the Committee on the Application of Standards. The Committee expressed "great concern that there had been continued failure over several years to eliminate serious discrepancies in the application by Myanmar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87). The Government of Nigeria was cited in a special paragraph for non-observance of Convention No. 87, as well as Iran, where the Committee found that there were serious problems in the observance of the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111). Details of these cases are given on page 21.