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Civil aviation:
Seeking way out of airline crisis
In response to the woes facing the civil aviation sector, an ILO tripartite meeting brought representatives of unions, employers and governments together in January. Following three days of intense discussions, some 200 representatives of the aviation industry called for measures to bring the industry back to stability, restore revenues and profits, and continue investments in infrastructure improvement. The critical element: restoration of consumer confidence.
GENEVA - The meeting noted that even before September 11, several airlines had already announced redundancies or had plans in place to manage the envisaged downturn in the industry. However, the employment effects of the cyclical downturn, combined with the attacks, resulted in the loss of approximately 400,000 jobs worldwide, and are now affecting all segments of the air transportation industry - airlines, airports, air navigation services, equipment manufacturers, catering companies, parking and car rental facilities.
In addition, recruitment freezes, non-renewal of temporary contracts, voluntary early retirements, voluntary or compulsory redundancies, reduced working hours, and pay cuts or pay freezes, have cost additional jobs. Most of these measures are of a temporary nature but may well last until about 2003, or until the industry takes off again.
The meeting also recognized that the effective absence of war-risk insurance came close to forcing a complete shutdown of the world's aviation system in late September 2001. Only through government intervention were a variety of stop-gap measures put into place to provide alternative coverage. Unfortunately, many of the stop-gap measures are due to expire in the coming weeks or months, notwithstanding the fact that work has not been concluded on efforts to find effective permanent substitutes.
The meeting made the following recommendations:
The meeting urged governments to ensure the provision of unemployment benefits, health insurance, and training and retraining, for furloughed and unemployed workers; provide support (including funding) for security and insurance costs to avoid labour conditions and job cuts from being the main focus for adjustments; extend all stop-gap measures to allow sufficient time for the development of permanent solutions; ensure the independence and integrity of national aviation safety regulators; ensure that their national aviation authorities have the necessary means and resources for the effective oversight and implementation of all components of an increasingly global, yet fragmented, industry; in coordination with ICAO, consider the establishment of effective legal protection and remedies against violence at work for flying personnel, including a review of jurisdictional issues, and establishment of safety requirements and procedures; and ensure that the fundamental workers' rights of aviation employees, including the right to privacy, are protected and respected in cases where such employees are subject to security vetting due to the sensitive nature of their employment.
The meeting urged the ILO to further investigate the impact of 11 September on civil aviation in developing countries and disseminate the results; undertake, jointly with ICAO, an urgent study on the impact on employment and safety practices of the restructuring of the aviation industry; in cooperation with national governments and international organizations, collect data on employment in the industry, disaggregated by gender and minorities, where available, and disseminate the results; collect data and undertake aviation-specific occupational safety and health research in the framework of its existing programmes in this domain; promote within ICAO and other safety regulators a "human factors approach" in the security domain, which maximizes the quality of human resources, in terms of elements which impact on the performance of security and safety functions; and enhance its cooperation and collaboration with aviation safety and economic regulatory bodies, relevant international organizations, including ICAO and the international financial institutions, to promote the importance of tripartite consultation and continuous social and technical dialogue.
- 25 January 2002, ILO/02/03
Workers and globalization:
ILO at the heart of the offensive
ILO Director-General Juan Somavia held a round of discussions at the World Economic Forum aimed at airing ILO concerns on the need for business and labour to take a strategic approach to globalization. Held in New York in February rather than its birthplace of Davos, Switzerland, the WEF met to find ways of bridging the gap between the world's rich and poor in the globalization era. As part of ILO efforts to build such bridges, the Director-General attended the World Social Forum - dubbed the "social Davos" - in Porto Alegre, Brazil and participated in discussions on social policies and employment in Lyon, France.
NEW YORK/PORTO ALEGRE/LYON - "Work is also about production and economic growth, and it can be about exploitation, discrimination and deprivation," Mr. Somavia told the World Economic Forum, adding that "by concentrating on decent work for everyone - women and men - we can help create a better world."
Referring to the effect of the global recession on job markets everywhere, he stressed that despite some optimism of an economic recovery this year, employment opportunities took far longer to present themselves. "Global crises typically lead to financial and monetary adjustments rather than to steps to promote productivity and job creation," he said.
Mr. Somavia - one of the few heads of international agencies to attend both the New York/Davos forum and the second World Social Forum or "social Davos" held in Porto Alegre, Brazil - told participants in Manhattan that "we know we have to move into a globalization that benefits more people, but we have not done enough work to know how to go about it."
"Decent work can shape and develop the economic and social policies of globalization for the benefit of the many and not just the few," he said. "In this effort, entrepreneurship - in the business arena and beyond - is fundamental."
Social forum
The World Economic Forum drew some 3,000 delegates - more than the average 2,000 who attended gatherings in Davos in the past, and a reflection both of the venue - New York, as opposed to isolated Davos in Switzerland's eastern mountains - but also heightened interest in globalization, poverty and social issues in the wake of the economic downturn and last fall's events in New York, Washington and elsewhere.
New York/Davos was dwarfed, at least in size, by Porto Alegre, where organizers put the number of people representing NGOs, trade unions, religious organizations and aid agencies at 50,000. Mr. Somavia brought a message of consensus to the meeting.
"It is of utmost importance to build bridges of understanding among people with different visions of the world and globalization, in order to transform it into a system that benefits all," Mr. Somavia told participants.
He stressed the lessons learned at the ILO in trying to move the global social agenda forward. The first need was for "voice and engagement", he said. "There are no solutions from above, no solutions from impersonal markets...there are many models of democracy but the first item on the agenda is for people to have the freedom to decide what the agenda should be."
Then there was the importance of consensus which "doesn't mean trading off values", Mr. Somavia said. "It means building alliances, a common sense of purpose among people who can overcome their differences to achieve a common goal, and the starting point for consensus must be shared values."
He listed these key values as: justice, fairness, opportunity, solidarity, culture, identity, tolerance and freedom - all of which are linked.
Solving psychosocial
problems at work
The ILO SafeWork Programme has launched a brand new initiative - entitled SOLVE - to tackle "psychosocial" problems at work.
GENEVA -"Psychosocial" problems, those arising from alcohol and drugs, violence, stress, tobacco and HIV/AIDS, are a major cause of workplace accidents, fatal injuries, disease and absenteeism the world over.
In the United Kingdom, for example, over 40 million working days are lost each year due to stress-related disorders 1. An estimated three million European Union workers are currently suffering from sexual harassment, and in the United States nearly 1,000 workers are murdered on the job every year.
Such problems are not just the preserve of industrialized countries. Globally, some 500 million people alive today will eventually die because of tobacco use, the majority in the developing world. In Southern Africa, it is estimated that productivity could decline by up to half in the next ten years due to HIV/AIDS.
Thus, for the worker, psychosocial problems may mean stigmatization, isolation, illness, injury, and even death. For the enterprise, they can translate into serious disruption, a negative public image, absenteeism, high staff turnover, occupational accidents, increased insurance charges, staff burnout and increased compensation costs.
The new occupational safety and health initiative, called SOLVE, aims to equip employers with the knowledge, skills and a policy framework to deal with and, crucially, to prevent such problems. The project has been developed by the ILO InFocus Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment ("SafeWork"), and was launched in Windhoek, Namibia, in November 2001.
Despite it's recent start, it has already attracted interest from a range of businesses and organizations, including the 2004 Greece Olympics Organizing Committee, a body tasked with managing over 5,000 staff and 60,000 volunteers.
The SOLVE methodology
The traditional approach to dealing with psychological problems has been to rely on an external expert to focus on the problem and attempt to treat its symptoms. SOLVE is different. It tries to show how psychosocial problems can impact on each other; how, for example, someone suffering from serious stress may also develop alcohol or drug addiction, or become physically or psychologically abusive to other workers. While directly dealing with such addiction or abuse is part of the solution, so too is trying to alleviate the stress, whether through better social support or by restructuring the work.
The project also directly links the psychosocial issues with conventional managerial concerns, such as productivity, quality, worker satisfaction and client relations. Having an effective policy to deal with and prevent psychosocial problems, it is argued, is good for business.
How does SOLVE work? The policy level SOLVE course takes place over five days, with each day being devoted to a different psychosocial condition, and structured on the basis of a triple-stage learning process.
The first stage is designed to develop an open attitude to the problems, and to create an environment where everyone is comfortable discussing the issues and receptive to new ideas. On stress, for instance, this may involve broadening commonly held conceptions of the condition, and challenging some of the stereotypes over which occupations tend to suffer it.
The second stage involves equipping participants with a basic understanding of both the problems, and how to construct a policy framework to deal with them effectively. At the end of it, those taking part may not be world experts on HIV/AIDS, for example, but they should have a good grasp of how to deal with it in the workplace, and they should know how to construct a company wide policy which - by supporting those with the disease and the wider community - reduces the negative effects on the business.
Finally, those taking part experience a specially designed simulation exercise, where they get to put their new knowledge to the test and see first-hand some of the challenges that commonly arise.
The wider academic world
The SOLVE approach has already attracted interest from academia. Universities from the United States, Namibia, South Africa, Malaysia, and Thailand are in discussions on how to integrate the policy-level SOLVE course into existing curricula, and develop research into the project, whether at the masters or doctorate level.
The ILO Decent Work through Training and Innovation programme, better know as the Universitas programme, is trying to use SOLVE to demonstrate an integrated approach to promoting partnerships among local actors, universities, and national and international institutions.
The Universitas programme argues that universities play an important role in the developmental process, as institutions attempting to identify and tackle current and future socioeconomic challenges. According to Giovanni Di Cola, Universitas Programme Coordinator, "the key is to translate this forward-looking academic thinking into a means of promoting local development. An additional challenge, which makes SOLVE attractive for universities and constituents, is the way SOLVE can demonstrate how to build partnerships that respond to the real and practical needs of workers."
For further information on SOLVE, please see
www.ilo.org/safework, or contact Dr David Gold,
e-mail: gold@ilo.org, tel: +4122/799-6183, fax: +4122/799-6878
First ILO gender audit
keeps equality on the agenda
The ILO has launched a series of ground-breaking "gender audits" involving staff from offices in Bangkok, Budapest, Kathmandu, Tanzania and its Geneva office. More audits are planned for the months ahead with a subsequent report going to the November 2002 Governing Body.
GENEVA - In an effort to promote gender equality and gender mainstreaming strategies, the ILO has launched a new initiative designed to bring into sharp focus its gender-oriented work, and to increase gender awareness among all those involved in planning or delivering ILO projects. Starting last October, and expected to last until April 2002, the "gender audits" are part of the Action Plan on Gender submitted to the Governing Body in March 2000.
One of the key objectives is to ensure gender considerations are present in all ILO activities and at all levels. According to the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality 2, this is not merely about adding a "woman's component" to existing policies, but bringing the experiences of both women and men to bear on all planned action, legislation, policies and programmes. The audits are also designed to ensure that the consequences for both sexes are fully assessed before any action is taken or project launched.
The word "audit" may be somewhat misleading in that it normally implies an accounting exercise. The ILO gender audit, however, uses active participation and a learning process in order to promote good practice, identify future challenges and ensure the ILO gender mainstreaming strategy is effectively implemented.
Who participates, and how?
Participation is voluntary, with each audit covering what is known as a "work unit". At headquarters this could be an InFocus programme, a department or bureau, or a cross-sectoral programme; in the regions, a multi-disciplinary advisory team (MDT) or an area office.
The sessions are held as close as possible to the participants' workplace, and are planned with the help of external consultants from the Gender and Development Training Centre, based in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. The Centre has more than a decade of experience in such training.
The audit is unprecedented within the UN system, because it relies on a participatory method using workshops and interviews to actively involve those taking part, and to provide them with feedback on the exercise. This is in contrast to the more traditional model, where an expert reviews a workplace and submits conclusions to the management.
There is an element of objective review in the ILO process; each participating work unit's products (such as project-related documents, databases and publications), advocacy and advisory services, and technical cooperation, are examined. However, even this is infused with the participatory ethic; the conclusions are shared with all those taking part, and the emphasis is on the work unit collectively taking forward the issues raised.
The audit covers a wide range of issues: information and knowledge management, staffing and human resources, perceptions of achievement on gender equality, gender expertise, and capacity building.
In addition, at headquarters a global review is being made of key ILO policy documents, major publications, and programming, budget and evaluation processes. The results will be fed into a final report which will also summarize the conclusions of the work unit audits and include recommendations for the future. The report will be submitted to the ILO Senior Management Team in May 2002, and subsequently to the Governing Body in November 2002.
With the first set of audits already having taken place, Jane Zhang, Director of the Bureau for Gender Equality, has stated that, "the process so far has been a significant learning experience on where the Office stands on gender mainstreaming, as well as where we need to go to really transform policy on paper into practical application."
Once complete, information about the process and the outcome will be shared with constituents, the donor community, the rest of the United Nations system and other interested organizations.
- For more information, contact the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality:
phone +4122/799-6730, fax +4122/799-6388, e-mail gender@ilo.org, or see www.ilo.org/gender.
Globalization and cultural identity:
ILO/OIF Agreement
The Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) share a set of strong core values. This natural link between the two organizations was formalized at ILO headquarters in Geneva on 14 February, when Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the OIF, signed a framework agreement confirming their willingness to develop their institutional relations and joint activities for the benefit of the 50 or so member States common to both organizations.
“This agreement will contribute to achieving objectives that are common to both the OIF and the ILO, especially with regard to labour and the protection of human rights and workers,” explained the Secretary-General of the OIF. The instrument stipulates that the two organizations will work together in promoting the social dimension of globalization, respect of fundamental principles and rights at work, and the application of international labour standards. It also contains a provision on equal opportunities for men and women, and defence of cultural and linguistic diversity, paying particular attention to the international status of French.
“It is not just the French language that the OIF is defending,” Juan Somavia pointed out. “This organization is defending first and foremost people’s right to express themselves in their own language. The values defended by the OIF are in fact at the centre of the ILO’s concerns, at the heart of the debate on the social dimension of globalization, for there can be no fair and equitable globalization without deep respect for everyone’s cultural identity.” Does this mean respect for cultural identity is a prerequisite for globalization?
“In my view this is self-evident,” Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who is also a former member (from 1971 to 1978) of the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, emphasized. “If globalization continues at the same pace, in ten to fifteen years culture will be the last remaining stronghold in which states can preserve their uniqueness,” he explained. “This cultural diversity is in the interest of the international community, because unless we democratize globalization, globalization will distort democracy, and this democratization process calls for defending and maintaining cultural diversity. In my view linguistic diversity is to globalization what the multiparty system is to democracy: indispensable.”
This principle, one of the shared tenets of the ILO and the OIF, is the cornerstone of the agreement between the two organizations. In particular, the agreement provides for strengthening cooperation in the areas of vocational training, integration of young people at work, and learning and training in information and communications technology. Since July 2001, the two organizations have engaged in very tangible cooperation in the context of a technical programme focusing on the exchange of French-speaking experts.