Better business - ILO

No. 62, April 2008

Also in this issue

Better businessMultinationals and

Decent Work

The Better Work Global Programme • Contracts in the cleaning industry • Child labour: Sharing experience from South to South • Child labour: ILO partnerships with industry • Getting into the formal economy • The global employment challenge • Photo report: Below zero - Working in the Arctic

WORLD OF WORK, NO. 62, APRIL 2008

World of Work magazine is published threetimes a year by the Department of Com-munication and Public Information of the ILO in Geneva. Also published in Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Finnish,French, Hindi, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanishand Swedish.

EDITOR

May Hofman ÖjermarkSPANISH EDITION

In collaboration with the ILO Office, MadridPRODUCTION MANAGER

Kiran Mehra-KerpelmanPRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Corine LuchiniPHOTO EDITOR

Marcel CrozetART DIRECTION

MDP, ILO TurinCOVER DESIGN

Gill ButtonEDITORIAL BOARD

Thomas Netter (Chair), Charlotte Beauchamp,Lauren Elsaesser, May Hofman Öjermark,Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman, Corinne Perthuis,Hans von Rohland

This magazine is not an official document ofthe International Labour Organization. Theopinions expressed do not necessarily reflectthe views of the ILO. The designationsemployed do not imply the expression of anyopinion whatsoever on the part of the ILOconcerning the legal status of any country, areaor territory, or of its authorities, or concerningthe delimitation of its frontiers.Reference to names of firms and commercialproducts and processes does not imply theirendorsement by the ILO, and any failure tomention a particular firm, commercial prod-uct or process is not a sign of disapproval.Texts and photographs may be freely repro-duced with mention of source (except photoagency photographs). Written notification isappreciated.

All correspondence should be addressed tothe ILO Department of Communication andPublic Information, CH-1211 Geneva 22,Switzerland.Tel: +4122/799-7912Fax: +4122/799-8577Email: [email protected]/communication

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I L O I N H I S T O R Y

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The story of the ILO’s Multinational Enter-

prises Declaration goes back more than three

decades from before 1977, when it was formally

adopted, to the end of the 1960s when the activ-

ities of multinationals were first beginning to

attract serious attention – and, from some quar-

ters, serious criticism. At the time, the term CSR

– corporate social responsibility – had not yet

been coined. “The Declaration was ahead of its

time,” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia

recently at the 30th anniversary celebration of

the Declaration, Multiforum (see cover story).

“It is very much part of ILO history: now we

have to make sure that it is also part of the

future.”

Looking back from today’s vantage point,

some people wonder just how the ILO managed

to achieve the feat of producing the Declaration.

As Mr Somavia puts it, this was an extremely

polarized era: “a time when it seemed highly

unlikely that the social partners would achieve

consensus on an issue as sensitive as multina-

tional enterprises”.

But thanks to the hard work of many from

both sides of industry over a period of several

years, that consensus did prove possible. The

ILO’s Governing Body first agreed in 1971 to

provide funds to hold an initial meeting on the

relationship between multinationals and social

policy, a decision endorsed by the ILO Confer-

ence a year later. The initial tripartite meeting on

the issue was held in October and November

1972, and this was followed by a similar meeting

in 1976, when the proposal to work towards a set

of guidelines was agreed. Then the hard work

really started: the first three months of 1977 saw

a small tripartite working group work on the

detailed draft of what was to become the MNE

Declaration. Their work produced an agreed

text, which was submitted to – and adopted by –

the ILO’s Governing Body in November 1977.

The Declaration has been periodically updat-

ed, most recently in 2006. It is more than ever

relevant today, as articles in this issue of World of

Work demonstrate. It can be found online at

www.ilo.org/multi in 16 languages.

The Multinational Enterprises Declaration

WORLD OF WORK, NO. 62, APRIL 2008 3

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We’re in business! From Better Factories to Better Work

No vacuum: Cleaning up cleaning contracts

Sharing experience: A new global initiative against child labour goes from South to South

Child labour: ILO partnerships with industry

Getting into the formal economy:The Amhara Women Entrepreneurs’ Association

Photo report: Below zero: Working in the Arctic

C O V E R S T O R Y

Better business: Looking back, looking forward

Created in 1919, the International Labour Organization (ILO) brings together governments, employers and workers of its 181 member States in commonaction to improve social protection and conditions of life and work throughout the world. The International Labour Office, in Geneva, is the permanentSecretariat of the Organization.

G E N E R A L A R T I C L E S F E A T U R E S

Multinationals and Decent Work

Planet Work• Multinationals address social and

environmental issues

News • Microinsurance: ILO and Gates Foundation join

forces to develop range of insurance products in developing countries

• Global employment trends 2008

• International Women’s Day 2008

• Maritime Labour Convention:

Ratification by Bahamas

• ILO Governing Body concludes 301st Session

Around the Continents

Media Shelf

With global reach, vast capital and potential tocreate or cut millions of jobs, multinationalenterprises are playing an increasingly impor-tant role in the world economy. In this issue,World of Work looks at global employment andthe actions taken by the ILO in cooperationwith governments, the social partners and civilsociety to improve socially responsible labourpractices.

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F E A T U R E D B O O K

The global employment challenge 30

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MULTINATIONALS AND SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE LABOUR PRACTICES

C O V E R S T O R Y

Better businessLooking back, looking forward

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Amajor international forum in Geneva hasmarked the 30th anniversary of one ofthe first initiatives by the internationalcommunity to put the social dimension

into globalization. Andrew Bibby reports on a keytool to encourage multinational businesses toadopt socially responsible labour practices.*

GENEVA – The ILO’s Tripartite Declaration ofPrinciples Concerning Multinational Enterprisesand Social Policy – or, more simply, the Multina-tional Enterprises (MNE) Declaration – was a pio-neering document when it was first adopted in1977. Since then it has proved a valuable tool inestablishing a framework under which global com-panies can operate as good corporate citizens of the

world, and in the ILO’s work of promoting sociallyresponsible labour practices.

These days, talk of corporate social responsibili-ty (CSR) is widespread, and both companies andtheir customers are increasingly likely to take aninterest in the ethics of business operation. Com-panies with strong CSR policies appreciate theimportance of considering both environmentalfactors and the employment conditions they offertheir workers, and it is in this latter area that theILO’s Multinational Enterprises Declarationinspires good practice.

Globalization has developed apace since the late1970s when that phrase was first drawn up, andmultinational enterprises have become even moreimportant as global employers. Today around

* World of Work

acknowledges with

thanks the contributions

to this article of Yukiko

Arai, Technical Specialist,

ILO Multinational

Enterprises Programme.

5WORLD OF WORK, NO. 62, APRIL 2008

65,000 multinationals between them employ morethan 90 million people, or one in 20 of the globalworkforce – with the top hundred multinationalcompanies directly responsible for the employ-ment of about 15 million people. But they are indi-rectly responsible for many millions more: theyhave a potentially major role in the lives of millionsof workers by helping to shape the employmentconditions and opportunities for social dialogue inthe countries in which they operate.

So it is heartening that some, at least, of thesebusinesses are prepared to sign up publicly to theprinciples behind the Declaration. Attending the30th anniversary forum in Geneva in November2007 were senior executives from a number ofmajor world companies, among them householdnames such as Nestlé, Panasonic, Telefónica andManpower. Representing the ILO’s tradition of tri-partism, they were joined, too, by the general secre-taries of a number of the Global Union federations,including Union Network International and theInternational Metalworkers’ Federation.

According to ILO Director-General JuanSomavia, the Multinational Enterprises Declara-tion remains as relevant today as it was back in the1970s when governments, business and unionleaders first debated and discussed its shape. Open-ing the forum, Mr Somavia described the Declara-tion as reflecting the shared recognition that theneeds of business and the welfare of workers gohand in hand. “The Declaration was ahead of itstime,” he claimed. “It is very much part of ILO his-tory: now we have to make sure that it is also partof the future.”

His words were echoed by one of the otherspeakers at the event, Nestlé’s CEO and ChairmanPeter Brabeck-Letmathe. “The MultinationalEnterprises Declaration has been and will be formany years a strong document which underscoresa key element of business: that, in order to havelong-term success, you have to care about and cre-ate value for people. That’s the only reason why acompany can exist,” he told his audience of seniorbusiness and trade union leaders.

THE ILO MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES DECLARATION: WHAT DOES IT SAY?

The Declaration begins byestablishing some generalprinciples, designed to pro-mote good practice for all.Multinationals are asked tosupport the ILO’s call for

adherence to the Fundamental Principlesand Rights at Work, and to work in harmonywith the development priorities and aims ofthe countries they operate in.

There follows a section on employmentpromotion, job security, and issues of equal-ity of opportunity and treatment. A secondsection of the Declaration focuses on theneed to encourage skills training: multina-tionals “should ensure that relevant trainingis provided for all levels of their employeesin the host country”, to help improve skillsand career opportunities for individualworkers and to assist the development poli-cies of the countries they are in.

A third section, entitled Conditions of

Work and Life, covers issues of wages,employment benefits and employment con-ditions, as well as minimum age require-ments. Additional clauses promote appro-priate action to ensure high occupationalsafety and health standards.

Finally, the Declaration includes a sectionencouraging sound industrial relations.Multinationals “should observe standardsof industrial relations not less favourablethan those observed by comparable enter-prises in the country concerned”, the textstates. The right of workers to freedom ofassociation is spelled out, as are workers’rights to organize and to negotiate theirterms and conditions through collectivebargaining. There are clauses on consulta-tion, grievance procedures and dispute res-olution.

The overall theme lying at the heart of theDeclaration is also spelled out. It is “toencourage the positive contribution which

multinational enterprises can make to eco-nomic and social progress and to minimizeand resolve the difficulties to which theirvarious operations may give rise”.

The ILO Multinational Enterprises Decla-ration has since been joined by other inter-national instruments, including the OECDGuidelines for MNEs and the UN’s GlobalCompact introduced in 1999, as well as byother international initiatives. Encouraging-ly, today there is much greater recognitionin the business community of the impor-tance of corporate social responsibility thanthere was in 1977. Nevertheless, the ILODeclaration remains unique in having beenproduced by the ILO’s tripartite process ofsocial dialogue – a global agreement nego-tiated by representatives of both employersand workers, with a positive message at itscore. It is a valuable tool in the global jour-ney towards socially responsible labourpractices.

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Doing good and doing wellAccording to Juan Somavia, there is increasing

pressure on business from consumers who arechoosing to buy from companies with good socialpractices. “There is growing awareness for the needof a fair globalization, because the present course iswidely recognized as being morally unacceptableand politically unsustainable,” he told his audiencein Geneva. “To be sustainable, enterprises have tobe socially competitive.” “Doing good and doingwell are mutually reinforcing,” said Mr J.-M.Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Director of the ILO’sEmployment Sector.

Although it is a voluntary code of practice forcompanies, the Declaration has a weight beyondindividual companies’ own statements of socialresponsibility as an international statement ofgood practice drawn up through the ILO’s formaltripartite structures – in other words, by employ-ers, workers’ representatives and governmentsworking together. This was a point made by anoth-er speaker at the forum, Ebrahim Patel, executivemember of the Congress of South African TradeUnions (COSATU). “Codes developed by compa-nies to guide their own conduct – however helpfulit may be to the company – can clearly not be analternative to arrangements that are developed byconsensus,” he said. “In politics, the limits of uni-lateralism have become clear. In industrial rela-tions, similarly, unilateralism, represented by

arrangements that companies develop on theirown and impose as their practice, cannot replacethe value of commonly-developed instruments.”

As well as Nestlé, senior executives of Panason-ic, Manpower and Telefónica signalled their com-mitment to the principles underlying the Declara-tion. For example, Panasonic’s involvement in whatwould now be called corporate social responsibili-ty went right back to the company’s founder Kono-suke Matsushita, said Panasonic HR directorDanny Kalman. As far back as 1929, Mr Matsushi-ta had called for industrialists to take responsibili-ty for the growth and development of society andfor the well-being of individuals in society, MrKalman explained, referring to the Panasonicfounder’s well-known book People before Products.

Telefónica’s director of human resources OscarMaravar Sánchez-Valdepeñas told the forum howhis firm has changed from a company operatingonly in Spain with 67,000 employees in 1984 totoday’s position where it undertakes business in 23countries and employs more than 240,000 people.As part of this process of radical change, Telefóni-ca’s model of industrial relations and collectivebargaining has also been transformed, Mr Maravarsaid. He described how, in the 1980s, Telefónicatook a strategic decision to move away from the oldconflictual model of industrial relations, which hadbuilt up when the company was Spain’s monopolysupplier of telephone services, to one based on

Speaking at the MultiForum:ILO Director-General Juan Somavia; Peter Brabeck-Letmathe,Nestlé CEO; Ebrahim Patel, COSATU;Danny Kalman, Panasonic;Oscar Maravar Sánchez-Valdepeñas, Telefónica; Philip Jennings,Union Network International

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partnership and dialogue with the trade unions.“The new model of relationship required fullmutual trust on both sides. It’s been very compli-cated, but we’ve achieved it. The model is based onfour goals: social dialogue, total transparency interms of information, balance between the twoparties, and a search to find solutions which arewin/win,” he said.

He said that in countries where labour conflictshad been endemic previously, disputes had beenavoided in recent years. “We’ve learned to have dia-logue. Trade unions have been playing a strategicrole,” he said.

Sitting beside him at the forum was PhilipJennings, general secretary of Union NetworkInternational (UNI), the service sector globalunion with whom Telefónica signed a GlobalFramework Agreement in 2001. Mr Jennings had asimilarly upbeat message about the benefits ofsocial dialogue at global level between multina-tionals and unions, pointing out the benefit of hav-ing a high-level mechanism in place to sort outissues and problems as they arose. He spokestrongly in favour of Global Framework Agree-ments, arguing “I say to all the companies in thisroom, and the hundreds of thousands who aren’there, that if you are concerned about your brandand your reputation, and the public perception ofyou as a business, a Global Framework Agreementbased on the ILO Declaration and Conventionsshould be paramount.”

Philip Jennings was concerned, however, aboutthe difficulties which subcontracting by globalfirms could raise in relation to the workings of theMultinational Enterprises Declaration. It was apoint also made by COSATU’s Ebrahim Patel,speaking particularly in relation to conditions indeveloping countries. “One change since 1977 hasbeen the growth of subcontracting by MNEs,” hesaid. “Multinational companies have built up oftencomplex global supply chains which reach out tomillions of contractors and suppliers. In some keysectors, relationships between firms are transac-tion-based rather than hierarchical. This has trans-formed the employment relationship, since MNEsnow state that they are not responsible for workersat the end of the supply chain.” It is necessary, heimplied, to ensure that the ILO Declaration remainsrelevant to business circumstances like these.

A second speaker from South Africa, from abusiness rather than a union background, had adifferent point to make. Bobby Godsell, until hisrecent retirement the CEO of AngloGold Ashanti

and before that a director of the Anglo AmericanCorporation, focused on the role global companiesneed to play in the “host” countries where they areoperating. These, he said, should be “not behindthe closed doors of private meetings with presi-dents and ministers, but rather in the open cham-bers of the institutions of social dialogue.

“Common sense tells us that full democracy,truly independent trade unions, and full genderand race equality do not exist in 181 countriesaround the world. The conclusion I draw from thisis that global companies wishing to conform to thevalues of the MNE Declaration will often have todo more than merely comply with the laws of theirhome countries,” he went on.

The changing world of workThe world of work has changed in many ways

since 1977, not least in the growth of new employ-ment models based on temporary work placement,agency working, cross-border outsourcing andflexibility.

PUTTING PRINCIPLES INTO PRACTICE

“Many multinational enterprises are putting theprinciples of the MNE Declaration into prac-tice,” says Mr J.-M. Salazar-Xirinachs, Execu-tive Director of the ILO’s Employment Sector.“They are doing interesting and important thingsto promote employment and skills development,protect workers’ rights, and foster good industri-al relations”:• AAnnggllooGGoolldd played a leading role in South

Africa in challenging the denial of full tradeunion rights for black miners during apartheid.

• NNeessttlléé is working to support local farmersthrough transferring technology, providingmicrocredit and supporting infrastructuredevelopment.

• PPaannaassoonniicc has supported cross-border dia-logue between management and worker rep-resentatives, including the Panasonic Euro-pean Congress.

• MMaannppoowweerr is engaging in partnership withgovernment, trade unions, NGOs and interna-tional organizations to combat the worst formsof exploitation.

• TTeelleeffóónniiccaa has effectively used its globalframework agreement with UNI to build trust-ful relationships and transform industrial rela-tions in countries where social dialogue is notfully developed.

Bobby Godsell,AngloGold former CEO; David Arkless, Manpower; Alke Boessiger, Union NetworkInternational; Marcello Malentacchi,International Metalworkers’Federation; Dan Rees, Ethical Trading Initiative; Susan Hayter, ILO

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C O V E R S T O R Y

For some, flexible working might seem to sug-gest greater vulnerability at work. David Arkless,Manpower Inc. Senior Vice President, argues how-ever that flexibility should be seen as a good thing.There is a virtuous circle, he told the ILO forum,whereby flexibility improves productivity, whichimproves business competitiveness, which in turnstrengthens national economies and helps createmore jobs. His industry has, he said, a “huge role”to play in the time ahead. Already, Manpower wasplacing almost 4.5 million people into permanent,temporary and contract jobs each year, he said,making it the largest employer outside the publicsector.

But he was adamant that flexible workingshould not mean a retreat on employment condi-tions for workers. “We are absolutely with you inpartnership for improved working standards,” hetold the ILO forum. He went on to acknowledgethe role of trade unions, together with NGOs, inthat partnership: “I think you have a large andincreasing role to play. Together we can do some-thing,” he said.

He pointed out that multinational companiesoften had access to plants from which trade unionswere currently excluded, and he called for globalcorporations to use their influence and power in apositive way in situations like these to promote theILO Declaration and ILO Conventions and Recom-mendations. He also described his efforts to recruitglobal businesses in the fight against human traf-

ficking, a campaign which he has been particularlyactively engaged in through the End Human Traf-ficking Now! movement.

Manpower works closely with the service sectorglobal union Union Network International, andUNI’s Alke Boessiger welcomed this partnership.“We want to work with Manpower, Adecco andRandstad, who have committed to dealing withstaff in a decent manner,” she said, pointing outthat it was in everyone’s interest to ensure that thetemporary work sector was a “clean” industry,where players played by the rules. But she expressedconcerns that ILO Convention 181, covering pri-vate employment work agencies, had only receivedratifications from twenty countries in the ten yearssince it was adopted in 1997.

Thirty years on, in other words, it would be amistake to be complacent. Marcello Malentacchi,general secretary of the International Metalwork-ers’ Federation, described the ILO Declaration as “agood initiative” but claimed that it lacked theimplementation and supervision mechanisms toensure that it was followed. Philip Jennings had asimilar message, arguing that the Declaration byitself wasn’t necessarily adequate as a way of makingimprovements. “I would like to find a way of mak-ing the ILO more relevant,” he said. He added thatthe increasingly important private equity commu-nity needed to be brought in to the discussions.

David Arkless shared this concern, and calledfor the ILO to have much stronger procedures forensuring that both ILO Conventions and the MNEDeclaration are implemented. “There is no point inhaving a Declaration unless you really police it,” hesaid. The MNE Declaration in particular hedescribed as a “fantastic framework”, but he said ithad to demonstrate that it could be effective inpractice. He ended his contribution to the anniver-sary forum with a stirring call for action: “Let’s usethe anniversary of the Multinational EnterprisesDeclaration to supercharge what we’re doing,” hesaid. “We can do it together.”

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“From all of this, it is clear that the ILO hasmuch important work still remaining,” said MrSalazar-Xirinachs in summing up. He particularlyidentified four elements:●● To assist multinationals and other companies to

better understand how the MNE Declaration canhelp them to contribute more effectively to eco-nomic and social development

●● To assist governments to better understand andimplement the recommendations of the MNEDeclaration aimed at helping them attract invest-ment which will contribute to Decent Work intheir countries

●● To assist employers’ and workers’ organizations toengage more fully and effectively with multination-al enterprises to achieve productivity and growththrough socially responsible labour relations

●● To reach out to groups the ILO has not worked within the past. For example, the ILO might have a roleto play in helping financial markets understand theobjectives of the MNE Declaration. “Although wemay not be able to persuade financial markets totake a 250-year time horizon for investments, fol-lowing Panasonic’s founding philosophy, we mightbe able to get at least some of them past focusingonly on the next quarter,” he said.For ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, one

challenge for the future is how to promote theimportance of social dialogue as the cornerstone ofsocial responsibility in business. “Being sociallyresponsible does not mean ‘doing things’ for work-ers. It means sitting down and talking about arange of issues with unions and workers’ represen-tatives. It means dialogue,” he said. Dialogue can bedifficult and complicated, he acknowledged, but heargued that the results which come from theprocess are longer-lasting. The task, he said, is towork for a fair globalization where business is prof-itable and sustainable, and also where social equityis promoted and natural resources conserved.Please see www.ilo.org/multi or [email protected] for further information.


THE ILO IN SUPPORT OF SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE LABOUR PRACTICES IN MULTINATIONALS: BRIEF HIGHLIGHTS

Since 2004 VVoollkksswwaaggeenn, in collaboration with the ILO and GTZ (German Cor-poration for Technical Cooperation), has been implementing a Global Compactand Safety and Health project to improve working conditions in their supplychain. The ILO manages the project. Through partnership with Volkswagensuppliers, the company strengthened labour inspection to ensure legal com-pliance. The project reaches out to small and medium enterprises, helpingthem increase productivity by improving safety at the workplace level in thecountries of operation – Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa. “In just five days wehad already implemented many of the recommendations without any largecosts involved,” said one South African Managing Director.

MMaaggyyaarr TTeelleekkoomm, Hungary’s largest telecommunications company withoperations in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro and Romania, is a fully-con-solidated subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. Although Magyar Telekom’s corpo-rate culture already encompasses CSR-related activities, it participated in anILO training in 2006 on equal opportunities and diversity policies “to gain sup-port in rethinking the various initiatives and programmes already in place inthe company in a more systematic way”. In 2007 Magyar Telekom won theDiversity Award among member companies of the Deutsche Telekom Group.

Also in Hungary, in 2007 ILO-STEP issued a call from proposals from com-panies to share ggoooodd pprraaccttiicceess iinn eeqquuaall ooppppoorrttuunniittyy aanndd ddiivveerrssiittyy mmaannaaggeemmeennttat the workplace. Nine companies responded, including subsidiaries of for-eign multinationals as well as large state-owned companies and one smallbusiness. They described 32 initiatives, now published by the ILO Office inBudapest.

The ILO has recently carried out rreesseeaarrcchh oonn vvaalluuee cchhaaiinnss in two sectors,agribusiness and electronics. The electronics study was launched on theoccasion of the Tripartite Meeting on the Production of Electronic Compo-nents for the IT Industries in May 2007.

A new IILLOO HHeellppddeesskk is to be launched in 2008 to provide expert advice onhow companies can realize international labour standards and the principlesof the ILO Tripartite Declaration on Multinational Enterprises and Social Poli-cy. It responds to the ever-growing interest of companies in referencing inter-national labour standards and internalizing them into their operations, includ-ing in global value chains.

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Mr J.-M. Salazar-Xirinachs, ExecutiveDirector,Employment Sector,ILO

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B E T T E R W O R K G L O B A L P R O G R A M M E

G E N E R A L A R T I C L E S

The ILO’s work with the private sector isnot new. But in recent years there havebeen some interesting developments inILO support to companies in their CSR-

related activities. World of Work looks at a countryproject that grew into a major global programme,and interviews Ros Harvey, the Better Work Glob-al Programme Manager.

GENEVA – Global supply chains are the way theworld does business. They bring gains, but alsochallenges. Consumers, investors, workers,employers, activists and media are taking a closerlook at the impact of global supply chains on work-ers and their communities.

There is a growing worldwide demand for:●● the protection of workers by labour standards●● safer and higher quality products●● industries that are environmentally sustainable

The Better Factories project in Cambodia is nowin its eighth year. Aimed at improving workingconditions in textile and garment industries, this

unique programme of the ILO combines monitor-ing, remediation and training in a virtuous cycle ofimprovement. Working with the Government ofCambodia, the Garment Manufacturers’ Associa-tion in Cambodia (GMAC) and unions, it benefitsworkers, employers and their organizations as wellas consumers in Western countries. It is helping toreduce poverty in one of the poorest countries ofthe world.

International buyers representing 70 per cent ofCambodian exports in apparel are now activelyparticipating in the project. The governmentdecided that participation in the programmeshould be a condition for export, and the countryhas successfully created the “Cambodia Brand”,which in turn has boosted competitiveness of thecountry’s industry. Exports have grown by 10 percent in volume and 20 per cent in value. Dialogueamongst key stakeholders – government, employ-ers, workers as well as international buyers – hasbeen crucial to its successes, which include the gen-eration of over 30,000 jobs, 43 per cent unioniza-

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tion rate, and a decrease in child labour to below 1per cent.

The success of the Better Factories project hasinspired the creation of a major new global pro-gramme: Better Work, a partnership between theILO and the International Finance Corporation(IFC), the private sector arm of the World BankGroup. World of Work spoke to Ros Harvey, ILOand IFC Better Work Global Programme Manager.

World of Work: What is the new Better Work pro-gramme all about?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: The Better Work programme is aboutfairer globalization and reducing poverty in devel-oping countries. It is designed to improve theworking conditions in global supply chains whilealso improving competitiveness and the businesscase. International buyers have a critical role in thisprocess by supporting improvements in their ownsupply chains.

Better Work has designed three pilot countryprojects in Jordan, Lesotho and Viet Nam forimplementation in 2008. The projects combineindependent assessments of labour standards at thefactory level with training and capacity building.These pilot projects alone will directly benefit near-ly 800,000 workers. The project in Jordan waslaunched in February 2008. We are now focusingon agriculture in Africa as the next step.

World of Work: What are the benefits and chal-lenges of implementing labour principles in supplychains?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: As global competition increases,countries need to find ways to keep and developtheir markets. They have to adopt a holistic strate-gy improving working conditions and compliancewith labour standards, increasing productivity andpromoting dialogue. Cambodia’s success in attract-

ing international buyers and increased orders hasprovided an example of how compliance withlabour standards is good for business. Improvinglabour standards in supply chains is good for busi-ness but it is also good for workers and their com-munities. It shares the benefits of trade to some ofthe poorest people in the world by making surethat they get paid properly, have decent workingconditions and have their rights respected.

World of Work: What support can the ILO andIFC provide for business and labour?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: The ILO’s Declaration on Fundamen-tal Principles and Rights at Work contains “theFour Freedoms of Labour”: workplaces free fromchild labour, forced labour and discrimination, andthat promote freedom of association and collectivebargaining.

Other ILO tools to assist in promoting decentworkplaces include the ILO’s Tripartite Declarationon Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy,which marked its 30th anniversary last November;the tripartite agreement at the InternationalLabour Conference in June 2007 on what consti-tutes sustainable enterprises and how to promotethem, and a series of “action programmes” organ-ized by sector where employers, unions and gov-ernments work together in industries such astourism and textiles.

IFC has its Performance Standards which setsocial and enironmental compliance standards forits investments. Performance Standard 2 sets outstandards for IFC’s clients on labour issues. Itincludes the ILO’s core labour standards as well asa range of other labour standards.

IFC, often in partnership with organizationssuch as the ILO, also develops tools, projects, goodpractices notes, and other guidance for the privatesector to go beyond compliance in their labour

Ros Harvey, Manager of theBetter Work Global Programme

Better Work measures its impact on workers, enterprises, industries andeconomies. A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework measures:• Impact on workers. Are workers and their families better off? Have their working

lives, health and access to education for their children improved?• Impact on enterprises. Are enterprises improving productivity and quality? Do

they save money by retaining more qualified workers? Have they accessed newmarkets?

• Impact on industries and economies. Is the industry growing? Are more peopleemployed? Have the quantity and value of exports increased?

… international buyers using the Internet to seehow supplier factories in developing countriesare treating their workers.… local plant managers getting information andtraining to help them improve compliance withlabour standards and increase their productivity.… the lives of millions of workers and their familiesimproved by raising labour standards.

IMAGINE . . .

MEASURING IMPACT AND IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

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B E T T E R W O R K G L O B A L P R O G R A M M E


>> standards performance. Better Work is one suchexample of these tools.

World of Work: There are many corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) initiatives worldwide. What isthe comparative advantage of a programme likeBetter Work?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: The broad range of stakeholders givesthe new programme a high degree of credibility.Better Work’s tools and country-specific pro-grammes will enable us to work together with gov-ernment, international buyers, employers’ andworkers’ organizations on shared models that pro-mote sustainable impact at the national level. BetterWork combines independent assessment of labourstandards with capacity building and training. It isnot enough to ask what is the problem. We alsohave to work together to find solutions. The futurerests with the collaboration of partners at thenational level together with international buyers.Only through broad-based engagement can we findpractical tools and solutions which are based onactual experience. We need to measure what we do,identify what works, and what doesn’t. Throughthis process we will build support for change.

World of Work: What are the strengths that the IFCand ILO bring to their partnership for Better Work?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: IFC and ILO bring their expertise tothe table. Better Work builds on the respectivestrengths of the IFC and the ILO. The IFC is theprivate sector financing arm of the World Bank. Ithas performance standards on labour for its invest-ment clients. The ILO is the specialized labouragency of the United Nations. Better Work com-bines expertise of the ILO in social dialogue, labourstandards and their application, with those of the

IFC in private sector development. As internation-al organizations they bring strong credibility andexperience to the programme.

World of Work: There was a session on labour dur-ing the Global Compact Leaders’ Summit 2007. Inwhat way was the relationship between businessand labour principles discussed?

RRooss HHaarrvveeyy:: Participants heard directly from boththe CEOs and representatives of labour, employersand civil society as they discussed the relationshipbetween business and labour principles. Moderat-ing a panel that included representatives from theprivate sector, international and major trade unionand employer organizations, ILO Director-GeneralJuan Somavia emphasized the role of labour princi-ples in business. According to Mr. Somavia, respectfor fundamental rights at work, sound industrialrelations and collective bargaining are all part ofbeing a successful and sustainable enterprise.

For more information please visit www betterwork.org

Better Work builds a global pool of resourcessearchable by language, industry and country.Some of these include:• a framework for assessing compliance with

core international labour standards andnational labour law, allowing enterprises totrack the impact on quality and productivity.

• STAR - an information system that capturesdata on compliance and remediation (seesidebar on page 13).

• virtual communities for sharing knowledgeamong all stakeholders in the supply chain.

• training resources on workplace cooperation,quality assurance, health and safety, produc-tivity, working conditions, human resourcemanagement and other local priorities.

• proven techniques that raise worker aware-ness on their rights and responsibilitiesthrough media such as comic books, radio andtelevision soap operas.

• workbooks to solve problems in small andmedium enterprises.

• model policies and good practice guides toaddress common challenges for enterprises.

GLOBAL TOOLS - LOCAL SOLUTIONS

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WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT BETTER WORK . . .

“Better Work supports the empowerment ofworkers in some of the poorest countries ofthe world. Through achieving real freedomof association the lives of workers and theirfamilies will be improved.”

Sharan Burrow, President, InternationalTrade Union Confederation

“Compliance with national labour law lies atthe heart of labour and social improvementin a globalizing world. Better Work offers onthe ground help to employers to comply…Through compliance, employers are able toimprove their economic performance andaccess to global markets.”

Brent Wilton, Deputy Secretary-General,International Organisation of Employers

“Better Work represents a significantbreakthrough in raising labour stan-dards…We believe it will be invaluable as itstrives to improve the working conditions forpeople making our products.”

Michael Kobori, Vice President, SupplyChain Social and Environmental Sustainabil-ity, Levi Strauss & Co.

“Here in Lesotho, Better Work underscoredthat all social partners are interdependentand their goals overlap. It is helping us moveforward on a common vision.”

Thabo Tshabalala, African Regional Sec-retary, International Textile, Garment andLeather Workers' Association

“Better Work Jordan establishes a partner-ship based on the principle that decent workconditions and the production of qualityproducts at competitive prices can go hand-in-hand.”

Bassem Khalil Al-Salem, Minister ofLabour, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

“Better Work is a great opportunity for com-panies…We want it to start in apparel andthen expand to all other sectors…”

Farham A. Ifram, Chairman, Jordan Gar-ments Accessories & Textiles ExportersAssociation

“Better Work is a practical and effectivetool that helps us build capacity amongworkers and managers at our suppliers' fac-tories.”

Ingrid Schullstrom, CSR Manager, H&M

“Better Work is a comprehensive approachthat embraces labour administration,capacity building in its widest sense andsocial dialogue in an effort to make socialcompliance a key element of global compet-itiveness.”

Neil Kearney, Secretary General, Interna-tional Textile, Garment and Leather Work-ers' Federation

STAR (Supply chain Tracking of Assessments and Remediation) is Better Work's web-based, multilingual system for storing data, benchmarking performance, documentingprogress, factor analysis and public reporting.STAR lets enterprises share reports with buyers on their compliance with labour stan-dards and what they are doing to improve. It is an efficient technology that allows enter-prises and buyers to reduce resources spent on auditing and redirects them to findingsolutions and fixing problems. It gives enterprises online guidance for improvementplanning and is also used to track the impact of better labour standards on quality andproductivity to demonstrate the business case for compliance.STAR can be used anywhere in the world for selfguided assessment and improvement.Assessments and training are covered by fees.

BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS, BETTER BUSINESS - ONLINE

Bassem Khalil Al-Salem, Minister of Labour, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Ingrid Schullstrom, H&M; Sharon Burrow, ITUC; Neil Kearney, ITGLWF

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No vacuumCleaning up cleaning contracts

Ahidden army of workers is at work eachday cleaning the world’s office blocks.Many office staff never meet the peoplewho empty their garbage and dust their

desks, for cleaning contracts often specify that thework is to be undertaken out of normal work time,in the early morning or evening periods. Yet clean-ers are an essential part of modern office life.Andrew Bibby reports.

GENEVA – Millions of people work in thecleaning industry. In the European Union alone itis estimated that about three million workers arecleaners, in a sector which contributes in totalabout €44 billion to the EU economy. Cleaners aremore often than not women, working on a part-time basis and frequently trying to combine sever-al cleaning jobs to make enough to live on. In manycountries (including most EU Member States and

the United States) cleaners are particularly likely tobe immigrants or belong to ethnic minorities.

Cleaning services are now generally outsourcedto specialist contractors, so that neither the compa-ny whose offices are being cleaned nor – for officepremises which are leased – the property companywhich actually owns the building is directlyresponsible for the wages paid or the employmentterms in force. Because cleaning is a cost centrerather than an income generator for businesses, theemphasis when choosing a contractor is on keep-ing costs down. As the European Federation ofCleaning Industries (EFCI) and Union NetworkInternational (UNI) have pointed out in a jointcommuniqué, there is a “general trend among theclients (public as well as private) to select theircleaning contractors on the basis of price as theonly criterion, without considering the quality ofservice, the working conditions, personnel training

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or even the professionalism of the companies bid-ding on the contract”.

The result, all too often, is that cleaners’ wagesare low and their employment conditions precari-ous. As one New Zealand woman cleaner, RosaFaleniko, has put it, “I am worried that all my com-pany now wants from me is to work harder andfaster by cutting our hours. I do not think theyunderstand what I do and they do not appreciateus.” She goes on to ask for a “decent wage” to bepaid, “so that I can get my family off being relianton benefits”.

Encouragingly, it seems that – in some parts ofthe world at least – her pleas are beginning to beresponded to. Unions in, among other places, Aus-tralia, Germany, New Zealand, the United King-dom and the United States, have launched cam-paigns particularly focused on the plight ofcontract cleaners. Among businesses, too, somecompanies have recently chosen to review thearrangements for their contracts. There are pio-neering examples of social partnership betweenlarge contractors and unions, including a globalframework agreement between UNI and the multi-national contractor ISS Facility Services.

The problem of an uncontrolled race to the bot-tom on cleaning contracts is already acknowledgedby some of those in the industry. The Australasiantrade magazine Inclean recently quoted one execu-tive as describing the industry as “devouring itselffrom within through nonsensical pricing”. Fromthe union side, Tom Balanoff, president of UNI’sProperty Services sector, describes meetings withproperty companies who privately agree with himthat conditions need to improve but who also pointout that they have to stay competitive in the rentsthey charge their clients.

The preferred solution of Balanoff ’s own union,the SEIU (which organizes in Canada, Puerto Ricoand the United States), is to seek to establish agree-ments on wages and conditions for cleaners whichapply for office buildings in a whole metropolitanarea. These market-wide master contracts havebeen successfully introduced in approaching 30cities in the US, including New York, Chicago,Washington DC, and Los Angeles. Because theemployers are typically sub-contractors whosecontracts with property owners can be cancelled at30 days’ notice, these master contracts have so-called “trigger agreements”, ensuring that improvedwages and conditions are introduced only when

enough companies in the market have signed up.The purpose, the SEIU explains, is to make surethat no single contractor is put at a competitive dis-advantage.

The latest city to be successfully targeted by theSEIU is Houston, where it took a strike by over5,000 cleaners at the end of last year to bring in thenew city-wide agreement. The strike attractedactive support from what the SEIU described as a“strong coalition of faith, political and communityleaders”, who came out in favour of the cleaners’case. The agreement has seen cleaners’ wages risetypically by 21 per cent this year, and has given theworkers access to affordable health insurance andto paid holidays.

Tom Balanoff says that the SEIU has deliberate-ly focused its attention on the companies who ownand rent the office blocks rather than the individ-ual sub-contractors. The union has also been ableto apply leverage through large public sector pen-sion funds, such as the Californian retirementscheme CalPERS, who invest significant funds incommercial property, though trustees of privatepension funds have been more difficult to con-vince. But Balanoff argues that the use of city-widemaster contracts makes good sense all round: “Inthe end, it is to the owners’ advantage and to thecontractors’ advantage. They don’t want highturnover of staff, and I don’t think they feel goodabout paying low wages,” he says.

The LHMU and SFWU unions in, respectively,Australia and New Zealand, have adopted a similarapproach in a combined “Clean Start” campaign >>

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launched last year to help improve conditions forcleaning staff. The campaign, which has involvedthe hiring of fifty organizers, aims to establish whatthe unions describe as a cooperative relationshipwith property owners and contractors. Cleaningcosts make up, they argue, a very small part of theoverall costs of maintaining property, so that sig-nificant improvements in wages could be intro-duced with very little effect on the returns fromrental income. “Our aim is for the property indus-try to recognize its vested interest in ensuring theadoption of high standards of cleaning and securi-ty through the use of contractors committed to ahigh quality of work,” they say. The campaign hasdrawn up a ten-point checklist of principles forwhat the unions describe as a responsible contract-ing policy.

Where property owners are resistant to thismessage, however, the LHMU and SFWU unionsare prepared to try to shame the companies intoaction. One tactic has been to award “Golden Toi-let Brush” awards to employers who fail to agree toimprove standards in cleaning contracts. A similarapproach has been adopted by the union Unite(formerly TGWU) in the United Kingdom, whichhas been running a campaign in recent years to tryto improve cleaners’ wages in the City of Londonand Docklands business areas. Unite’s tactic hasbeen to focus on the companies actually occupyingthe office blocks, trying to embarrass some of thehighest profile financial institutions in Londonwith the prospect of poor PR. Several major com-panies have been presented with a “Golden Vacu-um” award, given – according to the union – “forsucking their cleaners dry”. Unite’s campaign forbetter treatment for cleaners is starting to strike achord. Barclays Bank, for example, recentlyarranged for their cleaners to have a substantial payrise, to £7.50 ($15) an hour, above the union’s rec-ommended minimum hourly rate. Unite has alsosigned collective agreements with the three largestcontractors in the City of London. “Those compa-nies to their credit know that the future must lie incompeting on quality and innovation, not a race tothe bottom on wages,” says Unite’s deputy generalsecretary Jack Dromey.

At the European regional level, the EuropeanUnion’s structures for dialogue between the socialpartners have been successfully operating for thecleaning industry since 1999, bringing togetherthe trade association the European Federation ofCleaning Industries and the property services sec-tor of UNI Europa. Their work includes the jointcommuniqué mentioned earlier, which callsamong other things for greater professionalism inthe sector, an end to the “vicious circle” of costcutting, and an emphasis on employee retentionand the promotion of full-time work. The EFCIand UNI have also focused specifically on theneed to encourage cleaning during ordinary day-time working hours. Daytime cleaning helpsworkers, they say, by allowing them to worklonger hours and to better combine work withfamily and private life. They argue as well that itcan help clients and contractors as well, by reduc-ing costs and increasing the pool of availableworkers. Daytime cleaning is safer, too, theymaintain.

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A HUNDRED YEARS OF CLEANING

Founded in Denmark in 1901, ISS FacilityServices is one of the world’s largest prop-erty service contractors with operations in50 countries and about 400,000 staff world-wide. 80,000 workers were added to thepayroll during 2006 alone, as a result ofmore than a hundred acquisitions by thecompany. ISS has recently expanded itsoperations in countries such as Australia,Bosnia, Israel, Mexico, the Philippines andTurkey.

The Letter of Agreement between ISSand UNI, signed in 2003, establishes a set ofgoals shared by both social partners:• Fair competition and the highest possible

standards in the service industry• Foundations for financial growth and

strengthening of the ISS service delivery• A balanced achievement of financial

success on one hand and adequatelypaid jobs on the other.

In its Responsible Cleaning ContractorAgreement in Australia, ISS and the Aus-tralian union LHMU jointly commit to a pos-itive working relationship. The agreementincludes the following section:“ISS takes pride in being an employer ofchoice in the cleaning industry. The LHMUtakes pride in organizing and representingAustralian cleaners.

Together we commit to working towardsa quality focused cleaning industry:• where clients receive and pay for good

service• reputable contractors bid and win work

based on fair contracting principles andreasonable reward, and

• cleaners enjoy good jobs with sufficienthours, fair pay, reasonable work ratesand safe conditions.”

Initiatives like these suggest a way forward forthe industry. Nevertheless, in many parts of theworld cleaners continue to find themselves right atthe bottom of the pay ladder. In Hong Kong, forexample, 54,000 cleaners remain on very low wages

after the High Court in May last year dismissed acase which sought to force the government toestablish a minimum wage for cleaners. The Courtfound that there was no such requirement.

UNI has also been a partner to a Letter of Agree-ment signed in 2003 with the multinational clean-ing contractor ISS. This agreement (see sidebar)puts in place a framework for industrial relationsacross the group’s worldwide operations, basedclosely on the ILO’s core labour standards. Theagreement includes among other things a commit-ment by the company not to use forced, bonded orchild labour, a recognition of the right of workersof freedom of association and the right to collectivebargaining, and an acceptance of the need toensure that working conditions are decent. ISS hassigned a Responsible Cleaning Contractor agree-ment in Australia with LHMU, is moving towards asimilar agreement with the SFWU in New Zealandand has also recently signed an agreement in theNetherlands giving organizing rights to the unionFNV Bondgenoten.

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Sharing experienceA new global initiative against childlabour goes from South to South

C H I L D L A B O U R


In the global campaign against child labour,Brazil’s success stands out due to its uniqueability to identify child labourers, and movethem from exploitation to education. Now, a

new “South-South” initiative involving collabora-tion between Brazil and the ILO will help sharethis experience of turning policy and commitmentinto concrete action among other developingcountries.

GENEVA – In the increasingly successful globalcampaign against child labour, new lines of actionare being drawn from “South to South”.

Brazil, one of the countries with the most suc-cessful programme against child labour, has drawnup a new “South-South” charter in collaborationwith the ILO that will allow a sharing of experi-ences with other countries with similar goals.

“The diplomacy of the 21st century must be thediplomacy not only of interests but also of active

solidarity, in a way that it reaches the people inother countries with concrete and continuousactions,” says the Brazilian Minister of ForeignAffairs, Celso Amorim. He adds that a new agree-ment signed with the ILO will be essential to guar-anteeing the sustainability of technical cooperationprojects on the elimination of child labour.

Last December, Brazil and the ILO launched anew worldwide initiative to promote specificSouth-South technical cooperation projects andactivities that contribute effectively to the preven-tion and elimination of child labour, particularly inits worst forms. The “Memorandum of Under-standing between the International Labour Orga-nization and the Government of the FederativeRepublic of Brazil for the Establishment of theSouth-South Cooperation Initiative to CombatChild Labour” places Brazil and the ILO in the van-guard of the South-South cooperation, accordingto Mr. Amorim.


Brazil has promoted South-South cooperationin other issues, but this is the first time theapproach has been applied to fighting child labour.The new initiative is designed to help other coun-tries enhance their structure and coordination oftheir programmes against child labour. Amongthose countries are two Lusophone countries inAfrica, Angola and Mozambique, and Haiti in theCaribbean. The South-South cooperation initiativelaunched by Brazil is not only an opportunity forcountries to benefit from the Brazilian experiencein combatting child labour, but also for Brazil tolearn from other countries in a spirit of horizontalcooperation. This is why the MOU includes notonly countries that would “need” the technicalassistance of Brazil, but countries such as India andSouth Africa, where a real partnership and anexchange of good practices in methodologies forcombatting child labour can be undertaken.

Among developing or middle-income countriesBrazil has become a reference point in the struggleagainst child labour for two reasons. Firstly, Brazilhas had 15 years of experience in creating andimplementing the technology needed to identifyworking children, take them out of exploitativework and get them into schools while providingtheir families with some income in what is knownas “conditional cash transfer programmes”. Sec-ondly, Brazil has been strengthening its social dia-logue structures based on sound civil society coor-dination to improve social control over publicpolicies in a way that keeps alive consensus build-ing and focus among employers, workers and thegovernment on the issue.

The new agreement with the ILO sets out clearresponsibilities for the Brazilian CooperationAgency (ABC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairsin furthering current efforts to assist other devel-oping countries in the struggle against child labourwhile clearly defining the role of the ILO’s Interna-tional Programme on the Elimination of ChildLabour (IPEC) and the ILO’s office in Brazil.

“This is essential, as it stimulates the horizontalcooperation and sharing of good practices, andallows a better empowerment by developing coun-tries, moving them into the driver’s seat,” saysMichele Jankanish, Director of ILO/IPEC. “It cor-responds to the spirit of Convention 182 on theWorst Forms of Child Labour regarding coopera-tion between nations.”

She adds that the agreement “will also implyclose links between colleagues in all countries, asmore horizontal cooperation is expected.”

For Lais Abramo, Director of the ILO BrazilOffice, such horizontal cooperation is essential topromoting the cooperation and social dialogueneeded to prevent and to eliminate child labour.

“With the Memorandum, we are inaugurating anew phase of dialogue for construction of criteriathat, with no doubt, will strengthen the mission ofthe international cooperation of the ILO,” she says.

This translates into more effective projects onthe ground. Maria Beatriz Cunha, ProgrammeOfficer of the ILO Brazil Office (and former IPECCTA in Brazil), says the MoU “reaffirms the com-mitment and the policies for the application of theILO Convention 138 on minimum age and Con-vention 182” and will bolster efforts by Brazil andits partners in civil society to share their experi-ences with other countries.

The project is also expected to extend to India,South Africa and some other members of Mercosurto promote a dialogue on possible cooperationbased on existing good practices. The ILO-Brazilinitiative is also designed to create a forum forSouth-South cooperation in the fight against childlabour among regional groups such as the AndeanPact, Mercosur, CPLP, and India-Brazil-SouthAfrica Trilateral (IBSA) to foster horizontal coop-eration among countries sharing successful experi-ences in the fight against child labour.

“The Memorandum aims to qualify the inter-change of specialists and research, beyond the exe-cution of projects of technical cooperation,” saysthe director of ABC, ambassador Luiz HenriquePereira da Fonseca, adding that ABC is ready towork with the ILO to coordinate the consolidationand systematization of Brazilian good practices in amanner appropriate to situations in other develop-ing countries. >>

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C H I L D L A B O U R

Angola and Mozambique have already under-taken projects that anticipated the new South-South contacts, and a new ABC-funded project hasbeen announced on eliminating and preventing theworst forms of child labour in Haiti. Structured asa pilot project, the Haiti project aims to withdraw200 children from the worst forms of child labourand get them into primary education. It also mayprevent another 600 girls and boys at risk frombeing exploited at work. In addition, Guinea-Bis-sau has also announced its interest in hosting aproject of this nature.

Such cooperation is vital, according to ILOexperts, to strengthen efforts in some Portuguese-speaking countries where the number of childlabourers hasn’t declined as rapidly as in LatinAmerica.

“The Memorandum of Understanding is a por-trait of the experience that the ILO has been devel-oping,” says Pedro Oliveira, from IPEC Brazil. “It isa symbol of the philosophy of the ILO of continu-ously sharing experience, in the context of theUnited Nations and the world of work.”

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Most children in developing countries work inthe agricultural sector, but there are impor-

tant differences as to the extent of their involve-ment as well as their exposure to hazards at theworkplace. At the global level, 2 out 3 childrenwork in agriculture. In some developing countries,especially in sub-Saharan Africa, rates can comeclose to 100 per cent. These distribution patternsare relatively unrelated to the distribution of theadult labour force by sector and the overall struc-ture of the economy.

CHILD LABOUR IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

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CHILD LABOUR: ILO PARTNERSHIPS WITH INDUSTRY

The Sialkot Soccer Ball Initiative (Pakistan)Ten years ago the Atlanta Agreement signed by the ILO, UNICEF andthe Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) was an earlyexample of voluntary industry collaboration with multilateral agen-cies and key stakeholders to address human rights issues in theglobal supply chain. Child labour was a major issue, and partners inthe Initiative included the Government of Pakistan, the World Fed-eration of Sporting Goods Industries (WFSGI), the Federation Inter-nationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the social partners.

Since then, and in response to evolving global trends, the ILO hasbeen asked to expand the scope of the soccer ball programme to allcore international labour standards, beyond the prevention andelimination of child labour. Discussions are expected to lead to theSialkot Compact – making Sialkot a model of excellence for soc-

cerball production.Strengthening ofgovernment inspec-tion systems andpromotion of effec-tive social dialogueare among the sixpriorities of the Com-pact.

The cocoa industry (West Africa) Media attention on trafficked children employed in slave-like condi-tions in cocoa farms of West Africa led in 2001 to the Harkin-EngelProtocol which set a timetable to ensure that cocoa is grown with-out the use of child labour or forced labour. The ILO was a witnessto this protocol.

In July 2002, this partnership established a foundation called theInternational Cocoa Initiative – Working towards ResponsibleLabour Standards for Cocoa Growing (ICI) in Geneva. Today, the ILOcontinues to serve as an advisor to the Cocoa Foundation and par-ticipates in multi-stakeholder forums. From 2002 to 2006, ILO/IPECsupported initiatives to combat child labour in the cocoa and agri-culture sectors in five African countries: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire,Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria.

PETROBRAS (Brazil) is developing its strategy on combating childlabour in the agricultural sector with ILO support. The company has

a particular interestin combating childlabour in bio-fuelagricultural produc-tion, and is consider-ing funding addition-al initiatives in thesector.

Abrinq Foundation (Brazil) brings together companies which areengaged in the promotion of child rights and combating childlabour. There are 10 commitments that companies must adhere tobefore obtaining a logo from the Foundation. Awareness raisingcampaigns were also promoted jointly under the umbrella of theILO-IPEC Time-Bound Programme (TBP).

“Red de Empresas en contra del Trabajo Infantil” (Argentina) is anetwork of companies against child labour created in 2007 support-ed by the ILO. Members include ACCOR, ADDECO, ARCOR,ANDREANI, the Tobacco Chamber of Salta, Manpower, NoblezaPiccardo, Movistar and TELEFÓNICA. This follows up on a 2004Declaration of Argentine companies against child labour.

Tobacco Foundation (ECLT). Since 2003, ILO-IPEC has implementeda programme funded by the ECLT in Urambo, Tanzania to combatchild labour in the tobacco sector. The ILO is also adviser to theECLT Foundation.

Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association(BGMEA). The ILO-UNICEF Memorandum of Understanding of 1994led to the development of a programme to prevent and eliminatechild labour in the garment sector in Bangladesh. After a success-ful implementation, the scope of the project was expanded toinclude other labour issues.

Pakistan Carpets Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association(PCMEA). In 1998, the ILO signed an Agreement with the PCMEAand since then a programme has been implemented with positiveimpact and model interventions. The PCMEA has been a donor tothe programme.

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I N F O R M A L T O F O R M A L E C O N O M Y

Getting into the formal economy

More women than men work in theinformal economy in developingcountries, so promoting women’sentrepreneurship is key to facilitating

the transition of workers from the informal to theformal economy. Roland Muller and Hans vonRohland look at an Association in Ethiopia whichis working with support from the ILO to empowerwomen in business.

ADDIS ABABA – The Amhara Women Entre-preneurs’ Association (AWEA) has come a longway since it was founded less than a decade ago. Tostart with, the original 60 women members foundit difficult to meet, struggling with poor communi-cation services, unreliable transportation and otherimpediments.

Today, AWEA has grown to some 3,000 payingmembers. They are served by fully-equippedbranch offices in four cities that coordinate thecomplex activities of what has become a member-driven association.

But AWEA still faces a daunting challenge. MostEthiopian women still do not have access to anykind of training or the chance to meet other entre-

preneurs. They are trapped in a vicious cycle ofpoverty they cannot easily escape.

The transition from the informal to the formaleconomy is not going to happen overnight, butFrealem Shibabaw, the former president of AWEA,is cautiously optimistic: “The transition is notgoing to happen fast, but it will eventually happenwith appropriate planning. We have to be verystrategic and our strategies need to be adapted tothe actual situation and the specific problems inthe country.”

Focusing on women’s entrepreneurship is apowerful tool to facilitate transition from the infor-mal to the formal economy. Support measuresinclude skills development, literacy courses, legalinformation, improving market access, businessdevelopment services, and microfinance.

Efforts to upgrade the informal economy withparticular attention to women were also on theagenda of an ILO meeting last November. The Tri-partite Interregional Symposium on the InformalEconomy: Enabling Transition to Formalizationbrought together senior officials from 17 govern-ments, 17 employers’ organizations and 17 work-ers’ organizations to discuss recent policy respons-es enabling the transition from the informal to theformal economy. The Symposium was a follow-upto the 2002 International Labour Conference gen-eral discussion and Resolution on Decent Workand the Informal Economy.

Women Entrepreneurs’ Associations can facili-tate the pooling of resources, increase women’sbargaining power and voice as well as productivity.“They play an important role in assisting womenentrepreneurs to improve their economic situa-tion, generate new sustainable business ideas, anddevelop their skills. This is particularly true fordeveloping countries with a considerable portionof their economies in the informal sector,” saysRegina Amadi-Njoku, ILO Regional Director forAfrica.

“I am really benefiting from AWEA. I get thechance to sell my products in the bazaars free of

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The Amhara Women Entrepreneurs’ Association


charge. We are also trying to improve our workingspace. Another benefit is that we received trainingin bookkeeping and I recently got a contract tosupply bread for the local university,” says HuluAgerishe Mamo, a restaurant owner in Bahir Dar.

Replicating business success storiesAchamyelesh Ashenafi, president of the Addis

Ababa chapter of AWEA, believes that raisingawareness about the success of women entrepre-neurs through various events and trade fairs canovercome even the biggest hurdles, such as accessto finance.

“These events have not only allowed women toshare their experiences but also helped them topromote their own businesses. Participants wereable to obtain a loan from banks and microfinanceinstitutions,” she says.

Women’s enterprises in the informal economytend to be small and are often concentrated in “sat-urated” markets and occupations based on tradi-tional “female” skills. Lack of access to land, credit,technology, networks, markets, and business infor-mation constrains the ability of women’s enterpris-es to grow.

But sharing experience helps. It can encourageother women and enable them to replicate businesssuccess. It’s a simple yet powerful means of over-coming many of these obstacles.

So is training in business skills. Sham Sahea, oneof the recipients of the Addis Ababa Women Entre-preneur of the Year Award, has been trained andnow shares her experience with others. “I am in theleather business. I produce leather belts, wallets,hats, ladies’ bags and key-holders. So far I havebeen trained in market research. This training wasof paramount importance to me. Now I knowwhere my customers are.”

Reconciling work and family responsibilitiesWomen and men the world over – both in

industrialized and developing countries – arestruggling to earn a living for their families whilecoping with the care needs of children or elderlyparents. But work-family conflicts and gender dis-crimination are rarely addressed in relation todeveloping countries and the informal economy,although they are an important factor in pushingwomen into informal economy employment.

“Ours is a male-dominated community. Whenyou go to a meeting or important events you donot see many women around,” explains FrealemShibabaw.

Lacking support for childcare undermineswomen’s prospects in the labour market. “Aswomen and mothers, we face a double challenge athome and in our businesses. We can only face thechallenge if women entrepreneurs find more sup-port and encouragement,” says AchamyeleshAshenafi.

The ILO has supported the efforts of AWEA andother partners in the country to move women outof informality through its Women Entrepreneur-ship Development and Gender Equality (WEDGE)programme. Since its creation in 2002, WEDGEEthiopia has benefited more than 600 women andtheir dependants.

The programme has developed the capacities ofvarious institutions to promote women entrepre-neurship by providing training and creating a net-work of eight women entrepreneurs’ associationsand other partner organizations. >>

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I N F O R M A L T O F O R M A L E C O N O M Y

AN INTERVIEW WITH FREALEM SHIBABAWFORMER PRESIDENT OF AWEA

World of Work: What were the most difficultobstacles you encountered in setting up yourassociation?

Frealem Shibabaw: Most of the problems wefaced resided in the fact that we were not awareof the mindset of the women we were supposedto work with. When we started lobbying andrecruiting women to become members they werereluctant. It was almost impossible to convincethem that joining the association is good forthem and for their business. As a result, wedecided to start with women we personally knewand that trusted us.

Another challenge was to get a clear idea ofwhat we wanted to achieve, and what could beaccomplished with the capacity available.

World of Work: How can women entrepre-neurs’ associations bring their members on theroad to productivity, sustainability, and decentwork?

Frealem Shibabaw: One of the greatest chal-lenges was to help women develop their owncapacities and businesses. They want to workout of poverty but they do not know how to getthere. They need practical guidance, skills train-ing, and support to gain market access.

But they lack the necessary resources. Womenentrepreneurs usually have no capital to start orimprove their business, and they do not knowwhere to get it from. The few financial institu-tions lending to small enterprises have very com-plicated requirements that the women are notable to fulfil. Other problems are the lack of infor-mation and complex registration and licensingprocedures for new businesses. Gathering infor-mation for our members on legal requirementsand guiding them through can prove extremelyhelpful.

Last but not least, there is the challenge oflocal market access. Our women are not readyfor export markets yet, but each region inEthiopia has its specific products and there is ademand for products from other regions. So wetried to connect all the regional offices of theWomen Entrepreneurs’ Association and askedthem to provide us with a list of products that areproduced in their area. This enabled womenentrepreneurs to network between themselvesaccording to their business interests. Thanks tothis very recent initiative, women have alreadystarted sending their products to other regions ofthe country.

World of Work: What was the role of the ILO inthis process?

Frealem Shibabaw: The ILO was our first part-ner providing training for the leaders of the asso-ciation. Later, the ILO continued support throughits Business Development Services Programmeaddressing the training needs of our membersand assessing business opportunities for them. Arecent survey done by the ILO’s Regional Office inAddis Ababa shows how these women changedthe way they go about their everyday business.

The ILO has been working through associa-tions and I think that this is the way to goforward, here in Ethiopia and in other Africancountries.

World of Work: What are your projects for thefuture?

Frealem Shibabaw: As the access to loans isone of the greatest problems women are facingright now, we want to establish a Women’s Bankat the national level. We also plan further educa-tion and training activities. Both are key toempowering women.

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Mulu Abraha, a disabled entrepreneur, running a shop


P H O T O R E P O R T

Below zero Working in the arctic

Work goes on everywhere, even insub-zero temperatures, as ILO pho-tographer Marcel Crozet discov-ered last February when he visited

the Finnish part of Lapland above the arctic circle.Lapland is home to more reindeer than people –with about 3.6 per cent of the Finnish populationand fewer than 2 inhabitants per square kilometreit’s by far the least densely populated area in thecountry.

Of Lapland’s more than 185,000 inhabitants,only six per cent are Sami, an indigenous peoplewhose ancestral lands span the Nordic countriesand the Kola peninsula of Russia. Today, manySami lead modern lives with modern jobs in the

cities both inside and outside their traditional area.Some 10 per cent still practice reindeer herding,which for traditional and cultural reasons isreserved for Sami people in some parts of theNordic countries.

The ILO has worked with indigenous and tribalpeoples since the 1920s. It is responsible for the onlyinternational instruments currently in force thatdeal exclusively with their rights. ILO ConventionNo. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoplesin Independent Countries, adopted in 1989, is acomprehensive instrument covering a range ofissues pertaining to indigenous and tribal peoples,including land rights, access to natural resources,health, education, vocational training, conditions ofemployment and contacts across borders.

On the bridge of the icebreaker Sampo




The 75-metre long icebreaker Sampo, a former flagship of theFinnish navy built in 1961, still navigates in the Gulf of Both-nia south of Lapland. The ship can break up to 1.2 metres ofthick ice. Climatic conditions in this arctic region are highlyunpredictable and fair weather may turn at short notice intoa violent blizzard. At midwinter temperatures may fall to–40°C. With a crew of nine, the Sampo can carry 150 passen-gers.


Top right: First officer J.P. Kouselawatches the white horizon.Far right: In the 8,800 hp engine room:this is the world of Teuvo Juopperi, engi-neer.




Sami in traditional clothing. TheAnssi family has lived from reindeerherding for several generations.Today, the reindeer also serve fortourist sledding in the winter season.Above: the fire in the traditionalSami tent, the Kota, is always alight


In a fairy-tale landscape of ice, hills and forests, this unassuming chalet isactually the Lampivaara mine, a surface mineral deposit situated 130 kmnorth of the arctic circle. Discovered in 1985, it is the only amethyst minein Europe still active. Despite its looks, working conditions are hard: inwinter temperatures may reach –50°C, and in summer thousands of mos-quitoes invade the site. Only a handful of miners still work here. Extrac-tion is respectful of the environment, while production mainly benefitslocal jewellery makers who sell their products to tourists. Every evening,small pieces of amethyst are weighed on the scales.Right and below: Pascal, a gold prospector from France, discovered thisplace eight years ago and is unable to resist to its magic.


T H E G L O B A L E M P L O Y M E N T C H A L L E N G E


The globalemployment challenge

Ground-breaking research by the ILOreveals a major emerging issue in theworld of work that to date has been bare-ly recognized in policy development: the

challenge of global employment.

GENEVA – A new study, The global employmentchallenge,1 highlights why global as opposed tonational employment is becoming so importantfor the future of jobs:●● the declining availability of productive jobs is now a

worldwide phenomenon, affecting both North andSouth

●● global forces, such as cross-border trade, capital andlabour flows, are having significant consequences foremployment in individual countries

●● international labour market policies are now almostas important as national policies for expanding pro-ductive employment in less developed countries –where most of the world’s workers live, and where

almost all of its new workers will live in the nearfuture.In response to this challenge, the study provides

an assessment of the current state of employmentin the world, a review of developments since 1990,an analysis of the interactions among structuralfactors, global forces and national policies, as wellas recommendations for policy responses requiredboth internationally and nationally for correctiveaction.

Counting the numbersThe world today has an estimated labour force

(working-age persons – aged 15 and above –engaged in economically gainful activities, seekingor available for engagement in such activities) of3.1 billion, nearly 1.2 billion more than in 1980.But the growth of the global labour force has actu-ally been in decline since then, despite 46 millionworkers being added every year. ILO estimates sug-

1 The global employment

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gest that between 2007 and 2015, the world’slabour force will grow at an annual rate of 1.3 percent, and will be older and better educated. Theshare of developing countries in the global labourforce will rise to as much as 75 per cent and that ofdeveloped countries will fall to 13 per cent, makingthe asymmetry in global productive resources evengreater. India and China already account for 40 percent of the world’s workers, but although the devel-oping world contains most of the world’s popula-tion, its actual share in the global working-age pop-ulation is lower, while the labour forceparticipation rate is significantly higher.

Women workers constitute 40 per cent of theworld’s labour force, with the majority – 71 percent – in the developing world, but the labour forceis much more ‘feminized’ in developed countries.The study foresees that the degree of feminizationin the global labour force will decline slightly withimproved economic growth: in families earninghigher incomes the requirement for both parentsto seek work tends to decline. Both lack of andhigher education increase female labour marketparticipation significantly – poorly educated andhighly educated women account for large shares ofthe female labour force.

Medium-income and least developed countriestogether account for nearly 80 per cent of theworld’s young workers. But ageing is a problem inthe developed world as a decline in labour supply isevident and the skill structure of the labour force isopen to alteration.

Developed countries have a much greater per-centage of key productive resources such as skilledworkers and capital: in 2000, they claimed 57 percent of the world’s skilled workers, with only 18 percent of the global labour force, and accounted for54 per cent of investment.

Countries in the report are classified into sevencategories considering their structural characteris-tics and level of development. The categorizationensures that countries in any particular categoryare sufficiently similar in terms of economic struc-ture for a single analytical framework to be appli-cable. Due to issues of data availability, the analysismostly focuses on four groups:●● Developed countries●● CEE countries●● CIS countries●● Developing countries

The challenge for developing countriesThe report found three major structural features

of productive employment in developing coun-tries:1. Dualism: a formal segment employing a small

proportion of the labour force and a non-formalsegment constituting the rest of the economy.

2. Surplus labour: underemployment in the non-formal segment is widespread.

3. Near-total absence of institutionalized social secu-rity.These are analysed using three indicators: the

share of the formal segment in total employment;

The goal of “decent work for all” lies at the heart of the work of the InternationalLabour Organization. It is a goal, moreover, that has now been embraced by the

entire world community through the United Nations, its constituent agencies and itsmember States, as well as by political organizations at regional levels in the world.

The global employment challenge is about productive employment, which is thefoundation of decent work. The scarcity of productive jobs for the women and menwho seek them is the root cause of poverty, child labour, and forced labour. It is alsothat which impedes the attainment of the other elements of decent work, rights,social protection, and a voice at work.

The book provides an assessment of the state of employment in the world today. Itshows how far removed from the goal of “productive jobs for all” we are. It conse-quently focuses on the economic factors, forces and policies that have shaped thecurrent state of employment in the world, and on policies, national and international,which are now required to ensure progress towards the goal. It is a goal that cannotbe achieved through social or labour policies alone. Indeed, social and labour poli-cies cannot be effective unless their objectives are shared by economic policies aswell.

The salience of economic and financial policies to the core mandate of the ILO wasfully acknowledged by the Declaration of Philadelphia in 1944, which called upon theOrganization to pursue the goal of “full employment and rising living standards”through its work, but also continuously to assess national and international “eco-nomic and financial” policies to see whether these facilitate or hinder the achieve-ment of that goal. It is also reflected in the recent call by the High-Level Segment of2006 of the UN Economic and Social Council for employment consequences to beexplicitly taken into account in the programmes and policies of all internationalorganizations, functional commissions, and regional development banks.

The study does not pretend to have all the answers. Indeed, its main objective is toengage the global academic community, international organizations and national pol-icy makers in an active search for the answers, in research and debates on issues ofvital importance. I firmly believe the study will attain this objective. On a basis ofsound analytical and empirical work, the authors paint an insightful and, at times,even provocative picture of the employment challenge in the world today. While thebook’s findings and arguments do not necessarily always reflect the views of the ILOas an institution, it offers readers a serious and significant contribution to the studyof employment in today’s world.

Duncan CampbellDirector of the ILO Department of Economic and Labour Market Analysis

DECENT WORK FOR ALL: A GOAL FOR THE WORLD

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T H E G L O B A L E M P L O Y M E N T C H A L L E N G E


output per worker in the non-formal segment; andunemployed rate. The results present a dismal pic-ture of underemployment and low-productivityemployment, with few countries showing anyimprovement during the period under review. Thepolicy challenge facing developing countries is notjust one of productively absorbing the growinglabour force, but also of transferring masses ofworkers into full-time formal employment. Toachieve this growth, says the study, strategies needto be designed with employment objectives inview, and national policies must focus on two basicobjectives: first, the rate of employment growth inthe formal segment must exceed the rate of labourforce growth in the economy; second, labour pro-ductivity in the non-formal segment must grow ata reasonable rate. Another important policy chal-lenge is ensuring an appropriate combination ofoutput growth and employment elasticity (respon-siveness to economic growth) in the formal seg-ment so that the rate of growth of formal employ-ment exceeds the rate of labour force growth.Substantial investment is also needed which can beprovided by international policies that direct aid toenable poorer countries to sustain investment ratesabove domestic savings rates. Debt relief andhumanitarian aid do not represent capital invest-ment so are not considered substitutes for aid forinvestment. Another basic objective should be totransform the developing world brain drain into a‘brain circulation’ that benefits both developingand developed countries by creating a system offixed-term migration of highly-skilled labour.

The global employment challenge suggests thatthe decline in global poverty would have beengreater had trade growth been accompanied by a

rise in investment rates in all or at least a majorityof the countries considered. Thus policies forreducing poverty should be aimed at stimulatinginvestment and output growth in the non-formalsegment and ensuring employment-intensivegrowth in the formal segment. Primary educationand primary health care must also be a central pol-icy objective as imperatives for development.

What about the developed world?Unemployment began rising in the developed

world in the 1970s and has not been significantlyreversed since by new policies. The unemploymentrate often exceeds 5 per cent in more than half ofthe developed world. Another feature has been thegrowth of non-standard jobs in the shape of part-time and temporary employment in some Euro-pean countries – 20 per cent part time and over 10per cent temporary in eight of the countries stud-ied.

A central feature of labour market developmentin developed countries since 1990 has been the per-sistence of a wide gap between the low- and high-skilled in terms of employment, with little demandfor low-skilled labour. Policies to reduce the per-sistence of unemployment have proved ineffectiveand wrongly focused. The dwindling demand forlow-skilled labour must be explained; if there wereno skill bias in labour demand, unemploymentwould have disappeared in all categories of labour.Skills-based technological change and globaliza-tion have brought a process of structural changeleading to job losses for low-skilled labour in agri-culture and manufacturing. Changes in labourmarket policy that see governments directly partic-ipating in job creation by expanding public servic-es and collaboration with the private sector onapprenticeships are suggested as future policies.

The low rate of labour force participation posesthe main problem in CEE countries. It affects low-skilled workers 40 to 50 per cent more than high-

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skilled workers. There is also a long-term highunemployment rate often lasting a year or more.The report suggests two policy objectives. First,employment intensity of economic growth shouldbe increased to avoid the situation of joblessgrowth. Although most CEE countries achievedrapid economic growth after 1994, it was associat-ed with falling or stagnant labour demand. Second,employability of low- and medium-skilled workerswho have been made redundant by structuralchanges during the periods of economic contrac-tion and the following recovery should beincreased.

There is limited data available on the employ-ment situation in CIS countries and available datasuch as labour force surveys do not always provideunemployment rate estimates. This leads to anunderestimation of unemployment and labourforce participation rate. A massive growth crisis hastriggered a decline in labour demand in CIS coun-tries. However, this is not matched by a propor-tionate increase in unemployment as the decline inlabour force participation rate adjusted laboursupply to meet demand, affected particularly bysubstantial emigration of the working-age popula-tion from many CIS countries during 1992-2002.Although recent economic growth in CIS countrieshas been led by industry and services, employmentelasticity has been negative or insignificant. Theindustry is not employment intensive becausegrowth in this sector relies on extractive industries,not manufacturing ones. The three basic objectivesproposed for the region are to:●● Increase employment elasticity in the non-agri-

cultural, services sector●● Promote employment-intensive industrialization●● Transition from large-scale agriculture to house-

hold farming systems

What policies for the future? The report calls for international policy to focus

on two main objectives. First, ‘aid for investment’

to the least developed countries providing thefinancial resources required for infrastructural andemployment-growth programmes. Second, thedevelopment of a global framework for interna-tional migration to create a transparent system offixed-term migration to counter the effects of thebrain drain from South to North, and to guaranteethe same rights and working conditions formigrants and non-migrants, while generating for-eign exchange earnings and reducing surpluslabour in the migrants’ homelands.

National policies in developing countries mustfocus on activating two basic objectives: a rate ofemployment growth in the formal sector that ishigher than that of the labour force itself, and asubstantially positive labour productivity growthrate in the rest of the economy. Policies in devel-oped countries will need to focus on the problemsof low-skilled workers in the face of rapid skill-biased technological change.

The issue of jobless growth in many CEE andCIS countries also needs to be tackled with policiesencouraging the growth of employment-intensivemarket services, developing new institutions formanaging infrastructure and the transformation ofthe agricultural sector through credits and trainingfor self-employment. There is also considerablescope for industrialization and development ofnatural resources.

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F E A T U R E S

P L A N E T W O R K A R O U N D T H E C O N T I N E N T S M E D I A S H E L FN E W S

P L A N E T W O R K A REVIEW OF TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN LABOUR ISSUES

MMuullttiinnaattiioonnaallss aaddddrreessss ssoocciiaall aanndd eennvviirroonnmmeennttaall iissssuueessBBuussiinneessss eetthhiiccss rreessoonnaatteess mmoorree ssttrroonnggllyy tthhaann eevveerr iinn ttooddaayy’’ss gglloobbaall mmaarrkkeettppllaaccee.. CCoonnssuummeerrssaarree iinnccrreeaassiinnggllyy qquueessttiioonniinngg wwhheerree pprroodduuccttss aanndd sseerrvviicceess ccoommee ffrroomm,, wwhheetthheerr tthheeyy aarree pprroo--dduucceedd aanndd ddeelliivveerreedd iinn ssoocciiaallllyy aanndd eennvviirroonnmmeennttaallllyy ssoouunndd wwaayyss.. PPllaanneett WWoorrkk llooookkss aatt wwhhaatttthhee pprreessss iiss ssaayyiinngg aabboouutt mmeeaassuurreess ttaakkeenn bbyy mmuullttiinnaattiioonnaall eenntteerrpprriisseess,, ggoovveerrnnmmeennttss,, oorrggaannii--zzaattiioonnss,, iinnvveessttoorrss aanndd iinnnnoovvaattoorrss oonn hhooww ttoo ccrreeaattee aanndd pprroommoottee eetthhiiccaall aanndd ssuussttaaiinnaabbllee bbuussii--nneessss pprraaccttiicceess wwoorrllddwwiiddee..

■ Following a meeting in Islamabadbetween Amar Lan, Advisor to thePrime Minister on Minorities Affairs,and political representatives from Aus-tria, Germany, the Netherlands andPoland, the multinational companies ofthese countries have pledged US$30billion to invest in Pakistan’s energyand other sectors. The investment willfund coal mining, wind energy and gasturbine projects. Projects to improvethe education, health and tourismtraining centres will also be launched.This joint venture between local andinternational companies is hoped tocreate one million jobs within Pakistanand another million abroad. Othercompanies from Canada, the UnitedStates and United Arab Emirates arealso looking to invest in new housingschemes in the country. (AssociatedPress of Pakistan, 4 March 2008)

■ The biomimicry design movementis gaining popularity and publicity as itinspires companies to look to nature ingreening their businesses. Author ofBiomimicry: Innovation inspired by

nature and Nature’s 100 best technolo-gies and a Time magazine environmen-tal hero of 2007, Janine Benyus is thedriving force behind the biomimicrymovement. The design method studiesthe natural world and mimics it in cre-ating non-polluting, energy-efficientmanufacturing technologies. Benyus’sconsultancy firm, the BiomimicryGuild, works with engineers anddesigners to translate these ideas into acorporate, commercial context. “Weoften find ourselves being asked notjust how to green a product but how tobegin greening a whole company,” saysBenyus. The Guild’s clients includeGeneral Electric, Hewlett-Packard,Interface and NASA among others. Ithelped convert Interface’s environmen-tally harmful textile manufacturingpractices into a US$1.3 billion model ofsustainability. Many other companieshave developed innovative designsinspired from nature. One is the 2005

Ford’s Volvo Division’s anti-collisionsystem based on the way locusts’ neuro-logical mechanism allows them toswarm without crashing into oneanother. (Business Week, 11 February2008)

■ RWE Innogy, a renewable energyexpertise plant of the RWE Group andthe REpower Systems Group, an inter-national engineering company manu-facturing wind turbines, have signed aMemorandum of Understanding(MoU). This provides for a negotiationof frameworks involving 450 offshoreand onshore wind turbines to be man-ufactured and delivered by REpowerfrom 2010 for the subsequent four tosix years. Wind power is produced inlarge-scale wind farms connected toelectrical grids, as well as in individualturbines for providing electricity to iso-lated locations. While wind power is arenewable energy source, there are

Janine Benyus, promoting the marvels of the natural world for industrial design

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many controversies related to the eco-nomic and environmental costs andhigh capital of wind farms. (EnergyBusiness Review, 22 February 2008)

■ The exploitation of children intobacco farms in Malawi goes back tothe start of commercial production oftobacco in the country in 1889. Today,multinational tobacco companies inthe region are starting to invest inagreements with NGOs and designanti-child labour projects as an effortto increase their social responsibility.Tobacco companies including AllianceOne, Africa Leaf, Premium and BritishAmerican Tobacco are sponsoring theEliminating Child Labour in TobaccoGrowing Foundation (ECLT). Theproject is run by Together EnsuringChildren Security (TECS) trust.Although the Foundation is not with-out its share of critics, the TECS Pro-gram Director Limbani Kakhome saysthat while the project may not directlystop child labour, it will eventually bet-ter social conditions that will diminishthe problem. Malawi has ratified theILO Conventions Nos. 138 and 182, theformer setting the minimum workingage, and the latter outlawing childlabour. (Corpwatch.org, 25 February2008)

■ In order to improve trade benefitsto coffee farmers from developingcountries, international buyers and

roasters are moving to buy the cropdirectly from farmers. The East AfricanFine Coffees Association (EAFCA)have signed an agreement with inter-national buyers Starbucks and Neu-mann Group to reduce the number ofmiddlemen in the coffee supply chain.EAFCA Executive Director PhilipGitao says: “The aim of the agreementis to help member countries developquality speciality coffees, train, andlink them to the buyers after it ispacked ready for consumption.” Gitaosays that this agreement gives farmers abeneficial deal to earn a good price,improve living standards, aid in pover-ty reduction and increase economicdevelopment. (allAfrica.com, 26 Febru-ary 2008)

■ Representatives of cooperatives,NGOs and governments of ten ASEANcountries met in Quezon City, Philip-pines to discuss women’s entrepreneur-ship and poverty alleviation. The con-ference, “Empowering ASEAN womenthrough micro-enterprise developmentin Co-ops” presented developmentprojects initiated by the Asian Womenin the Cooperative DevelopmentForum (AWF) and the ASEAN Forum(AF) on women’s empowerment,poverty reduction through entrepre-neurship development and the applica-tion of information and communica-

tion technology within the region. Avariety of topics dealing with women’sentrepreneurship were addressed, suchas fair trade, information and technol-ogy services and cooperatives. (Philip-pine Information Agency, 24 February2008)

■ Dominican University in Californiais starting a new study programme. TheSustainable Enterprise Certificate isoffered to individuals who have com-pleted an MBA and professionals withseveral years of management experi-ence. The certificate helps participantsunderstand present business sustain-ability issues and solutions. ProgramCoordinator Dr. Matthew Heim says,“We will not re-teach the basics of busi-ness and management. Our curriculumwill provide managers with the rightmix of theory and experiential learningthat will enable them to tackle today’ssustainability challenges.” Samplecourse titles include: “Critical Thinkingfor Business Redesign”; “Social Impactsof Enterprises”; “Environmental Per-formance Leadership”; and “ThrivingRegenerative Enterprise”. (Ascribe.org,22 February 2008)

■ A joint investment by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft with the Invest-ment, Industry and Information Tech-nology Ministry was started in 2004 tobridge the digital divide. This has givenbirth to the 8th Community Technolo-gy Learning Centre (CTLC). The newcentre, located in Valletta, Malta, willprovide free training courses in Infor-mation and Communication Technol-ogy. “Digital divide” is a term used todescribe the gap between people withaccess to digital and information tech-nology and those without. The globaldigital divide reflects existing economicdivisions and even widens the gap. Intoday’s world where education, skillsand resources and hence economicgrowth rely on information technology,such initiatives are increasingly impor-tant. (The Malta Independent, 3 March2008)

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Microinsurance

A new partnership between the ILOand the Bill and Melinda Gates Founda-tion aims to develop new kinds of insur-ance and improve existing products topromote decent work for tens of mil-lions of low-income people in the devel-oping world. The US$34 million GatesFoundation grant will help create theMicroinsurance Innovation Facility, aone-of-a-kind, five-year initiative thatwill provide grants and technical assis-tance to dozens of organizations servingthe poor.

GENEVA – Over the course of the next threeyears, the Microinsurance Innovation Facilitywill issue bi-annual requests for proposals andprovide funding to pilot new insurance prod-ucts, improve efficiency in the field, and usetechnology to create new products that bettermeet people’s needs. The facility will also traintechnical specialists to help replicate successfulmodels.

The effort is part of the Bill and MelindaGates Foundation’s Financial Services for the

Poor initiative, which is working with partners todevelop and employ innovative ways to bring awide range of financial services, includingmicroinsurance, to people living in poverty andthroughout the developing world. Microinsur-ance includes a range of products that can helpworkers manage economic hardship brought onby situations such as drought, hospitalization, ora death in the family.

Microinsurance can be used as a strategy toextend social protection coverage to excludedpersons, such as workers in the informal econo-my or the rural poor, and contributes to moreinclusive insurance markets. Through the facili-ty’s grantees, by 2012 at least 25 million peopleliving in poverty will have access to insurancecoverage that they otherwise would not have. Inaddition, the facility will conduct research toquantify the impact of the expanded availabilityand use, in order to guide future investments inthe microinsurance industry.

More specifically, the new MicroinsuranceInnovation Facility will provide grants and tech-nical assistance to support the development ofvaluable insurance products for low-income andrural households; encourage the emergence ofinstitutional models and partnerships that effec-tively deliver insurance to large volumes of low-income women and men; and promote marketeducation to help low-income consumers appre-ciate the utility of insurance and identify highvalue products.

By successfully tackling these three themes,this facility will be able to make a major impacton the insurance providers and social protectionschemes that serve the low-income market. Itsgrantees will also dramatically improve the abil-ity of their customers or members to managerisks and thus enable them to break the perpetu-al cycle of poverty.

According to the MicroInsurance Centre, aUS-based consulting firm, there were an estimat-ed 246 risk-taking providers of microinsurancecovering over 78 million lives in the 100 poorestcountries in 2006.

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ILO and Gates Foundation join forces to develop range ofinsurance products in developing countries

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Bill and Melinda Gates, whoseFoundation grant will helpcreate the ILO MicroinsuranceInnovation Facility


“Although these numbers may seem impres-sive, they pale in comparison to the billions ofpoor women and men for whom microinsurancewould be an appropriate contributor to their riskmanagement strategy. Furthermore, few of themicroinsurance products that are available pro-vide sufficient value to substantially protect thepoor,” says Bernd Balkenhol, head of the ILO’sSocial Finance Programme.

The new facility is led by the Social FinanceProgramme, the ILO’s microfinance focal point,which promotes financial policies and appropri-ate financial services to create decent jobs andreduce the vulnerability of workers. Microfi-nance, including microinsurance, is an impor-tant aspect of the ILO’s work and a key outcomein its next biennial plan. The Social Finance Pro-gramme recently co-published a new studywhich provides practitioners and policy makerswith guidance on how to deal with the issue ofbalancing business and poverty reduction bydefining criteria for supporting microfinanceinstitutions.

“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isproud to partner with the ILO in efforts to servemillions of people with great needs and fewresources,” said Bob Christen, director of theFoundation’s Financial Services for the Poor ini-

tiative. “We hope the Microinsurance InnovationFacility will catalyse dozens of new, innovativeapproaches to offering and delivering microin-surance services. Through the ILO, theirgrantees, and the Microinsurance InnovationFacility, we are committed to learning moreabout the impact and value of insurance for peo-ple in developing countries.”

ABOUT THE GATES FOUNDATION

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developingcountries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance tolift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeksto ensure that all people – especially those with the fewest resources – haveaccess to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based inSeattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and co-chair William H.Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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Patty Stonesifer, Gates Foundation CEO, meets young African girls

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Global EmploymentTrends 2008

Global economic turbulencecould generate 5 million more

unemployed in 2008

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GENEVA – The global labour market picture haschanged dramatically over the past year. From 2007,when sound global GDP growth of more than 5 per centled to a “stabilization” of global labour markets withmore people in work, a net increase of 45 million newjobs and only a slight increase in the number of peopleunemployed, to a total of 189.9 million persons world-wide, 2008 may be in marked contrast.

Significantly, the GET2008 report noted that the reduc-tion in the growth in developed economies attributed tocredit market turmoil and higher oil prices so far had

been “compensated for in the rest of the world”, espe-cially in Asia, where economic and job growth remainedstrong. However, it also warned that an expected slow-down in growth during 2008 could increase the globalunemployment rate to 6.1 per cent, with a resultingabsolute increase of at least 5 million unemployedworldwide.

OOtthheerr kkeeyy ffiinnddiinnggss ooff tthhee GGEETT rreeppoorrtt• Global economy growth of 5.2 per cent created an

estimated 45 million new jobs in 2007, but failed tohave any significant impact on the growth of unem-ployment. Overall, 61.7 per cent of the global popula-tion of working age – or an estimated 3 billion people– were employed in 2007. Although the global unem-ployment rate remained virtually constant at 6 percent, that meant an estimated 189.9 million people,compared to 187 in 2006, were unemployed world-wide in 2007 2/.

• Despite growth in the economy and jobs, the world-wide deficit in decent jobs – especially for the poor –is “massive”. The ILO said five out of 10 people in theworld are in vulnerable employment, either contribut-ing family workers or own-account workers with ahigher risk of being unprotected. In developing coun-tries these two categories are most likely to workinformally and hence have jobs that leave them vul-nerable to poverty and risks such as low earnings,dangerous working conditions and lack of healthinsurance. The ILO said an estimated 487 millionworkers – or 16.4 per cent of all workers – still don’tearn enough to lift themselves and their familiesabove the US$1 per person, per day poverty line while1.3 billion workers – 43.5 per cent – still live below theUS$2 per day threshold.

• The service sector continued to grow during 2007, fur-ther surpassing agriculture as the world’s most preva-lent source of employment. The service sector nowprovides 42.7 per cent of the world’s jobs, comparedto agriculture which provides 34.9 per cent. Theindustrial sector, which had seen a slight downwardtrend between 1997 and 2003, has continued a ratherslow upward trend in recent years, representing 22.4per cent of global jobs.

RReeggiioonnaall ttrreennddssThe GET observed that the Middle East and North Africastill had the highest unemployment rates at 11.8 and 10.9

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1 Global employment

trends 2008. Geneva,

ILO.


per cent respectively in 2007, followed byLatin America & the Caribbean, Central &South Eastern Europe (non-EU) & the Com-monwealth of Independent States (CIS) at 8.5per cent. The situation in the DevelopedEconomies & European Union (EU) seemed tobe stagnating, the ILO report said, with jobgrowth at its lowest in the last five years andunemployment up by 600,000 over 2006.

The report said it appeared that, on currentinformation, the initial impact of the credit cri-sis on Developed Economies & EU growthwould result in an estimated 240,000 fewernew jobs in the region. However, the ILOanalysis also indicated that from a global per-spective this downward tendency in thedeveloped economies would be “offset by therest of the world”, largely due to strong eco-nomic and jobs growth in Asia.

It also said that South Asia was the leaderin jobs growth during 2007, contributing 28per cent of the nearly 45 million jobs createdduring the year worldwide. At the same time,the region has the highest share of vulnerableemployment, much of which reflects the poorquality of jobs created. More than seven outof 10 people are either own-account workersor contributing family workers, carrying ahigher risk of being unprotected, without

social security and without a voice at work.In terms of vulnerable employment as a

share of total employment, South Asia, with arate of 77.2 per cent, was followed by sub-Saharan Africa at 72.9 per cent, South-EastAsia & the Pacific at 59.4 per cent, East Asiaat 55.7 per cent, Latin America & theCaribbean at 33.2 per cent, the Middle East at32.2 per cent and North Africa at 30.7 percent.

The report said East Asia appeared to beon its way to becoming a middle incomeregion, as sustained productivity growth hadincreased incomes and helped lift millions ofpeople out of poverty. The ILO said the esti-mated share of East Asian workers living withtheir families below the US$2 per day povertyline dropped to 35.6 per cent today from 59.1per cent 10 years ago, while the percentageliving below US$1 per day had decreased to8.7 per cent from 18.8 per cent over the sameperiod.

Sub-Saharan Africa had by far the largestshare of working poor – people who are inwork but unable to lift themselves out ofpoverty – and the gap with other regions con-tinued to increase. Over half of thoseemployed still do not earn enough to lift them-selves and their families above the US$1 dol-

lar per day poverty line, the ILO said, addingthat more than eight out of 10 workers wereliving below the US$2 per day threshold.

The report also noted that although theMiddle East saw a considerable increase inthe employment-to-population ratio the shareof people of working age who were employedincreased from 46 per cent in 1997 to 50.1 percent in 2007. At the same time, the MiddleEast was also the only region where labourproductivity decreased within the same peri-od.

In North Africa, where productivity levelsincreased by more than 16 per cent in the last10 years, extreme working poverty is nowalmost eradicated at 1.6 per cent of theemployed population.

The study indicated positive developmentsin most labour market indicators in Central &South East Europe & CIS, where, in recentyears, vulnerable employment decreased. Aslight increase of the employment-to-popula-tion ratio also indicated a better use of theproductive potential of the working-age pop-ulation.

The GET reported that Latin America & theCaribbean was the only region where vulner-able employment has increased – from 31.4 to33.2 per cent of total employment over thelast ten years, with an increase of job cre-ation in the services sector. This finding isconsistent with indications of an increase inthe size of the informal economy in thisregion.

For further details please seewww.ilo.org/trends.

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International Women’s Day 2008

With more and more women enter-ing the workplace – many in vulnerablejobs – investing in decent work forwomen takes on new urgency. The ILOmarked International Women’s Day2008 with a new report and a panel dis-cussion on the value of investing indecent work for women. In the face ofcurrent labour market trends, the day’smessage was clear: investing in decentwork for women is not only right, butsmart.

GENEVA – More women are working thanever before, but they are also more likely thanmen to get low-productivity, low-paid and vul-nerable jobs with no social protection, basicrights nor voice at work. That’s the message of anew ILO report issued for InternationalWomen’s Day.

Global employment trends for women2 said thenumber of employed women grew by almost 200million over the last decade, to reach 1.2 billionin 2007 compared to 1.8 billion men. However,the number of unemployed women also grewfrom 70.2 to 81.6 million over the same period.

The ILO hosted a high-level discussion bywomen who have made a mark in the world of

finance and eminent trade unionists, focusing onthe value of investment in women’s develop-ment. Participating in the discussion were Ms.Evelyn Oputu, Managing Director, Bank ofIndustry and former Executive Director of FirstNational Bank, Nigeria; Ms. Michaela Walsh,Founder of Women’s World Banking and thefirst woman manager of Merrill Lynch Interna-tional, United States; Ms. Rupa Manel Silva,Founder of the Women’s Development ServiceCooperative Society/ Women’s Bank of SriLanka; and Ms. Agnes Jongerius, President of theTrade Union Confederation of the Netherlands,and Vice President of the International TradeUnion Confederation.

The new ILO report said improvements in thestatus of women in labour markets throughoutthe world have not substantially narrowed gen-der gaps in the workplace. The share of womenin vulnerable employment – either unpaid con-tributing family workers or own-account work-ers, rather than wage and salaried work –decreased from 56.1 to 51.7 per cent since 1997.However the burden of vulnerability is stillgreater for women than men, especially in theworld’s poorest regions.

Other key findings

●● Worldwide, the female unemployment ratestood at 6.4 per cent compared to the male rateof 5.7 per cent.

●● Fewer than 70 women are economically activefor every 100 men globally. Remaining outsidethe labour force is often not a choice but animposition. It is likely that women would optfor remunerated work outside the home if itbecame acceptable to do so.

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To read more about investing in Decent Work forwomen and the views of the panel, seewww.ilo.org: “International Women’s Day 2008 –Smart women, right decisions: a recipe for decentwork” and other features including a slide show,fact sheet and more background.

2 Global employment

trends for women, March

2008. Geneva, ILO.

Ms. Michaela Walsh,Ms. Rupa Manel Silva,Mr. Juan Somavia,Ms. Evelyn Oputu,Ms. Agnes Jongerius


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●● At the global level, the female employment-to-population ratio – which indicates how mucheconomies are able to take advantage of the pro-ductive potential of their working-age popula-tion – was 49.1 per cent in 2007 compared to amale employment-to-population ratio of 74.3per cent.

●● Over the past decade, the service sector hasovertaken agriculture as the prime employer ofwomen. In 2007, 36.1 per cent of employedwomen worked in agriculture and 46.3 per centin services. In comparison, male sectoral shareswere 34.0 per cent in agriculture and 40.4 percent in services.

●● More women are gaining access to education,but equality in education is still far from realityin some regions.

New policies for promoting female employment

Broadening access for women to employmentin an enlarged scope of industries and occupa-tions will be important to enhancing opportuni-ties for them in the labour market, says thereport. Society’s ability to accept new economicroles for women and the economy’s ability tocreate decent jobs to accommodate them are thekey prerequisites to improving labour marketoutcomes for women, as well as for economicdevelopment as a whole.

“Access to labour markets and to decentemployment is crucial to achieving genderequality,” says Evy Messell, Director of the ILO’sBureau for Gender Equality, which hosted the

discussion on International Women’s Day. “Yetwomen have to overcome many discriminatoryobstacles when seeking jobs. Societies cannotafford to ignore the potential of female labour inreducing poverty, and need to search for innova-tive ways of lowering economic, social and polit-ical barriers. Providing women an equal footingin the workplace is not just right, but smart.”

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The Government of the Common-wealth of the Bahamas has ratified thehistoric Maritime Labour Convention(MLC), 2006 of the ILO. The movemarks a major step toward achievingthe goal of bringing the Conventioninto force in the next few years andbrings the ILO closer to meeting therequirement for entry into force of theConvention, namely its ratification byat least 30 ILO member States with atotal share of at least 33 per cent ofworld gross tonnage.

NASSAU, Bahamas – Sometimes called the“super convention”, the MLC saw governments,shipowners and seafarers agree on comprehen-sive international requirements for seafarers’working and living conditions and to promotequality shipping in the rapidly growing maritimesector. Aimed at protecting the world’s 1.2 mil-lion or more seafarers, it addresses the evolvingrealities and needs of an industry that handles 90per cent of the world’s trade.

Ratification makes the Bahamas the thirdmajor shipping country in the world, afterLiberia and the Republic of Marshall Islands, toratify the Convention adopted by the 94th Inter-national Labour Conference (Maritime) inGeneva in February 2006. The Bahamas is thethird largest flag State in the world.

“This provides a clear indication of the con-tinued commitment of the Bahamas to interna-

tional labour standards and the ILO,” said Ms.Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, Director of theILO’s International Labour Standards Depart-ment, on receiving the instrument of ratificationfrom the Bahamian authorities. “It illustrates theleadership role of the Bahamas in the maritimeindustry and its determination to ensure qualityshipping based on a strong socio-economicfoundation and respect for the environment anddecent conditions of work for seafarers.”

“The Bahamas had an important role in thedevelopment and final adoption of this ‘superconvention’,” said Senator the Honourable DionA. Foulkes, Minister of Maritime Affairs andLabour, “and I am personally proud that as Min-ister with responsibility for both portfolios, weare able to ratify this Convention at this time. TheBahamas has a demonstrated commitment toensuring that ships flying the Bahamas flag arehigh-quality shipping operations. This necessari-ly includes ensuring conditions of decent workfor those that work on Bahamas registered ships.”

The ground-breaking Convention sets out aseafarers’“bill of rights” and is intended to be the“third pillar” in the international shipping regu-lation complementing the major maritime Con-ventions of the International Maritime Organi-zation (IMO) on environmental protection andship safety and security. It establishes a strongcompliance and enforcement mechanism basedon flag State inspection and certification of sea-farers’ working and living conditions. This issupported by port State inspection of these shipsto ensure ongoing compliance between inspec-tions.

The Convention also contains provisionsallowing it to keep in step with the needs of theindustry and help secure universal applicationand enforcement. It sets minimum requirementsfor seafarers to work on a ship and contains pro-visions on conditions of employment, hours ofwork and rest, accommodation, recreational facil-ities, food and catering, health protection, medicalcare, welfare and social security protection.

See also Media Shelf, p. 46, for a description of theCompendium of Maritime Labour Instruments tobe published in July 2008.

Ratification by Bahamas gives new impetus to campaignMaritime Labour Convention

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The Honourable Dion A.Foulkes, Minister ofMaritime Affairs and Labour,with H. E. Theodore BrentSymonette, Deputy PrimeMinister and Minister ofForeign Affairs, and Ms. Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, Director of the International Labour Standards Department ofthe ILO.


ILO Governing Body concludes 301st Session

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GENEVA – In his first address to a UN specialized agency sincebecoming President of the World Bank, Mr. Zoellick cited increas-ing ties with the ILO in pursuit of “an inclusive and sustainableglobalization” and raised a broad range of other issues of jointconcern to both organizations, including job creation, labourrights and other elements of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.Speaking to the Working Party on the Social Dimension of Global-ization, he said his organization, the ILO and other internationalagencies should intensify efforts to forge a globalization that can“help to overcome poverty, to enhance growth with care for theenvironment and to create individual opportunity and hope”.

“We welcome your experience and insight,” he said, noting thatthe World Bank’s agenda “connects quite well with the DecentWork Agenda”. He also said the Bank was “very pleased … to tryto build a closer working relationship with the ILO across an agen-da that also involves other partners” and to promote cooperationwith the ILO’s tripartite constituents in what Governing BodyChairman H.E. Mr. Dayan Jayatilleka of Sri Lanka called “partner-ship through dialogue”.

“We have a vision of an inclusive and sustainable globaliza-tion”, he said. “What this comes down to, at the end of the day, ispeople. It’s trying to improve the lot of people across the globe.And that requires quality jobs, it requires better social conditions,and it requires opportunities for individual development in achiev-ing aspirations… We can’t leave people behind.”

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia cited increased coopera-tion between the ILO and World Bank, and noted that the ILO tri-partite members could provide a “vital conduit” for extendingefforts to create jobs and reduce poverty at all levels of the worldof work. He said “social dialogue is particularly important in diffi-cult times and a key component in finding solutions” and that tri-partism could help bring together governments, workers andemployers as “social capital” for addressing the challenges ofglobalization and decent work.

The exchange with Mr. Zoellick took place as part of a discus-sion of an ILO paper analysing the global financial crisis, itsimpact on prospects for Decent Work and possible policyresponses.

The Governing Body also examined the situation of forcedlabour in Myanmar, reviewed the 2006 Tripartite Agreement onFreedom of Association and Democracy signed by the represen-tatives of the Government, employers and trade unions of Colom-bia and discussed action taken by the Government of Belarus toimplement the recommendations of the 2004 ILO Commission ofInquiry with respect to freedom of association and the right toorganize, and approved the 349th Report of the ILO Committee onFreedom of Association, drawing special attention to the cases ofColombia and Myanmar. In addition, it moved to tackle the issue ofdecent work for domestic workers by placing the issue on theagenda of the ILO’s International Labour Conference in 2010.

(For a full report on the discussions and decisions, seewww.ilo.org/governing body)

All smiles at the ILO Governing Body: H.E. Mr. Dayan Jayatillekawith Mr. Robert Zoellick

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For more information, please contactthe ILO Regional Office for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean in Lima,at phone: +511 6150300; fax: +511 6150400 or e-mail: [email protected]

Moving the DecentWork Agenda forwardin the Arab region■ Addressing the 35th Session ofthe Arab Labour Conference inSharm el Sheikh, Egypt, ILO Direc-tor-General Juan Somavia under-scored the need to ensure that thebenefits of economic growth aretranslated into social justice for thepeople of the Arab region. Mr.Somavia emphasized that “This cur-rent model of globalization is notdelivering for ordinary people. Weare seeing disparities growing, dis-content rising, and enemies ofhuman security in every society fan-ning the flames of discord.”

The Conference, attended bymore than 500 participants, broughttogether high-level government,employer and worker representa-tives from the ALO’s 22 memberStates. In launching a two-year planof action with the Arab LabourOrganization (ALO), Mr. Somaviahighlighted the revitalized leader-ship of ALO Director-GeneralAhmed Luqman. The joint plan tar-gets critical regional challengesincluding generating jobs especiallyfor youth, expanding social protec-tion and social dialogue, and pro-moting rights at work. The creationof decent work for all is an urgentquestion in a region faced with theneed to create around 100 millionjobs over the next 20 years.

For more information, please contactthe ILO Office for the EuropeanUnion and the Benelux countries inBrusselsphone: +32 02 736 5942;fax: +32 02 735 4825 or e-mail: [email protected]

Earthquake in Peru:14,800 jobs lost■ A joint report by the ILO, theUnited Nations Development Pro-gramme (UNDP) and the PeruvianMinistry of Labour estimates that14,800 jobs were lost in theprovinces of Ica, Chincha and Piscofollowing the earthquake of August2007. This represents a 7.6% drop inemployment, with women the hard-est hit by job losses. While the pro-duction capacity of large companieswas quickly restored, the earthquakehas had long-lasting consequencesfor smaller businesses and the self-employed. In Ica region, for exam-ple, 83.7% of houses were damagedand 65% were completely destroyed.This has a significant impact on theinformal economy since 19% offamilies carried out some form ofeconomic activity from their homes;this type of activity has fallen by86% since the earthquake. The ILOis helping victims of the earthquakesthrough 13 projects for removingrubble and quickly repairing roadinfrastructure.

EC becomes ILO main partner in development aid■ In 2007, for the first time ever,the European Commission becamethe ILO’s main partner in imple-menting development aid activities.The funds awarded by the Commis-sion allow the ILO to carry out anumber of projects, including theprotection of migrant workers andthe fight against human traffickingin the Gulf countries; developingemployment and skills in Vietnam;reducing poverty by expanding tradeand employment in five ACP(African, Caribbean and Pacific)countries; bolstering social protec-tion in the informal economy anddeveloping professional training inBangladesh. A new agreement signedbetween the European Commissionand the ILO at the end of 2007 willenable the funding of several projectsto fight child labour through educa-tion in 12 ACP countries.

A REGULAR REVIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOURORGANIZATION AND ILO-RELATED ACTIVITIES AND EVENTSTAKING PLACE AROUND THE WORLD

A R O U N D T H E C O N T I N E N T S

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For more information, please contactthe ILO Regional Office for the ArabStates in Beirut, at phone:+961.1.752.400, fax: +961.1.752.405or e-mail: [email protected]

Green jobs,globalization and climate change■ ILO Director-General JuanSomavia highlighted the potentialfor the creation of environmentallyfriendly green jobs in a panel discus-sion and press conference at theGoverning Council/Global Ministe-rial Environment Forum organizedby the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme in Monaco. More than100 ministers from across the globeattended the Global MinisterialEnvironment Forum (GMEF) – theworld’s forum for environment min-isters – alongside senior figures fromindustry and economics, science,local government, civil society, tradeunions and intergovernmental bod-ies.

“The challenge that brings ustogether is about much more than

the environment. It’s about the needfor a profound transformation inthe way we produce and consume –and the commitment to workingtogether to enable the economy andsociety to effectively make that tran-sition,” Mr. Somavia said. “Theobjective of the Green Jobs initiativeis to promote and identify the manytechnological innovations, invest-ment opportunities, enterprise andquality job creation potential of asustainable development path.”

Global alliance againstforced labour■ In February, the Vienna ForumAgainst Human Traffickinggenerated new momentum for aglobal alliance aimed at abolishingforced labour in the next decade,with strong support from employer

and labour representatives.Organized by the “UN.GIFT”coalition of six intergovernmentalagencies, the Forum showeduniversal agreement on the need toharness international outrageagainst trafficking and forced labourinto an international allianceproposed by the ILO. According tothe ILO, at least 2.4 million women,children and men are traffickedinto severe forms of labour andsexual exploitation in destinationcountries, in mainstream industriesas well as the informal economy,generating an estimated US$32billion in annual profits. At theForum, the ILO organized well-attended sessions on supply chainmanagement, the demand for forcedlabour and sexual exploitation,and the roles of employers’organizations, businesses and tradeunions in combating trafficking,where participants discussedmeasures to prevent humantrafficking.

For more information, please contactthe ILO’s Special Action Programmeagainst Forced Labour,e-mail: [email protected]

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Mr Achim Steiner with ILO Director-General Juan Somavia at the Global Ministerial EnvironmentForum in Monaco

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■ Freedom of Association in

practice: Lessons learned

Global Report under the follow-up

to the ILO Declaration on Funda-

mental Principles and Rights at

Work, 2008. International Labour

Conference, 97th Session 2008, Report 1 (B)

ISBN 978-92-2-119481-1. ILO, Geneva, 2008. US$30;

£17; €23; 35 Swiss francs. Also available in French

and Spanish.

This invaluable Global Report on freedom of

association and the right to collective bargaining

argues that achieving the goal of decent work for all

women and men in conditions of freedom, equity,

security and human dignity is only possible if they

can have a say in how this impacts on their work

and living conditions as well as on economic and

social development. It emphasizes the need for a

conducive environment in law and practice to facil-

itate collective bargaining and conflict resolution,

well-functioning labour administration, and strong

workers’ and employers’ organizations.

■ In defence of labour market

institutions

Janine Berg and David Kucera

(eds.)

ISBN 978-92-2-119319-7. ILO,

Geneva, 2008. US$95; £60; €80; 125

Swiss francs

This volume offers a valuable contribution to the

critically important debate on the merits of labour

market institutions, regulations and policies and

their economic costs. Challenging the conventional

wisdom that excessive labour market regulation

equates labour market rigidity and is detrimental to

growth and development, particularly in developing

countries, it offers economic and social reasons for

maintaining certain policies and standards, differen-

tiating between the needs and challenges of coun-

tries with varying levels of income.

■ The global employment

challenge

Ajit K. Ghose, Nomaan Majid,

Christoph Ernst

ISBN 978-92-2-120305-6. ILO,

Geneva, 2008. US$40; £22; €30; 50

Swiss francs

Offering groundbreaking analysis of the nature

and characteristics of employment and emerging

trends in the world today, this volume provides a

detailed and comprehensive picture of the serious

challenges faced by today’s policy-makers.

See this book featured on page 30.

■ Compendium of Maritime

Labour Instruments

ISBN 978-92-2-120454-1. ILO,

Geneva, 2008. US$30; £18; €25; 40

Swiss francs. Also available in

French and Spanish

This essential new reference source presents the

full text of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, along

with a collection of related standards, including the

Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention (Revised),

2003 (No. 185), the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007

(No. 188) and its accompanying Recommendation, and

the ILO’s fundamental Conventions and the Declara-

tion on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and

its follow-up.

■ Fundamental principles of

occupational health and safety

Second edition

Benjamin O. Alli

ISBN 978-92-2-120454-1. ILO,

Geneva, 2008. US$34.95; £16.95;

€25; 40 Swiss francs

Based on the provision defined in the “core” ILO

standards and instruments concerning occupation-

al health and safety (OHS), this practical guide to

developing effective OHS policies and programmes

focuses on key topics essential to promoting and

managing national and enterprise OHS systems.

This second edition covers new areas of OHS such

as the recent ILO standard on the promotion of OHS;

HIV/AIDS and the world of work, OHS management

systems, and new chemical safety information tools.

■ Guide for the preparation of

national action plans on youth

employment

Gianni Rosas and Giovanna

Rossignotti

ISBN 978-92-2-120616-3. ILO, Geneva, 2008.

US$12.95; £7; €10; 15 Swiss francs

This indispensable guide has been developed by

the ILO to assist governments, employers’ and

workers’ organizations as well as other relevant

stakeholders such as youth groups in preparing

National Action Plans on Youth Employment.

■ Eliminating discrimination

against indigenous and tribal

peoples in employment and occu-

pation

ISBN 978-92-2-120519-7. ILO,

Geneva, 2007.US$12; £7; €10; 15

Swiss francs

This guide to ILO Convention No. 111 provides

an important framework for promoting the rights of

indigenous women and men to equality and decent

work. A vital source of information for indigenous

peoples and their representatives and a tool for

engaging with policy and decision makers, as well

as for the broader development community, it high-

lights that indigenous peoples’ equal access to

decent work that respects their needs and aspira-

tions is not only a matter of human rights but crucial

to the attainment of international and national

development objectives.

■ Consolidated good prac-

tices in education and child

labour

ISBN 978-92-2-1220734-4. ILO,

Geneva, 2007.US$25; £15; €22; 35

Swiss francs.

This book presents some of the most important

good education and skills training practices identi-

fied by ILO-IPEC that can be used to form interven-

tion strategies to eliminate and prevent child labour.

It is a first step towards sharing ILO-IPEC’s vast

knowledge of the field and in linking the elimination

of child labour to the Education For All initiative.

■ Occupational Injuries Sta-

tistics from Household Surveys

and Establishment Surveys: An

ILO manual on methods

Karen Taswell and Peter Wing-

field-Digby

ISBN 978-92-2-120439-8. ILO, Geneva, 2008. US$45;

£25, €35; 55 Swiss francs.

Newly developed tools for collecting data on occu-

pational injuries to supplement the data compiled

through notification systems. Practical guidance,

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■ Toward managed flexibility: The revival of

labour inspection in the Latin world

Examining the role of labour inspection in the

context of the revival of labour market regula-

tion, Michael J. Piore and Andrew Schrank dis-

tinguish between the Latin model, where inspec-

tors have authority to tailor enforcement to

firms’ exigencies, and the less flexible United

States approach. The Latin model can reconcile

regulation with economic flexibility and trans-

form inspectors into the shock troops of a cam-

paign for decent work. But its vulnerability to

arbitrary behaviour on their part needs to be

addressed through: management of organiza-

tional cultures; exposure and systematization of

the tacit knowledge underpinning inspectors’

judgements; and research into the relationship

between labour standards and business prac-

tices.

■ Fixing minimum wage levels in developing

countries: Common failures and remedies

Some developing countries have set their

minimum wages too high or too low to constitute

a meaningful constraint on employers. Catherine

Saget’s article compares minimum wages

worldwide, proposes several ways of measuring

them in developing countries and discusses

whether they are effective thresholds in those

countries. The second part of the article consid-

ers the institutional factors leading countries to

set minimum wages at extreme levels. The

author concludes that the minimum wage is

used as a policy instrument to several ends –

wage negotiation, deflation and social dialogue

– which results in the absence of a wage floor,

weak collective bargaining, or non-compliance.

■ Continuity and change in the southern Euro-

pean social model

Maria Karamessini points out that over the

past 20 years or so, the southern European

model has undergone substantial change in

every way. Changes in industrial relations,

wage-setting and employment protection legis-

lation have tended to increase wage and labour

flexibility and restrict labour market segmenta-

tion. Changes within the welfare state have

sought to improve labour force skills, fill gaps in

social protection, reduce inequalities in social

security and contain social expenditure growth.

Yet institutional change has not eliminated the

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW VOL. 147 (2008), NO. 1

main features of this model: pronounced labour

market segmentation and familialism; however,

extremely low fertility rates are indicative of the

limits of familialism in the near future.

■ Do worker absences affect productivity? The

case of teachers

This article by Raegen T. Miller, Richard J.

Murnane and John B. Willett studies the impact

of teacher absences on education. Using data

spanning three academic years, about 285

teachers and 8,631 predominantly economically

disadvantaged students from a United States

urban school district, it tests assumptions that a

substantial portion of teachers’ absences is dis-

cretionary and that these absences reduce pro-

ductivity – students’ mathematics scores. Since

absent teachers are typically replaced by less

qualified substitutes, instructional intensity and

consistency may decline: ten days of teacher

absence reduce students’ achievement score by

about 3.3 per cent of a standard deviation –

enough to lower some students’ designation in

the state proficiency system and, thus, their

motivation to succeed.

explanations of the concepts, step-by-step approach,

model questionnaires and training materials.

■ Active labour market poli-

cies around the world: Coping with

the consequences of globalization

Second edition

Peter Auer, Ümit Efendioglu and

Janine Leschke

ISBN 978-92-2-120456-5. ILO, Geneva, 2008.

US$29.95; £18, €25; 40 Swiss francs.

Thoroughly revised and updated, this acclaimed

volume provides an authoritative account of how

ALMPs can help make globalization work better in

the interest of workers around the world. Includes a

new chapter on financing ALMPs.

■ From conflict to cooperation:

Labour market reforms that can

work in Nepal

Robert Kyloh

ISBN 978-92-2-120166-3. ILO, Gene-

va, and Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2008.

US$24.95; £12.95, €20; 30 Swiss francs.

Reviews the history of labour relations in Nepal

and considers criticisms of the existing industrial

relations system. Focusing on broad economic

developments since 1990, this book sheds light on

how labour legislation and labour institutions have

influenced investment, growth and jobs over the

long term.

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InternationalLabourOrganization

Better business - ILO

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