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BULLETIN 143
Productivity and training

May-August 1998

 

(Full text available only in Spanish)

 

THIS ISSUE

This issue of the Cinterfor/ILO Bulletin is headed by the transcendent declaration of the ILO relative to the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.  In the declaration, the commitments by the Member States of the Organization to "respect, promote, and make real, in good faith" the rights of workers and employers to union freedom and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, as well as the commitments to work toward the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor, and to effectively eradicate child labor were reaffirmed.  The impulse to adopt this Declaration issued from the concern with which the community has been facing the globalization processes and the possible social consequences of trade liberalization.  This concern was especially articulated in the United Nations Global Summit on Social Development (Copenhaguen, 1995) and the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (Singapore, 1996), where support was expressed for the internationally recognized fundamental labour norms and for the ILO as an organization capable of establishing and maintaining these norms.

This issue is especially devoted to productivity.   Although the definition that says productivity "is the relation between production and input" effectively supports the essencial principles to be applied, is no longer sufficient and must be adjusted conceptually to the new and complex reality of globalization.  One of the basic assumptions of the definition is to think of productivity only in relation to manpower, with the resulting effects on labour relations; the ILO's long term work has revealed the true tanscendence of productivity as a factor of enterprise, worker and economic development in each country.  This becomes clear in the current debate on the issues of economic globalization:  today's definition of productivity must incorporate its relevant role as the principal goal of development and as a fundamental tool to "balance economic, social , technical and environmental goals" and to enable "the just distribution of wealth, stable labour relations and the democratic participation of workers" as expressed by Joseph Prokopenko in his article.

This issue of the Cinterfor/ILO Bulletin offers a varied panorama of the possible approaches to the subject of productivity.  Three of the the articles issue from concrete institutional and national experiences and go beyond these contexts to provide material for global reflection on productivity and its connections to economic policies, technological development, strategies for competition, labour relations and vocational training.  Two other articles complement these perspectives with both theoretical and methodological developments at both the macro-political level and the enterprise strategizing level.

 

 

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