Labour standards and the promotion of employers 'and workers’ organizations' interests in EIIPs.  

Collaboration with employers' and workers' organizations on employment-intensive programmes and projects has embraced a number of policy issues. EIP programmes have demonstrated to be important tools for the promotion of both workers' and employers' organisations and of their respective interests.

Achievements: 

The protection of workers' rights was the subject of a regional tripartite meeting (Kampala, Uganda, October 1997) which reviewed a Guide on Employment-Intensive Infrastructure Programmes: Labour policies and practices. The meeting acknowledged the temporary and casual status of many of the workers employed on these programmes. It suggested that there was a need for both occupational and community organizations in the labour-based construction sector to serve their separate, but complementary purposes. The Guide has now been published in English and French and will soon come out in Spanish as well.

The Confederation of South African Trade Unions requested the ILO's assistance on the issue of remuneration policy for informal sector workers recruited under the country's National Public Works Programme.

Contacts with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and with the International Federation of Building and Wood Workers (IFBWW) have resulted in a partnership in the development and dissemination of the above Guide on labour policies and practices and for the introduction of labour clauses into public contracts, in accordance with the Labour Clauses (Public Contracts) Convention, 1949 (No. 94).

Labour-based Contractors have a common interest in consolidating their access to public markets, in negotiating and monitoring effective payment systems; ensuring access to fair and transparent bidding processes; strengthening their negotiating power with governments and clients; and engaging in social dialogue on social protection priorities and improvement.

As a result of ILO-supported pilot programmes, Labour-based Contractor Associations have been formed in several countries, such as Ghana, Madagascar, Lesotho, Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Zambia. Their members have received both technical and management training, including labour management issues such as recruitment and conditions of work. Such training actually contributes to improved industrial relations and strengthens employers' hands in their dealings with the government. Contractors often face late disbursement of government funds, often implying as well that workers' wages are paid late. Within functioning democratic regimes, contractors' associations can pressure the government to make timely payments. In Ghana, for example, the labour-based contractors' union successfully argued its case with the government when individual contractors had been unable to do so.