Asist - ASIST - Employment

The ILO involvement in labour-based road programmes stems from its interest in assisting governments of developing countries with the application of the Employment Policy Conventio, 1964 (No. 122). This convention is concerned with the promotion of full employment with a view of stimulating economic growth and raising standards of living. However, experience shows that several other international labour standards related to issues such as forced labour, equality, freedom of association, protection and determination of wages are relevant and should be considered when designing and implementing labour-based projects.

Technical advisers from the ILO and other institutions are obliged to ensure that ratified conventions and human rights are not violated in their projects.

Jan de Veen presents examples how relevant ILO standards have been applied in ILO executed road projects and Corinne Vargha gives an overview of the most important labour standards for labour-based programmes.

The ILO involvement in road sector programmes stems directly from its interest in assisting governments of developing countires with the application of Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (N0.122) and the accompanying Employment Policy Recommendation, 1964 (No.122). These are concerned with the establishement of an active policy to promote full, productive and freely chosedn employment and make specific references to the promotion or rural employment through public works projects. Therefore, in the road sector - which accounts for 30 to 50 % of total public expenditure in most developing countries - the ILO provides technical assistance to introduce alternative employment-intensive approaches into ongoing programmes of road construction and maintenance. This is done through pilot/demonstration projects with substantial training components. The prinicipal objective of this technical assistance is to modify road construction and maintenance policies from predominantly equipment-and capital-intensive to labour-based and orientated to a maximum use of locally available human and material resources.

In order to create a significant and lasting impact on the employment situation however, ILO-executed pilot projects should lead to large scale nationally sustained programmes. This will only be achieved if governments and financing agencies are convinced of the technical and economic viability of the proposed methods. Only then will employment-intensive programmes be accepted as sustainable and durable alternatives to current approaches, instead of being considered as relief programmes.

The viability and sustainability of labour-based road construction/rehabilitation and maintenance works is determined by three factors: costs (should be competitive with machines), quality (should be comparable with machine work), and speed (depends on the local capacity to manage large labour forces and, of course on the availability of labour in the areas concerned). Therefore ILO road sector projects focus on demonstration, management training, system development, and data collection. The objective of htis work is to convince policy makers, technicians and financing agencies that labour-based work methods are worthwhile and to lay a sound basis for a nationwide programme.

Although for these reasons, an emphasis is given by ILO pilot projects to technical, economical and managerial considerations, numerous opportunities exist to influence work methods and work behaviour through training and demonstration. Training is given to different categories of people (Government staff, contractors, village representatives) and at different levels.

Subjects include recruitement procedures, administrative systems, payment, work organisations and methods etc. Items like female participation, legislation on child labour, equal remuneration, conditions of work (availability of food and water, protective clothing, good quality and ergonomic hand tools, etc.), wage levels and methods of payment are being discussed and brought into practice on practical training sites.

A further important issue which can be positively influencedby the pilot/demonstration projects is the social security situation of the road construction and maintenance workers. It should be recognised however that in this regard the projects can only play a restricted promotional role ofr two reasons: (i) in most developing countries the general lack of financial resources means that even the existing social security systems are not functioning satisfactorily (ii) by their very nature road sector projects carried out by the ILO deal primarily with un-organised casual workers for whom social security arrangements do not exist.

At the pilot/demonstration stage discussions can also be entered into with employers' and workers' organisations or, if these do not exist at the project levels, their creation can be encouraged (see Ghana below). In this context it should be noted that most of the ILO road sector projects operate depend to a great extent on the level of effectiveness of the country's legal system. The less effective this system is the more difficult it will be to influence and control the application of ILO standards, particularly in respect of the large groups of un-organised casual workers. Also, the degree of difficulty encountered in this field is largely determined by the poverty level in the country concerned; the poorer the country, the more likely it is for example that child labour is a regualr feature of the society. Nevertheless, ILO projects can, and do, have a role to play in demonstrating the practical application of ILO standards.

Examples of the promotional role of ILO-executive road sector projects in respect of the application of relevant ILO standards

Practical examples of the application of ILO Conventions in roads sector projects include projects carried out in Botswana, Ghana, Madagascar, Tanzania and Zambia.

In Botswana, women participation was actively encouraged and reached 37 % of the total labour force. Also, women participation in training has been actively promoted and in 1990, the percentage of women doing supervisory and management work reached 60 % at team leader level, and 20 % at technical officer and technical assistant level. The Programme has broken stereotype barriers in that it employs women on what is generally regarded as "men's work". The Programme has also consistently advocatd the use of appropriate wage standards for casual work carried on road construction in rural areas.

An interesting result of an ILO project of contractor training in Ghana was the formation of an Association of Labour-based Contractors, an exampleof a practical application of the Convention of Freedom of Association. The same project has officials of the Ministry of Labour participate in meetings where tenders are invited for public works: the entrepreneurs who fail to comply with the social clauses laid down by that ministry are disqualified; moreover, the labour inspectorate is responsible for seeing that these clauses are applied. The Ghana project also ensured that children accompanying and assisting their parents were sent home.

In Madagascar, contractors were encouraged to employ women as labourers on rural road rehabilitation projects reaching a level of 25 % of the labour force. The contracts included clauses prohibiting the use of labourers below the age of eighteen years.

In Tanzania the ILO has ensure dthat where the work is not directly benefiting the workers they are fully remunerated. Equally great care has been taken to ensure that the context of "self-help" actually orginates from the beneficiaries and is not used as a development tax.

In Zambia, female participation both in the labour force and at supervisory levels has been actively promoted and led to significant percentages of women being employed at all levels.

Within the framework of ILO projects labourers are paid in these countries according to the minimum wage legislation of the country concerned. This mean s that payments are made at wage levels laid down by the Government for the category of workers concerned (casual workers carrying out construction work in non-urban areas), or else at the prevailing wage rate in the area. This applies even where a system of payment by results is used (as in Ghana) since the wage fixed for the task may be equal or higher that the basic remuneration and the bonus is either in the form of cash or free time (a worker having completed his task can leave the site). Where food is used as a work incentive in "Food for Work" schemes, the general WFP/ILO agreement that the workers should receive a minimum cash remuneration equal to 50 % of the official minimum wage, is applied.

A very important field both in relation to sustainability and Ilo standards is maintenance. Again the main interest of the government agency and the financing institution is that the work should be technically and economically viable. Again therefore the alternative employment-intensive road maintenance approaches advocate by the ILO must be proven to be competitive in terms of costs, quality and reliability.

The ILO projects aim to introduce village agreements, contracts with individual workers living along the roads and decentralised supervision and payment procedures. These approaches have proven to be both effective and economical. Nevertheless, both governments and financing agencies often exert a great deal of pressure to use un-paid village labour as a "self-help" contribution to road maintenance works. Here particularly there is a considerable risk of abuse of the communal labour spirit. The structured use of un-paid labour for road maintenance is only in spercial cases in line with the ILO Conventions regarding forced labour. This is when a village on its own account has identified road maintenance as a top priority and applies for external assistance (supervision, construction materials, tools) in order to complement the labour for - by definition - long term road maintenance works would go against the spirit of the conventions on forced labour. The ILO projects have dealt with this problem in two ways. First, in the project design un-paid maintenance labour is never considered an option; second, in cases where governments/financing agencies insists on an experimentation of road maintenance methods using village contribution, the ILO project would advocate the introduction of monetary and non-monetary and incentives and critically study the cost effectiveness and results of the scheme concerned. Invariably it is shown that the use of communal labour in this way is inefficient, leads to high overhead costs and poor quality results, and is not sustainable in the long term.

CONCLUSION

The use of casual labour in the context or road sector works is open to abuse given the general lack of formal structures of labour administration in the rural areas in developing countries. It is therefore particularly important that the ILO is present in road infrastructure programmes to ensure that not only productive employment is created but also that exploitation and abuse of workers is avoided.

Presented by Corinne Varga, Liaison Officer for ILS/TC ILO Regional Officer for Africa, Abidjan

This presentation is based on the disussion paper prepared by the Regional Adviser on Standards, Mr David Tajgman, which has been distributed to all the partticipants. It has tow objectives. First, to give the participants an overview of national and International Labour Standards (ILS) in six major areas: Forced Labour, Equality, Freedom of Association, Child Labour, Protection of Wages and Determination of Wages. And secondly, to open for discussions strategies for relating national and international labour standards to road construction and maintenance activities.

INTRODUCTION

Mandate of the ILO and Means of Action

The ILO was created in 1919, after the first world war, since lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice. The basic principles on which the ILO is based are in this respect:

To achieve its mandate of promotion of social justice, the ILO has tow main means of action: International Labour Standards and Technical Cooperation.

Being a normative organisation, ILO has given birth to a system of Internation Labour Standards which take the form of Conventions and Recommendations. By the end of June 1991, the International Labour Conference has adopted 172 Convetions and 179 Recommendation, covering issues such as basic human rights, employment, social policy, labour administration, labour relations, conditions or work, social security, employment of women, children and young persons. The Convention, which is an international treaty, is binding for the country. It means that the country has to apply its provisions, to adopt national law and practice to its requirements and to accept international supervision. Contrariwise, Recommendations set non binding guidelines which may orient national policy and practice. The ILO does not only elaborate and supervise the application of International Labour Standards, it also promotes them. In this respect, four types of action are undertaken: missions to countries and the organisation of training sessions, technical cooperation on standards themselves to assist their implementaion, dissemination of legislative information and liaison with ILO technical co-operation projects.

1. RELATING INTERNATIONAL LABOUR STANDARDS TO TECHNICAL COOPERATION PROJECTS - BASIC PRINCIPLES

By avoiding activities in the project which would be contrary to ILS principles.
By undertaking specific promotional activities, whenever possible.

2. RELATING ILS TO LABOUR INTENSIVE ROAD CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE PROJECTS: SIX MAJOR AREA

The fundamental commitment made by State ratifying the Convention is to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms in the shortest possible time.

The Conventions does not apply to five categories of work or compulsory services subject to certain conditions and guarntees:

The Convention requires meaningful penalties to be imposed upon those who exact forced labour.

b) as a means of mobilising and using labour for purposes of economic development

Definition of forced labour in terms of ILS: "All work or services which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily."

But some type of labour which would otherwise be considered forced according to this definition are specifically excluded as such by Convention 29.

Definition of forced labour in the national standards: Most of the 9 countries reviewed have included some definition of forced labour. Some define it identically to the international labour standards, some differently, and a few others do not provide a definition at all, simply declaring forced labour unlawful.

2.2 EQUALITY - Convention No. 100 and Recommendation No. 90 - Equal remuneration, 1951
- Convention No. 111 and Recommendation 111 - Recommendation (Employment and Occupation), 1958

By ratifying this Convention, the State commits itself to promote the application of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value between men and women. Where the State is in a position to influence the wage-fixing process it is obliged to ensure implementation of the principle. In all other cases, the State must actively promote application of the principle.

This principle goes beyond equal pay for men and women doing the same job; it means that men and women who do jobs - whether the same or not - which have the same value should be equally remunerated.

The ratifying State has to declare and pursue a national policy designed to promote equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of employment and occupation. Discrimination is defined as any exclusion, distinction or preference based on race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, or any other basis the State itself might declare. The state may not itself discriminate on these bases in respect of employment and occupation and has to work to eliminate discrimination in private sector employmet by appropriate means to national conditions and practice.

- measures aimed at remedying discrimination (some times called "positive discrimination)".

National standards: Some countries have laws which prohibit discrimination in employment but which do not automatically include all the bases of discrimination defined in the Convention. A number of countries omit the political basis. None of the countries have laws specifically addressing equal pay for equal work.

- Convention No. 87 - Freedom of association and protection of the right to organise, 1948

1) workers shall enjoy adequate protection against acts of anti-union discrimination,

2) workers' and employers' organisations shall enjoy protection against acts of interference by each other,

3) machinery shall be established for the purpose of ensuring respect for the right to organise,

4) measures shall be taken to encourage and promote the development and use of voluntary collective bargaining.

This convention requires the ratifying members to adopt and carry out a policy of active encouragement or rural workers' organisations.

The ratifying State has to establish protection against discrimination in employment because of status as a worker representative. It also requires that appropriate facilities be afforded worker representative for carrying out their functions.

The provisions are too numerous to be fully examined here. But a few characteristics will be examined concerning:

- Convention No.5 - Minimum Age (Industry), 1919
- Convention No.59 - Minimum Age (Industry) (Revised), 1937
- Convention No. 138 - Minimum Age, 1973

Aim of Convention No. 138: The abolition of child labour. The minimum age of admission to employment or work shall not be less that the age of completion of compulsory schooling (normally not less that 15 years). Developing countries may initially specify a minimum age of 14 years.

The minimum age shall not be less that 18 years - or 16 under certain conditions - for any type of work and employment which is likely to jeopardise the health, safety or morals of your persons.

The scope of work or employment covered by the Convention can also be limited upon ratification; however, construction activities must be covered. Greater flexibility is also provided in the field of light work. Minimum of 15 becomes 13 and minimum of 14 becomes 12.

General exception in the three conventions: work or employment done by children in technical schools.

National standards: All the countries considered here have laws prohibiting the employment of persons below a certain age.

2.5 PROTECTION OF WAGES - Convention No.95 and Recommendation No. 85 - Protection of Wages, 1949

Aim of Convention No. 95: Full and prompt payment of wages in a manner which provides protection against abuse.

The aspect of International Standards which is important to note in respect of ILO road projects pertains to payment in kind, particularly in the form of food: appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that such allowances are appropriate for the personnel use and benefit of the worker and his family and that the value attributed to such allowance is fair and reasonable.

Fair and reasonable means:

National standards: Most of the countries make some provisions for the protection of wages along the lines set out in ILS but few make provisions as detailed in the convention.

- Convention No. 26 - Minimum Wage-fixing Machinery, 1928
- Convention No. 131 - Minimum Wage-fixing, 1970
- Convention No. 94 - labour Clauses (Public Contracts), 1949.

It requires the establishment of a system of minimum wages which covers all groups of wage-earners whose terms of employment are such that coverage would be appropriate: Minimum wages so established must have of law and failure to pay them must be penalised.

Aim of Convention No.26: It requires only that a machinery be maintained whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in certain trades in which no arrangements exist for the regulation of wages by collective agreement or otherwise and wages are exceptionally low. If a minimum wage is fixed, it must be done with certain involvement of workers and employers and the rates must be legally binding and not subject to abatement.

Public contracts should include clauses ensuring to the workers concerned wages, hours of work and other conditions of labour which are not less favourable that those established for work of the same character by national laws or regulations, collective agreements, or the general level observed in the trade or industry concerned.

National standards: Most of the countries have established systems for setting minimum wages but only a few have recently set minimums which have effect, by their terms, on the construction industry.