GENEVA (ILO) – Faced with the prospect of a prolonged global increase in unemployment, poverty and inequality and the continuing collapse of enterprises, the International Labour Organization (ILO) last week adopted a Global Jobs Pact designed to guide national and international policies aimed at stimulating economic recovery, generating jobs and providing protection to working people and their families.
An Indian girl cradles her sleepy brother in New Delhi . Sixty percent of India's workforce is self-employed, many of whom remain poor, and over 70 percent of the labour force in the formal and informal sectors combined is either illiterate or educated below the primary level of schooling according to NGOs. AFP PHOTO |
“Urgent action is required now to boost economic recovery and job creation whilst preparing for a greener, more balanced, fairer and sustainable global economy” said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, in a statement at the ILO’s annual session. “This pact provides a path crafted together by all members of the ILO and based on tried and tested policies.
The Global Jobs Pact was adopted following strong support voiced during a three-day ILO Global Jobs Summit by heads of state and government, vice-presidents and ministers of labour, worker and employer representatives and other leaders. At the same time, the summit also provided strong support for an enhanced involvement of the ILO in the G20, in follow-up to its meeting in London last April which, with regard to employment and social protection, called on the ILO “working with other relevant organizations, to assess the actions taken and those required for the future.”
“It is you, the actors of the real economy, that are going to take us out of this crisis,” Mr. Somavia told some of the 4,000 delegates from the 183-member State ILO attending the annual ILO conference. “You represent workers and families, employers and enterprises, and governments. World leaders have told us that change is needed, combining broad opportunity, jobs, protection of working people with the type of investment and growth that will create a long-term solution to this crisis. This is our challenge for today, our mandate for the future.”
The Global Jobs Pact amounts to the most urgent and wide-ranging response to an economic crisis ever adopted by the ILO, which marks its 90th anniversary this year. It calls on governments and organizations representing workers and employers to work together to collectively tackle the global jobs crisis through policies in line with the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.
The pact was adopted against a backdrop of a recent report by the ILO showing an unprecedented increase in unemployment globally and a persistence of very high levels of poverty. Mr. Somavia said the ILO estimated that even if an economic recovery began to take hold this year or the next, a global jobs crisis could linger for six to eight years. He also said that with 45 million new entrants to the global jobs market annually – most of them young women and men – the global economy would have to create some 300 million new jobs over the next five years just to go back to pre-crisis levels of unemployment.
The Global Jobs Pact proposes a range of crisis-response measures that countries can adapt to their specific needs and situation. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a portfolio of options based on successful examples, also designed to inform and support action at the multilateral level.
The Pact urges measures to retain persons in employment, to sustain enterprises and to accelerate employment creation and jobs recovery combined with social protection systems, in particular for the most vulnerable, integrating gender concerns on all measures.
The Pact also calls for the construction of a “stronger, more globally consistent supervisory and regulatory framework for the financial sector, so that it serves the real economy, promotes sustainable enterprises and decent work and better protects the savings and pensions of people.” It also urges cooperation to promote “efficient and well-regulated trade and markets that benefit all” and avoid protectionism. It further urges a shift to a low-carbon, environmentally-friendly economy that will help accelerate a jobs recovery.
The pact urges governments to consider options such as public infrastructure investment, special employment programmes, broadening of social protection and minimum wages. Particularly in developing countries, such measures can reduce poverty, increase demand and contribute to economic stability.
Donor countries and multilateral agencies are called on to consider providing funding, including existing crisis resources for the implementation of the Pact’s recommendations and policy options.
“Employers support the Global Jobs Pact, as a significant contribution to the policy responses necessary for recovery,” said Daniel Funes de Rioja, Employer Vice-Chairperson, Committee of the Whole on Crisis Responses. ”The joint global efforts of employers, trade unions and governments have identified realistic and practical approaches to addressing this crisis. Having agreed on the Global Jobs Pact the hard work now begins. The challenge to the ILO, trade unions and employers, and most particularly governments, is to now translate this commitment into measures at national level which generate real jobs, real incomes and contribute to economic recovery. Employers stand ready to play our part.”
“We are sending a message of vision, change and realism to governments and to the women and man in the street, said Leroy Trotman, Worker Vice-Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole on Crisis Response. “Today the Jobs Pact is only a piece of paper. We governments, workers and employers have to make it a reality. This includes a commitment of governments to social dialogue and strong labour market institutions. Recovery requires a wage-led increase in aggregate demand, social protection and social dialogue, and collective bargaining. But it also means no interference by employers, when workers organise themselves and represent their interests collectively. If we fail societies will lose. If we succeed, I am convinced future historians will say: the ILO lived up to its mandate.”
Mr. Somavia said the ILO would immediately begin to provide assistance to constituents wanting to implement measures under the Pact as well as work with other multilateral agencies. He also stressed that the Pact is not about how much more governments can spend, but how they spend it.
“We need to give life to this commitment,” said Mr. Somavia. “We all have a collective responsibility to the future. Together we can make good on our common aspirations. We have a mandate to act now, and working together we will certainly succeed.”
Sri Lanka was represented at the meeting by a delegation led by Labour Minister Athauda Seneviratne and including representatives from employers and trade unions. |
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