ILO - BRUSSELS
NEWSLETTER N°. 6/2007
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International Labour Conference
The 96th International Labour Conference ended 15 days of deliberations last Friday, adopting a comprehensive new set of labour standards for
the fishing industry. The participants also held extensive discussions on new ways of promoting sustainable enterprises and decent work. Each year,
the conference brings together more than 3,000 delegates representing governments, employers and workers from 180 member countries. This year it
also launched a new partnership designed to eliminate child labour in agriculture (see below) and considered the application of international labour
standards. In particular, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, asked the members of the organisation to take account of a "new Green Jobs Initiative"
to support sustainable development.
The Committee on the Application of Standards held complex debates covering a series of issues, especially freedom of association in Belarus
and forced labour in Myanmar. It concluded that none of the recommendations made by the Commission of Inquiry had yet been implemented in Myanmar
and that forced labour is still generally imposed there, particularly by the armed forces.
Please
click here to read the press
release issued by the ILO at the end of the Conference, or
here to read a press release
on the adoption of new global standards in the fishing sector.
70% of working children in agriculture
The World Day Against Child Labour on 12 June focused this year on the elimination of child labour in agriculture. Worldwide, agriculture is the
sector where the largest percentage of working children is found - nearly 70%. Over 132 million boys and girls aged between 5 and 14 work from
dawn to dusk on farms and plantations, planting and harvesting crops, spraying pesticides and tending livestock. Yet agriculture is one of the
three most dangerous sectors for workers of any age, along with construction and mining: besides handling toxic pesticides, they are required to
use dangerous cutting tools, sometimes in extreme temperatures, and some have to drive powerful agricultural vehicles and operate heavy machinery.
The ILO is working hard to tackle child labour worldwide, especially through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).
A report, available
here, highlights the positive
impact of its work in the Philippines, where IPEC has, for example, offered children working on sugar plantations in the Western Visayas vocational
training and scholarships.
The World Day homepage, which can be accessed
here, provides more details about child
labour in agriculture. Alternatively, click
here
for an ILO video on the same subject.
New global partnership against child labour
To mark World Day Against Child Labour, the ILO and five major international agricultural organisations have joined forces in a new global
partnership to combat child labour in the sector. The partnership comprises the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Food Policy Research Institute of the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (IFPRI/CGIAR), the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) and the International Union of Food, Agricultural,
Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF). These organisations provide a unique access to national-level decisions
as well as to policy makers in ministries and advisory services for agriculture, and in building stronger links with farmers and agricultural workers,
and their communities.
The key areas of cooperation under the new partnership are policies and activities aimed at achieving four major goals: promoting the application
of laws on child labour in agriculture; improving rural livelihoods and mainstreaming child labour issues into national agricultural policies and
programmes; reducing the urban/rural and gender gap in education; and promoting youth employment opportunities in agriculture and rural areas.
Palestinian workers getting poorer by the year
The latest ILO annual report on the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories paints a grim picture of their plight. The number of
households below the poverty line jumped by 26% between March 2006 and March 2007, while per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was 40% lower
in 2006 than in 1999.
Currently, seven out of ten households in the occupied Arab territories, comprising some 2.4 million persons, are in poverty. The immediate cause is the
non-payment of full wages of public employees since April 2006, the decline in public and private investment and the growing difficulties faced by
enterprises in moving their products to domestic and international markets. This is mainly due to the multiple barriers to and controls on mobility
of people and goods, which intensified in 2006. “There is territorial disintegration, with a tight network of closures, sophisticated controls and
the expansion of illegal settlements”, the report says.
The ILO report stresses that the economy, enterprises and employment in the occupied territories require more attention from Israel, the Palestinian
Authority and international donors.
Click here to read the report or
here to read a press release
about the report.
22% of the world’s workers forced to work ‘excessive’ hours
Nearly a century after adopting its first international standard on working time, a new study by the International Labour Office estimates that
one in five workers around the world - or over 600 million people - are still working more than 48 hours a week, often merely to make ends meet.
The study spotlights working time in over 50 countries, and for the first time explores the implications of working time policies. The new study,
Working Time Around the World: Trends in working hours, laws and policies in a global comparative perspective, says shorter hours would have
positive consequences, including benefits to workers' health and family lives, reduced accidents at the workplace, as well as greater productivity
and equality between the sexes. A summary of the study is available
here, and a video interview with ILO
expert Jon Messenger, who co-authored the report, is available
here.
Alternatively,
click here to order a full copy of the study.
G8 pledges to support decent work
The ILO has welcomed the commitment of the G8 summit to support the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda as central to globalisation with social progress.
G8 leaders have given unprecedented prominence to the ILO role in stronger action to shape a fair globalisation. The G8 stressed the importance of
the four strategic goals of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda: creating decent and productive employment, promoting access to social protection systems,
strengthening dialogue between the social partners and the respect for core labour standards. The final declaration of the summit in Heiligendamm
(6-8 June) includes a call on member States of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to promote the implementation of core labour standards in close
cooperation with the ILO. Furthermore, the G8 commit themselves to include decent work and the respect of ILO core labour standards in their
bilateral trade agreements, recalling that labour and social standards should not be used for protectionist purposes.
On the same key issue, we should note the European Parliament’s adoption on 23 May of a resolution promoting decent work for all.
Click here to read this
important document.
Did you know?
NATLEX is the database of national labour, social security and human rights law and is managed by the ILO’s International Labour Standards Department.
The data are indexed by keywords and by subject classifications. NATLEX currently contains over 55,000 records covering over 170 countries and
territories. You can access the database by
clicking here. Meanwhile, the NATLEX Country Profiles database, which can be accessed
here, enables searches by country for information drawn from NATLEX as well
as from the APPLIS, ILOLEX, LibSynd databases and other ILO sites and publications. It also includes ratifications, comments of the ILO’s supervisory
bodies, legal research links and more.
Scheduled meetings
Click
here for a list of scheduled ILO meetings in 2007.
Contact us
For more information on the ILO's activities, please contact the :
ILO Brussels
Rue Aimé Smekens 40
B -1030 Brussels
Belgium
Tel.: + 32 02 736 59 42
Fax: +32.02 735 48 25
E-mail: brussels@ilo.org
Website : www.ilo.org/brussels
