Decent work & vocational training

 

FOREWORD

1. Although the notion of decent work, used by the new Director General of the ILO in his first Report to the International Labour Conference (1), may be seen as an objective or purpose (2) devoid of technical content, it can also be considered as an integrating concept bringing together and co-ordinating diverse aims, values and policies(3), or as a "dynamic concept, whose content evolves with the social and economic progress of a given country".(4)

In any case, it appears that on the one hand we have here a notion whose content has not been altogether defined – and has therefore to be ‘fleshed out’(5)- and on the other that such concept, though ill defined, has an indisputable ethical content or significance(6): promoting decent work presupposes the adoption of a clear-cut attitude in favour of the dignity of man.

In that respect, this obviously coincides with concerns that previously justified various efforts to include value judgements in the study of industrial relations, which made it possible to "consider a given system as ethically acceptable".(7)

2. On the other hand, the importance of vocational training is increasingly recognised. It is proclaimed a fundamental right of workers, but consensus grows about the fact that the fast track to economic competitiveness is based on added value, on quality and on the so-called "human capital". Simultaneously, training is accepted as a factor for employability, and as such it becomes a central element in employment policies. All of which is reinforced by the dissemination of information technologies and the advent of the society of knowledge.

In such circumstances it seems necessary – almost unavoidable – to consider the relationship between training and decent work.

3. Based on the above, we shall now proceed to analyse firstly the definitions so far made, sketched or hinted at of the so-called decent work within the ILO. Secondly, we shall study the role of vocational training in attaining that goal.

 

1. ILO, Decent Work, Report of the Director General to the 87^th Meeting of the International Labour Conference, Geneva, 1999.
2. STANDING, Guy, Modes of control: a labour status approach to decent work .ILO. Geneva, Nov. 2000, (mimeographed document). p. 1.
3. ILO, Proposal for a Decent Work Pilot Programme (DW/PP), Geneva, 10 Oct, 2000, mimeographed as "rough copy", p. 2.
4. ILO, Decent Work for Women. An ILO proposal to accelerate implementation of the Beijing Action Platform, Office for Gender Equality, mimeographed n/d, p10.
5. The ILO has charged the International Institute for Labour Studies (IILS) with drawing up a paradigm of decent work and has set up a special working group for that purpose (cf. Nº 7 below).
6. SOMAVIA, Juan, Address of 1^st May 2000 in the presence of Pope John Paul II. press communiqué ILO/ 00/15 . Mentions human dignity on several occasions, and the conscious exercise of a moral sense.
7. In that order, LOCKE, Richard, KOCHAN, Thomas, and PIORE, Michael, Another View of a Comparative Study of Labour Relations, International Labour Review, Geneva 1995, vol 114 Nª , p. 180; ERMIDA URIARTE, Oscar, Relaciones laborales, nuevas variables e indicadores, in Judicatura journal, Montevideo 1999, Nº 40, pp. 56 and 63; GRUPO BOLOGNA/CASTILLA – LA MANCHA, SECRETARÍA PRO-TÉMPORE, Concepto y medición del trabajo decente,, mimeographed, Montevideo 2001, paras. 1 and 5.

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