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Youth employment
ILO launches new publications aimed
at finding solutions to the youth employment challenge
GENEVA - Calling youth unemployment and underemployment "extremely serious and damaging for society as a whole", the International Labour Office (ILO) is launching two new publications designed at stimulating employers, workers and governments to find solutions to the global youth jobs challenge.
"The initiatives are aimed at a global youth employment crisis in which some 70 million young women and men worldwide are without work," ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said. "Solving this problem will require the creation of hundreds of millions of jobs - most of them for young people - over the next decade in order to avoid the "permanently damaging" consequences of unemployment that can last a lifetime."
To meet this challenge, the ILO is to launch a new guide for employers, entitled "Meeting the youth employment challenge" and a study entitled Youth unemployment and employment policy: A global perspective by Niall O'Higgins at a meeting of its Governing Body which concludes this week.
Both volumes are part of a global initiative in which ILO Director-General Juan Somavia will join UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and World Bank President James Wolfensohn in convening a high-level policy network on youth employment later this year. This joint global initiative was called for by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in his report to the Millennium Assembly, and received the support of world heads of state and governments who, as stated in the Millennium Declaration, agreed "to develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work". The network will draw on leaders in private industry, economic policy and civil society to explore imaginative approaches and launch concrete action to address the youth employment challenge.
Meeting the youth employment challenge is aimed at helping employers and their organizations initiate and expand action to promote employment for young women and men worldwide, using such means as influencing public policy to supporting youth entrepreneurship, and involving other groups such as trade unions and educational institutions.
The guide is available free of charge from the ILO InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability, and the Bureau for Employers' Activities. A similar guide is under preparation for trade unions.
Most of the 500 million new jobs the world economy must create over the next ten years will be for youth. Currently, the world faces a significant challenge involving youth who experience unemployment rates considerably higher than for the population as a whole in most countries. In addition to the estimated 70 million unemployed youth today, millions more between the ages of 15 and 24 are underemployed, especially in the developing world. Many countries sustain youth unemployment rates of 15 per cent or more.
"Meeting the youth employment challenge" shows how employers and their organizations can help establish the right long-term policy choices which would lead to economic growth and the generation of decent job opportunities for young men and women. The guide has gathered experiences and ideas from employers in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas on how to bridge the skills gap, improve the quality of education and prepare the young for work. Considerable importance is given to youth entrepreneurship. It also highlights how multinational companies such Cisco and Nokia as well as innovative small firms approach the issue, and why they believe it is in their business interest to take initiatives on training and form partnerships with educational institutions.
"Youth unemployment and employment policy: A global perspective", analyses the youth employment crisis and examines various policy responses. It emphasizes the role of adequate labour market information, argues for more demand-oriented policies based on social partnership, stresses the need for focusing efforts on the most disadvantaged young people, and calls for careful programme monitoring and evaluation. The publication is available from the ILO Publications Department.
The study concludes that youth unemployment has reached high levels across a wide range of countries and, almost everywhere, rates of unemployed young people are significantly higher than adult unemployment rates. It also notes that the consequences of youth unemployment, such as social exclusion, which can lead to drug abuse, crime and social unrest, are "extremely serious and damaging for society as a whole".
"The time a young person spends unemployed, particularly if periods are prolonged, can have permanently damaging consequences on the rest of that person's 'working' life," the study says. "Even though long-term unemployment does not necessarily lead young people to behave unsocially, behavioural patterns established early on in life, together with the lack of training and employment experience, are likely to affect the employment and earnings potential of young people for the rest of their lives."
Another publication on organizing young workers into trade unions is expected to come out ahead of the July meeting of the high-level policy network. The document, prepared by the Bureau for Workers' Activities, will look into trade union strategies and best practices to encourage young workers to join unions in four selected countries: the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Norway.
For more information about the youth employment initiative or to obtain copies of the new publications, please contact the ILO at "youth@ilo.org".
Bosnia
Forming the first "mixed" union since the war
The setting up of a trade union with a few thousand members in a small town is not unusual. But this is no usual situation. The formation of a new trade union in the town of Brcko earlier this year - the first such union in the territory - is drawing attention
BRCK - This river port town was the scene of ethnic cleansing in 1992, and for some time has come to symbolize the atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. Split between the territories of two Bosnian entities - the Croat-Muslim Federation and the Republika Srpska (RS), Brcko, which was proclaimed a "District" last year, has been under the authority of the Federal State since March 2000 and has a multi-ethnic administration of its own.
Now, Brcko's trade unions have just contributed to this multi-ethnicity by forming Bosnia's first "mixed" trade union organization since the war.
"This decision has great significance for the whole trade union movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina," says Juergen Buxbaum, representative of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Sarajevo. "It shows that the rifts created by the war can be crossed and that multi-ethnic cooperation is possible."
More important still, the event is significant because Brcko's initiative could well be taken up by others.
Until the proclamation of the "District", Brcko's trade union belonged to the Federation of Trade Unions of Republika Srpska (a Serbian entity), which, no longer having legal status in the "District", had initially envisaged setting up a new organization meant exclusively for Brcko's Serbian workers. This project was dropped following a meeting between the Federation of Trade Unions of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnian Trade Unions organized under the auspices of ICFTU. The two organizations agreed jointly to promote the establishment of a trade union representing all of Brcko's workers, whatever their ethnic origin (before the war, Brcko's population had included 47% Muslims, 22% Croats and 20% Serbs).
Accordingly, the new trade union went ahead to elect a leadership representing the different ethnic groupings. This first hurdle overcome, the task facing the new trade union in the future remains formidable: while the 10,532 persons in work at Brcko often have to wait for weeks before receiving their wages (400 DM in the best case), more than 13,000 inhabitants are still in search of jobs.
Observers hope this initiative will encourage more rapprochement between ethnic groups. By facilitating contacts within its constituency in the region, the ILO Bureau of Workers' Activities (ACTRAV) believes it can also contribute towards the strengthening of peace. In April, a meeting attended by workers' and employer's organizations as well as by government representatives from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Yugoslavia was held in Sarajevo at the initiative of the ILO. Social dialogue, too, is one of the essential preconditions for peace.
- Luc Demaret, ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities
Workers' Memorial Day
A commemoration day for dead and injured workers was held at ILO headquarters on 27 April. A new symbol for safety at work, a yellow and black ribbon, was launched. Director-General Juan Somavia, together with Mr. Manuel Simón Velasco, Director, ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities, Mr. Philippe Petit, Ambassador of France, Mr. Jean-François Retournard, Director, ILO Bureau for Employers Activities, Mr. Dan Cunniah, Secretary, ILO Workers' Group, Ms. Adwoa Sakyi, General Agricultural Workers' Union (Ghana), Ms. Fiona Murie, Director, Health, Safety and Environment, International Federation of Building and Wood Workers (IFBWW), and Mr. Jukka Takala, Director, ILO InFocus Programme on Safe Work, lighted a candle that stayed lit for the entire ceremony in memory of workers who die, are injured or fall ill due to unsustainable forms of production.
After lighting the symbolic candle Mr. Somavia added: "You can count on my support to have this Commemoration Day, the 28th of April, proclaimed as a UN International Day for Dead and Injured Workers.This will enable the international community to join trade unions all over the world in paying tribute to the memory of those workers who lost their lives, were injured or fell ill while working to create wealth".
This event focused on two hazardous sectors: agriculture, which counts 170,000 fatalities each year due to the use of pesticides and dangerous machinery, and construction, where more than 100.000 lives are lost mostly because of frequent contact with asbestos. It also commemorated UNHCR staff who died in East Timor last year, as well as other United Nations staff, including UN peacekeepers who have died or been injured while in service.
"Work has become more dangerous than a decade ago, in view of a number of factors such as the lack of prevention, deficient equipment, dangerous production practices, and sometimes a lack of political will on behalf of governments, in addition to poor compliance by employers who are to blame for negligence," said Manuel Simón Velasco.
Historical labour accord
ILO hails signing of historical labour
accord between Spanish-based telecom giant
and Union Network International
GENEVA - Director-General Juan Somavia has hailed an agreement on a Code of Conduct signed by the Spanish-based telecommunications giant Telefónica and the global Union Network International (UNI) as a historical milestone in industrial relations.
"We are making history here today," Mr. Somavia said after meeting with Telefónica President Cesar Alierta and UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings to mark the signing of the accord. "We are entering a different world where there are fundamental changes, and one of the challenges for the ILO is to accomplish this transformation while maintaining our fundamental values. This is a landmark agreement for the ILO."
Added Mr. Alierta, "With this agreement, we are anticipating the twenty-first century. This is a common effort to continue an ongoing dialogue between trade unions and enterprises because this is the only way to create progress and development. We in Telefónica believe that, and have always supported the work of the trade unions."
The new Code of Conduct covers labour rights for some 120,000 workers employed around the globe by Telefónica, and represented by 18 labour unions affiliated with UNI which was founded in January 2000, and groups together over 15.5 million skills and services members of some 800 trade unions worldwide.
Union officials said the Telefónica agreement was the first of a series of planned global accords with multinational corporations which are based on ILO Conventions and Recommendations.
This new agreement between Telefónica and UNI spells out the adherence of both sides to ILO core labour standards covering freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, discrimination, forced labour and child labour. It is also based on other ILO Conventions and Recommendations concerning, among other issues, minimum wages, hours of work, occupational safety and health, freely chosen employment, and discrimination - a total of some 20 ILO Conventions and Recommendations in all.
Beyond the "glass ceiling"
Women in the world of work:
Progress, but slowly
Since its genesis in the 1970s, the term "glass ceiling" has come to symbolize the invisible barriers blocking women from rising to the top of the corporate heap. Whether at work or in politics, this artificial barrier - a transparent but stifling cap fashioned from attitudinal and organizational prejudices - remains in effect despite decades of social development and advancements in gender equality. While women are gradually increasing their share of managerial work and positions, one thing remains clear: the rate of change has been slow and the pace of progress uneven.
A new ILO study, published in May, provides an overview of the factors affecting women's participation in management and decision-making."Breaking the Glass Ceiling: women in management" *
, by Linda Wirth of the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality, uses the most recent available data disaggregated by sex to examine the progress of women into management jobs and the obstacles they face to break through the "glass ceiling" to reach top positions."Women are still concentrated in the most precarious forms of work throughout the world and breaking through the 'glass ceiling' still appears elusive for all but a select few," says the report. "Women hold a mere 1 to 3 per cent of top executive jobs in the largest corporations around the world."
• Countries with a female head of state: 8
• Countries with a female deputy head of state: 21
• Percentage of women parliamentarians worldwide: 13
• Percentage of women trade union members: 40
• Percentage of trade unions heads who are women: 1
Topics covered include:
• Current gender inequalities confronting women in the labour market and in political and social life.
• Progress made by women in professional and managerial jobs, with recent statistics on women at the top in the public service, in finance and banking, and in politics.
• Male and female participation in education and training, and strategies to help women qualify for careers in management.
• Obstacles in the workplace which hinder women's career development, how and why men's and women's career paths differ, and strategies to overcome barriers to women at higher organizational levels.
• Policies, programmes and initiatives taken at the national level to promote women in management.
• International action, in particular on the part of the ILO, which has been taken to promote equal employment opportunities.
The findings of "Breaking through the glass ceiling" provided the basis for an International Women's Day roundtable discussion held at ILO headquarters and around the world on 8 March.
"We cannot afford to lose out on women's talent," said Mr. Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO, in an address to a panel of international dignitaries on the occasion. "Improving gender equality in the workplace is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do."
Other panelists who addressed the audience included Ms. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization; Ms. Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Ms. Germaine Greer, author and academic; Mr. Walter Fust, Director-General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; Ms. Mamounata Cissé, Assistant Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions; Ms. Angeline Low, Director of a private investment company and Ms. Christine Ockrent, a well-known journalist and broadcaster.
* Breaking through the glass ceiling: Women in management, by Linda Wirth. ISBN 92-2-110845-7. Price 25 Swiss francs.
Roundup:
Women's Day worldwide
BREAKING THE GLASS CEILING IN AFRICA
Africa provides a unique context for testing why the glass ceiling is still in place. There is a complex sociocultural environment in which both traditional and modern European features coexist. The ILO Regional Office for Africa in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, organized a panel whose members had either approached or managed to break the glass ceiling within their realm of work, in trade unions, employers' organizations and governments. Panelists and participants stressed the need to develop the political will to promote women and to try to fill the established quota of at least 30 per cent.
For further information, please contact the ILO Regional Office for Africa in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, phone: +225/2021-2639; fax: +225/2021-2880; e-mail: abidjan@ilo.org
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY IN ITALY
The ILO Branch Office in Rome organized a panel discussion on Women in Management in collaboration with Fondazione Bellisario, a well-known network of women in management in Italy and Forum per la tecnologia dell'informazione, a research Institute owned by major information and communications technology companies. In spite of the competition with many initiatives in Italy on the same issue, the ILO meeting was the most successful in terms of participation and media coverage.
For further information, please contact the ILO Branch Office in Rome, phone: +396/678-4334; fax: +396/679-2179; e-mail: rome@ilo.org
THAILAND: WHICH GLASS CEILING?
As hundreds of Thai women marched resolutely to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare demanding more rights and recognition for female workers, participants in a discussion at the ILO Regional office in Bangkok debated whether the notion of a "glass ceiling"was relevant in Thailand today. Ms. Sanitsuda Ekachai, Assistant Editor at the Bangkok Post, maintained that the "glass ceiling"only affects a select few women in her country, adding "poor women who make up the majority of Thailand's female population…when they talk about women's rights they are not discussing how they can reach an executive position, but how they can have their own way of life and the right to choose that way of life." She reasoned that the debate should be broadened to address the negative impact of globalization on these women's lives through the destruction of their local environment and communities, and the growing divide between rich and poor.
The discussion highlighted many of the obstacles still facing Thai women. However, the panelists agreed that women's contribution to the labour force is increasingly being recongnized at the government level. Said one participant, "We have to give women more opportunities."
PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA
International Women's Day was also accompanied by a number of ILO initiatives in Latin America. ILO gender focal point for Latin America, Juan Manuel Sepúlveda prepared a report on the promotion of gender equality through trade unions in the Andean countries. The Inter-American Research and Documentation Centre on Vocational Training (CINTERFOR) in Montevideo updated its special Web site on "Women, Training and Employment".
NEW GENDER PERSPECTIVE IN RUSSIA
What is the situation facing women trying to break through the glass ceiling in the "new" Russia? A seminar involving representatives of the ILO, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development of the Russian Federation, and the Embassy of Australia met in Moscow on 31 May to discuss the new gender perspective in Russia. The seminar discussed gender-specific problems of promoting women to the highest positions in the power strucuture, and obstacles, problems and perspectives relevant to women in management and business.
For further information, please contact the ILO Moscow Office Tel: +7095/933-0810; fax: +7095/933-0820; http://www.ilo.ru