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The Rengo is affiliated to the ICFTU which is more advanced than the ILO in terms of gender and women's participation, as was pointed out by Ms. Akamatsu earlier on. The ICFTU held its World Congress in Miyazaki in December 2004. Its rules [MSOffice1]state that the delegates must equally be represented by women and men, and in accordance with this the Rengo delegation to the ICFTU Congress comprised of equal numbers of both sexes. The same rule applies to ICFTU's regional organization, the ICFTU-APRO. As such, the workers have seen great advances in the area of gender. but when it comes to women's representation to the ILC, it barely accounted for 30%, and much more efforts are required to improve the situation.
The Director-General's report to the ILC this year pointed out to the challenge that "we are living in an era of rapid changes in the world of work, and that these changes are posing a number of new challenges both in terms of organization and policy of the governments, as well as the workers' and employers' organizations. We are about to face a critically important era in respect of the role of the ILO and the development of multilateral organizations for the next decade. What is at issue is the value and dignity of work in our contemporary society."
I received the intent of this statement as the challenge of enhancing the role of the ILO, so that it will be even more responsive to the intense changes of the times. I would like to share this awareness and join forces in order to address it.
The so-called neo-liberal economic policy and the rapid globalization of the economy led to the widening gap between the rich and poor. Decent work is yet to be achieved everywhere around the world. The ILO has a significant role to play. I would like to make a few points with respect to how the target of "Decent Work for All" should be pursued and how the activities grouped under this slogan should be strengthened.
The first is about the new fundamental role of the ILO.
The primary fundamental role that the ILO should assume is the standards-setting role that matches with the times, and the promotion of the steady application and implementation of these standards. Dynamic reform to enable the ILO to keep abreast of the times should be included in this role. There are some instruments which have completed its role or are no longer adaptive to the current situation. Efforts are needed to reform such instruments so that it would be adaptive to the new social situation.
Progressive globalization is deepening the mutually dependent relations between the nations to the extent that even the most basic issues such as securing employment, maintaining and improving wages and working conditions, can no longer be decided autonomously within a country. This, I consider is heightening more than ever the necessity and importance of setting and implementing ILO standards. This is evident when we recall the issues of foreign migrant workers and outsourcing across the national borders.
Nowadays we have been observing the trend that this standards-setting role has been somewhat slighted in the Governing Body discussions concerning the decision on the agenda of the ILC and in other matters. I must say that this is most regrettable in the aforementioned sense. Sometimes there have been alternative debates that technical cooperation should be more emphasised than standards-setting. However, technical assistance is extended to create social environment and conditions that enable the application and implementation of standards, and it should be considered as one of the fundamental roles of the ILO.
National barriers are becoming lower and weaker in various fields. For instance, the transfer of production base across the borders is leading to the creation of a mutually and directly affecting relation in both origin and destination countries in various fields, such as the quality and quantity of employment, wages and working conditions, occupational safety and health, social security, and furthermore the environment and consumption.
On the social aspects, in particular issues surrounding work, if a common rule, in other words the international labour standards that are valid in both countries do not exist, and if there are no appropriate application and implementation of such rules, the situation could evolve into an unhappy one for workers in both of the countries, resulting in the loss of employment and the spread of not decent jobs in destination countries. As the numbers of complaints to the Committee on Freedom of Association indicate, there are numerous companies that prioritize profit gains on a very short term, and that emphasizes cost reduction in the name of strengthening international competition. That situation is giving an abrupt rise in the cases of violation of human rights and trade union rights.
The absence or the non-implementation of basic rules to secure fairness will translate into unacceptable levels of disparity everywhere in all levels, and would exacerbate social instability. If the situation continues as such, or would further develop, the concept of exploitation and the exploited, and deprivation and the deprived, dominance and subjugation, all representative of raw and crude antagonism, cannot be claimed to be relics of the last century that we have already conquered. In this sense the ILO activities are very important.
The second point is the budgetary issue that is the basis for ILO's work.
As the earlier discussions pointed out, Japan provides approximately 20% of the ILO regular budget. This is true; however the central issue of the ILO's work is to make Decent Work a Global Goal. To achieve this goal with focus on securing decent and productive employment, the Report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of the Globalization identified that the ILO should coordinate closely with other international organizations and play a pivotal role in the international society. In order to do so, the ILO needs to be backed up by personnel that are capable of displaying abilities supported by expertise and experience. And for that reason the ILO's budget should be secured.
In standards-setting and technical cooperation for their application and implementation, the success is dependent on the quality of the human resources. For this purpose we need to enhance the budget of the ILO. Of course efficient operation is necessary and redundant expenses should not be allowed, but I'd like to point out the importance of securing the budget.
Compared with the military expenditure of the superpowers, that is said to be in the billions, how modest the ILO budget is. And the ILO contributes through its peaceful work to create situations that makes military responses unnecessary, and so the nobility of ILO existence is high and ILO's budgetary value is even not comparable to military expenses. I'd like to share this conviction with all the stakeholders.
Seen from that point of view, the attitudes taken by government representatives of developed countries with high contribution rates during the course of discussion on the budget proposals this year should be condemned.
The third point is the importance of tripartism.
As many previous speakers have already pointed out, the tripartite system is unique feature of the ILO. To meet rapid changes in the times, major reforms are called for, and in order to facilitate it, the tripartite mechanism should be even more effective than it has been. In the implementation of specific work, the opinions of workers and employers should be communicated to the Director-General as the chief executive through ACTRAV and ACTEMP. Organizational reform to this effect should be considered. Regional Office and in ILO Office here in Japan, reform should be made in the office structure with a view to enable work to be done based on tripartism. In the times when the activities of the ILO is requested to meet the rapid changes and major reforms are called for, I hope that the ILO will continue on with its work and the trade unions are part of the work and we will make our continuous efforts to make decent work a goal for everyone.