GENEVA - "Faced with a global jobs crisis that involves trillions in GDP growth but just a trickle of new jobs, we need as many good ideas as we can generate to guide our future course of action", ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said in his wrap-up of the 93rd International Labour Conference (ILC). "The credibility of democracy and open markets are at stake. This conference has risen to the challenge by providing a rich laboratory of ideas for our efforts to make decent work a global goal".
The annual meeting of the ILO's 178 member States did provide just such a laboratory of ideas. They discussed issues ranging from the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories, to the state of labour standards in Belarus, Colombia, and other countries as well as the ongoing situation of efforts to stop the use of forced labour in Myanmar. Delegates also discussed the current state of working hours and how to balance the need for flexibility with protecting workers' security, health, and family life.
Two eminent guest speakers brought messages on the need to redress problems with globalization and decent work to the Conference. His Excellency Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria and current President of the Arab League, called for a new social dimension of globalization at the Millennium Summit in September 2005. His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and current Chair of the African Union (AU), urged Africa's development partners to join it in making the ILO's Decent Work Agenda a global goal.
The Conference President was Mr. Basim Khalil Alsalim, Minister of Labour of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Conference elected as Vice-Presidents Mr. Andrew J. Finlay (Employers) of Canada, Mrs. Hilda Anderson (Workers) of Mexico, and Mr. Galo Chiriboga Zambrano (Governments), Minister of Labour and Employment of Ecuador.
President Olusegun Obasanjo says decent work, debt relief needed to build a "new Africa"
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo urged the continent's development partners to join Africa in making the Decent Work Agenda of the ILO a global goal, noting that employment creation has become "an explicit and central objective" of Africa's economic and social policies.
"It would also be desirable for the Millennium Plus Five Summit to follow the example of the African Union and seriously consider making decent work a global goal", said Mr. Obasanjo, who also currently chairs the AU. "It is understood that the jobs we are striving to create have to be meaningful and dignifying if they are to have the desired effect, and this is where the Decent Work Agenda of the ILO becomes relevant".
The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria also made a strong appeal for debt cancellation for low-income countries, saying: "We are serious about reform and about building new paths to growth and development, but without debt relief these would be impossible."
"I urge our development partners to establish firm timetables for increasing their Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the target of 0.7 per cent of GDP and also to give serious consideration to the various innovative proposals that have been made in this regard," he said. "Even though debt relief would have the effect of freeing up much needed resources for development, it will not provide the minimum financial outlay required to speed up progress towards the realization of the Millennium Development Goals", he insisted before some 3,000 representatives of governments, employers, and workers. "Meaningful sustainable development in these nations would require significant debt reduction and debt cancellation."
Highlights of the Conference
- The Conference adopted a programme and budget of US$594.31 million for the 2006-07 biennium. The 2006-07 budget includes moderate real growth of 1.1 per cent to address institutional investment needs and extraordinary items. The new programme and budget focuses on decent work as a global goal and action needed at the local, national, regional, and international levels to make it happen, including Decent Work Country Programmes. The programme reinforces and deepens the four strategic objectives of the ILO: promoting standards and fundamental principles and rights at work, creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and income and for enterprise development, enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all, and strengthening tripartism and social dialogue. It also proposes initiatives on decent work for youth, corporate social responsibility, export processing zones, and the informal economy.
- Confronted with record levels of youth unemployment in recent years, delegates from more than 100 countries discussed pathways to decent work for youth and the role of the international community in advancing the youth employment agenda. In its final report, the Conference Committee on Youth Employment concluded that an ILO plan of action to promote youth employment should be practical and based on building knowledge, advocacy, the promotion of young workers' rights in line with international labour standards, and technical assistance. Delegates recognized that decent employment opportunities for young people would need to grow substantially, with particular emphasis on developing countries where 85 per cent of the world's more than one billion youth live. The Committee also encouraged the ILO to continue playing a leading role in the UN Secretary General's Youth Employment Network (YEN) and to extend the YEN to other countries, both developing and developed.
- The Committee on Safety and Health considered a promotional framework in the area of occupational safety and health. Delegates decided that the instrument establishing this framework should take the form of a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation. The proposed instruments would support placing occupational safety and health high on national agendas, as well as promoting safer and healthier working environments based on the prevention principle through a management systems approach, the development of national occupational safety and health programmes, and the continual improvement of national occupational safety and health systems.
- The General Survey discussed by the Conference Committee this year was on working time. While the Committee concluded that international labour standards limiting working time are still necessary to contribute to fair competition between countries in a globalized world, its discussions also made it clear that ILO Conventions Nos. 1 and 30 do not fully reflect modern realities in the regulation of working time and are viewed by an increasing number of countries as prescribing overly rigid standards. Delegates stressed the need to find a balance between flexibility on the one hand and protecting workers' security, health, and family life on the other. The discussion also highlighted the important role of the regulatory framework, collective bargaining, and social dialogue in this field. The ILO will present a document to its Governing Body summarizing the debate and leaving the decision on any follow-up to its tripartite membership.
- During a special sitting of the plenary of the Conference, delegates held an in-depth discussion on the situation of the more than 12 million people around the world who are trapped in forced labour, including some 2.4 million who are victims of trafficking. They strongly condemned forced labour as a violation of human dignity and supported the ILO Director-General's call for a Global Alliance to address a global problem. The discussion was based on a Global Report issued under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted in 1998. Law enforcement, awareness-raising campaigns, capacity-building for governments and social partners, rehabilitation of victims, local and global alliances, and sustainable technical cooperation programmes were identified as building blocks if forced labour is to be eliminated worldwide. The Governing Body of the ILO will discuss an action plan against forced labour, based on the report and the Conference discussion on it.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika calls for a social dimension of globalization
Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, told delegates to the International Labour Conference that the United Nations Summit scheduled for September 2005 to review the Millennium Declaration should promote renewed international efforts to build a social dimension of globalization.
"Like many other citizens in the world I dare to nourish hope that the next United Nations Summit ... will give an international impulse to build a social dimension of globalization which contributes to the maintenance of peace and international security", Mr. Bouteflika told a special session of the Conference.
Reminding delegates that "globalization moves forward quickly, creating great fear all over the world" and referring to the "globalization trap" and a general "lack of work", the Algerian Head of State called for decent work for all to give "globalization its indispensable human dimension".
According to President Bouteflika, one of the founding fathers of the New Partnership for Development in Africa (NEPAD), the message of the special summit of the African Union on poverty and employment held in Ouagadougou last year called for a "globalization with a human face". Urging a "humane and modern" model for development, the President said this model "doesn't make any sense if we cannot assure the right to decent employment to all people old enough and capable to work".
Fishers in 2007
In the absence of a quorum for the vote on a proposed Convention on work in the fishing sector, the Conference asked the Governing Body to place a corresponding item on the agenda of the Conference in 2007, and that the report submitted to the Conference plenary be used for further consideration. The third discussion will take place then.
The annual International Labour Conference brings together more than 3,000 delegates, including heads of State, labour ministers, and leaders of workers' and employers' organizations from most of the ILO's 178 member States. Each member country has the right to send four delegates to the Conference: two from government and one each representing workers and employers, each of whom may speak and vote independently. The role of the International Labour Conference is to adopt and oversee compliance with international labour standards, establish the budget of the Organization, and elect members of the Governing Body. Since 1919, the Conference has served as a major international forum for debate on social and labour questions of worldwide importance.
Committee on the Application of Standards discusses a variety of issues
As part of ILO efforts to end the use of forced labour in Myanmar, the Committee again held a special sitting on the application by Myanmar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), following up measures taken in the context of Article 33 of the ILO Constitution. This was the fifth time such a special sitting has been held.
Noting that the extent of forced labour in the country had not significantly changed, and that its worst forms continued, the Committee expressed particular alarm at the Government's stated intention to prosecute those it accuses of making false forced labour complaints and the apparent intimidation of complainants. Other serious issues in need of urgent resolution involve outstanding serious allegations of forced labour, the freedom of movement of the Liaison Officer, and the issuing of visas to strengthen the ILO presence in Myanmar.
Noting that the "wait and see" attitude adopted by most members since 2001 cannot continue, the Committee urged tripartite members to review their relations with Myanmar immediately, including foreign direct investment and state and military-owned enterprises, and report back before the Governing Body meeting in November. Depending on developments in Myanmar, the Governing Body should then be ready to consider new and further steps.
The Applications Committee placed its conclusions on Myanmar in a special paragraph for continued failure to implement Convention No. 29. In addition, the Committee concluded that, since the persistence of forced labour could not be disassociated from the prevailing situation of a complete absence of freedom of association, the functions of the Liaison Officer should include assistance to the Government to implement fully its obligations under Convention No. 87.
With respect to freedom of association in Belarus, the Committee noted that no real concrete and tangible measures have been taken by the Government to comply with the recommendations of the ILO Commission of Inquiry. As details of a government Plan of Action on freedom of association were not known yet, the Committee urged that an ILO mission be sent to Belarus, to assist the government and also to evaluate the measures that the Government has taken to comply with the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry.
In addition to this special sitting, the Committee carried out the examination of 25 other individual cases covering such concerns as freedom of association, forced labour, discrimination, child labour, employment policy, labour inspection, and wages.
For more information on these topics, see the ILO news and feature service articles at www.ilo.org.
World Day Against Child Labour
The Conference marked the fourth World Day Against Child Labour by calling for the elimination of child labour in one of the world's most dangerous sectors - small-scale mining and quarrying - within five to 10 years. This "call to action" was aimed at freeing the estimated one million or more children aged five to 17 who currently toil in dangerous conditions in small-scale mines and quarries around the world. For an in-depth report, see the section on child labour in this magazine.
For more information on these topics, see the ILO news and feature service articles at www.ilo.org.