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25th WCL CONGRESS | ROMANIA, OCTOBER 2001 |
RESOLUTION ON THE ILO |
- The 25th WCL Congress, assembled in Bucharest on 22-26 October 2001, reminds of and supports the resolution passed by the Congress in Mauritius, in 1993, which stressed the importance for the ILO - facing the social crisis causing political and social instability in many countries - to take up the challenges in the matter of the international labour standards, employment, poverty, marginalisation and its place in the United Nations system.
- The WCL notes that the social situation has not improved and that the globalisation favours and accelerates:
- the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority, the deterioration of the inequalities and the increase in poverty between and within the countries;
- the diminution of the middle class, “small crafts” substituting for the jobs eliminated by the structural adjustment plans;
- the one-sided reduction of the role of the state for the benefit of the large transnational private companies among others;
- the democratic deficit due to the loss of influence of the states and to the dictatorship of the markets;
- the economic growth with creation of jobs;
- the deterioration of the working conditions for the majority of the workers and particularly of the women workers;1
- violence.
- The loss of the legitimacy of the interests at stake, the unequal trade between countries and particularly the generalised merchandising of human values (ethics and morals) have been extended to all possible fields; the merchandising of human labour is one of the most shocking components of this evolution.
- In view of this situation, the WCL reminds of the basic principles on which the ILO is founded, viz:
- work is not a commodity;
- freedom of speech and association is an indispensable prerequisite for sustained progress;
- poverty, wherever it exists, jeopardises the prosperity of all;
- the struggle against deprivation must be waged with indefatigable energy in each nation and with a sustained and concerted international effort by which the workers’ and employers’ representatives, co-operating on equal terms with the government representatives, take part in free discussions and democratic decisions with a view to advancing the common interest.
- that universal and lasting peace can only be based on social justice.
- Throughout the world, the social institutions are looked upon as obstacles to the rapid process of accumulation and concentration of wealth and shamelessly dismantled. At the international level, the financial institutions have seen their influence and action go up, whereas in the past decades the budgets of institutions like the ILO have registered an alarming decrease; moreover, attempts at reducing their role in the protection of the interests and rights of the world of work have been perceptible.
- In 1998, when the International Labour Conference adopted the Declaration on the fundamental principles and rights at work, the ILO committed itself to strengthening the conventions on forced labour (29 and 105), on trade union freedom and the freedom of association (87 and 98), on equality and discrimination (100 and 111) and on child labour (138 and 182), and to helping its members achieve the goals defined in these conventions. The campaign for the ratification of these conventions has borne fruit and had a positive effect in bringing about the ratification of other conventions.
- The WCL is strongly concerned about the growing will to reduce the standards to just the basic conventions and to privilege the non-binding instruments such as voluntaristic private initiatives and skeleton agreements, without necessarily involving the ILO in these new approaches.
- So as to ensure that the rights at work of all the workers are recognised and applied, the ILO has engaged in a campaign to promote “decent work”. The WCL supports this campaign and affirms that decent work is dignified work enabling the workers and their families, through just and sufficient salaries, to live in dignity and to merely survive. Decent work is work that is carried out in conditions respectful of the rights and the dignity of the workers as defined in particular in the ILO conventions. Decent work is free from exploitation and makes the worker an actor of an economy at the service of humanity and not a mere “production factor”. The effective application of the basic conventions is the indispensable prerequisite for dignified work.
- Yet, the practice prevailing in several countries does not favour the advancement of decent work. The content and application of the labour codes has been reformed to adjust them to the needs of the market, the competitive deregulation (rights at work, social rights) in all its forms is prevalent everywhere, and the multiplication of free export zones, places where the workers’ rights are trampled on, amplifies the subcontracting of the markets and the race for the lowest social and fiscal cost. Everything is done to achieve that those having social rights yield or limit them and those lacking them do not acquire them.
- The WCL affirms that modernising and the ILO and its standard-setting system and giving them new dimensions implies that:
- this organisation is capable of really protecting all the workers and seeks ways and means to actively advance justice and the social rights in the contemporary world;
- respect for the dignity of the workers, and of each human being, is neither negotiable nor marketable;
- the standards constitute the effective basis for a unevadable supranational social legislation the evolution of which must be managed in a tripartite manner.
- The WCL also affirms the precedence of the human being over the economy, declaring so that the basic human rights and the relevant ILO conventions take precedence over the commercial and financial standards. It reminds that in no circumstances the national and regional laws can have a range inferior to the international labour standards ratified by the governments.
The WCL calls on the governments to ratify and apply the ILO conventions
- The WCL urges the governments and the employers - together with the workers the constituents of the ILO - to live by their basic commitments as constituents of this organisation and not to take actions to undermine it. From this perspective, the aim of a reform of the ILO’s standard-setting system must be the strengthening of its role and not the search of the least common multiple.
- The WCL asks the ILO to make all-out efforts to ensure an adequate follow-up on the conventions. This requires a minute examination of the difficulties the governments and the social partners encounter with the ratification and application of the conventions, and an adequate technical assistance.
- The WCL supports the existing control system, which has proven its soundness along the years, stresses the necessity of the independence of the Committee of Experts for the application of the conventions and recommendations and affirms strongly the positive and indispensable role the Committee on Freedom of Association plays for the workers. It is willing to study possible improvements of this system, in the sense of a higher efficiency and a better protection of the workers.
- The WCL notes that the companies are playing an increasingly decisive role at the level of social regulation in that they impose the predominance of the forces of the market in the labour relations and resist the acceptance of codes of conduct that demand full respect for the workers rights. That way they try to establish codes of conduct that become mere voluntary commitments seemingly similar to the social standards and developing outside each legal obligation without the ILO. The WLC denounces these practices and it calls on the ILO to strengthen its controls and on its affiliates to be more.
- The WCL notes that many private companies are playing an increasingly decisive role in the matter of social regulation in that they demand control over the forces of the market in the labour relations and resist the acceptance of codes of conduct that demand full respect for the workers rights. That way they try to establish codes of conduct that become mere voluntary commitments seemingly similar to the social standards and developing outside each legal obligation without the ILO.
- The ILO must engage without delay in the codes of conduct issue as, in keeping aloof from these issues, it accepts that other, especially private bodies and institutions substitute for it, which is unacceptable to the WCL. The WCL ask the ILO to:
- study and define the role of the ILO in the codes of conduct field;
- work out a general framework on the content of the codes;
- establish a system to certify the codes of conduct;
- provide a control system on the application of these codes.
- The WCL supports the ILO office for activities of the workers (ACTRAV) which must strengthen its action in support of the development of the workers’ organisations, particularly by means of training activities, technical assistance and their participants in various ILO programmes.
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1. The use of word "workers" comprises both women and men workers.
Updated by LO. Approved by MS. Last updated: 8 November 2001
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