|
Wages are undoubtedly among the most important conditions of work and employment at the enterprise level. Being a cost for employers as well as the main source of income for workers, wages may be a potential source of conflict and have thus become the major focus of collective bargaining all over the world.
At the same time, wages can represent a major source of discrimination, something which leads us to carry out regular monitoring of wage levels and evolution by categories of employees, while also studying the differences eventually emerging between the private and the public sector. In this regard, not only the wage level, but also wage systems and the composition of pay, become relevant and should be carefully scrutinized.
On the social side, wages can also turn into a source of deprivation if no decent floor is guaranteed to the workers, generally under the form of a statutory minimum wage.
On the economic side, wages represent an important part of labour costs and are an essential variable for enterprises' competitiveness which need to be analysed, also with regard to their interaction with other key economic variables, such as employment, productivity and investment.
Finally, if we move from the notion of wages to the more general notion of incomes, it can represent an important tool for income redistribution, as well as a central element within the State's macro-economic policy.
All the above factors have led States, together with employers' and workers' representatives, to reconsider their wages policies and undertake crucial reforms in this field or to consider new approaches for which the help of the ILO has been required.
The main subjects that are addressed in the wages and incomes sub-programme are:
The role of the wages sub-programme is to assist our constituents through policy advising, research, technical cooperation, and dissemination of information to improve their pay policies and practices.
|
