International: ILO Conference debates global employment issues

Meeting in May to June 2005, the annual International Labour Conference monitored the application of international labour standards and addressed topical global employment issues such as working time, health and safety, child labour and forced labour. However, it failed to adopt a new Convention on work in the fishing sector.

The 93rd annual International Labour Conference took place in Geneva between 31 May and 16 June 2005, attended by more than 3,000 delegates, including labour ministers and leaders of trade union and employers' organisations from most of the 178 member states of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Each member country has the right to send four delegates to the Conference - two from government and one each representing workers and employers, each of whom may speak and vote independently. The Conference's role is to: adopt, and oversee compliance with, international labour standards; establish the ILO budget; elect members of the ILO governing body; and serve as a forum for debate on social and labour questions of worldwide importance.

Fishing industry

At the 2004 Conference (Globalisation and migration on ILO Conference agenda), a first discussion was held on new instruments to revise five Conventions and two Recommendations (dating from between 1920 and 1966) on health, safety and working conditions in the fishing industry.

It was planned that the new instruments - a Convention and a Recommendation - would be adopted at the 2005 Conference. A Convention is binding on those countries that have ratified it, while a Recommendation is a non-binding instrument setting out guidelines that may provide an orientation for national policies and action.

The proposed new standards aim to reflect changes that have taken place in the fishing sector in recent decades. According to the ILO, more than 30 million people are now engaged in the industry worldwide, while fishing and related occupations are among the most dangerous of all work, with fatality rates often many times higher than the national average.

The proposed standards would extend the coverage of relevant ILO norms to more than 90% of all fishing industry workers - the vast majority of whom work on small vessels in developing countries - while the existing Conventions cover only about 10%. It is intended that those working on large vessels and those on international voyages would also be adequately covered, including by special provisions, as appropriate. The proposals include new provisions on safety and health, in order to reduce the high rate of accidents and fatalities highlighted in ILO reports, and on compliance and enforcement.

Unusually, when put to the vote at the 2005 Conference, the proposed Convention on work in the fishing sector did not receive the two-thirds majority required for adoption. With 290 votes in favour required, the proposal received only 288, with eight against and 139 abstentions. This was because the employers' group abstained in the vote, citing a number of concerns, including fears that the proposed Convention would not be widely ratified in its current form. The Convention was therefore not adopted. The Conference asked the ILO governing body to place a corresponding item on the agenda of the 2007 Conference, and that the report submitted to the 2005 session be used for further consideration.

However, the Recommendation on work in the fishing sector was narrowly adopted (292 votes in favour and eight against, with 135 abstentions). This creates a rather paradoxical situation, as the Recommendation supplements a Convention that was not adopted. It seems that if a fishing Convention is adopted at a future Conference, a new and revised Recommendation will have to be agreed.

Health and safety

The ILO Committee on Safety and Health examined a "promotional framework" in the area of occupational safety and health (OSH). Delegates decided that the instruments establishing this framework should take the form of a Convention, supplemented by a Recommendation. The proposed instruments would support placing OSH high on national agendas, and promote a safer and healthier working environment based on the prevention principle through: a "management systems" approach; the development of national OSH programmes; and the continual improvement of national OSH systems.

Working time

The Conference discussed a survey on working time, focusing on ILO Conventions No. 1 on hours of work (industry), adopted in 1919, and No. 30 on hours of work (commerce and offices), adopted in 1930. The survey (PDF format, 748K) finds that internationally accepted standards on hours of work are still needed as they contribute to fair competition between countries in a globalised world. However, according to the survey, Conventions Nos. 1 and 30 do not fully reflect modern realities in the regulation of working time and are viewed by an increasing number of countries as prescribing overly rigid standards.

The relevant Conference committee agreed with these findings and the matter was put to delegates for discussion. Many stressed the need to find a balance between flexibility on the one hand and protecting workers' security, health and family life on the other.

The discussion also highlighted the important role of the regulatory framework, collective bargaining and social dialogue in this field. The ILO will now present a document summarising the debate to its governing body, which will take the decision on any follow-up.

Youth employment

The Conference discussed "pathways to decent work" for young people and the role of the international community in advancing the youth employment agenda. Youth unemployment has reached record levels in recent years, and less than half of the young people available for work worldwide had jobs in 2004.

The Conference committee on youth employment proposed an ILO plan of action to promote youth employment, which should be practical and based on building knowledge, advocacy, the promotion of young workers' rights in line with international labour standards, and technical assistance. Delegates argued that decent employment opportunities for young people need to grow substantially, with particular emphasis on developing countries, where 85% of the world's 1 billion or so young people live. The committee also encouraged the ILO to continue playing a leading role in the United Nations (UN) Secretary General's Youth Employment Network (YEN) and to extend the YEN to other countries, both developing and developed.

Child labour

The Conference marked the fourth World Day against Child Labour on 12 June by calling for the abolition of child labour in small-scale mining and quarrying, within five to 10 years. The ILO estimates that at least 1 million children aged five to 17 work in small-scale mines and quarries around the world.

According to Juan Somavia, the ILO director-general: "Children who work in mines and quarries are in such danger - risking their health and safety, and indeed their lives - that action must be taken now. One million children are carrying a burden far too heavy for their bodies and responsibilities too heavy for their years. It's up to us, together, to lift this weight from their shoulders, to get them out of the mines and quarries and into school."

The new initiative calls on governments, workers' organisations and employers associated with the mining sector to work together to help remote mining and quarrying enterprises - often small, family-based operations in the informal sector - to become economically and environmentally sustainable without the use of children as workers. Tripartite delegations from at least 14 countries are expected to present a signed accord to the ILO committing themselves to eliminating child labour in all small-scale mining and quarrying in a "time bound" manner. These countries include Brazil, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Ghana, Mali, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, and Togo.

Forced labour

At a special sitting, delegates held an in-depth discussion on forced labour, based on a new ILO "global report", entitled A global alliance against forced labour (PDF format, 1MB), drawn up as part of the follow-up to the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (EIRR 294 p.3).

The report finds that more than 12 million people around the world are involved in forced labour, including some 2.4 million who are victims of trafficking. It argues that, if forced labour is to be eliminated worldwide, the necessary steps include law enforcement, awareness-raising campaigns, capacity building for governments and social partners, rehabilitation of victims, local and global alliances and sustainable technical cooperation programmes. Conference delegates strongly condemned forced labour as a violation of human dignity and supported the ILO director-general's call for a "global alliance" to address the problem. The governing body of the ILO will discuss an action plan against forced labour, based on the report and the Conference discussion on it.

Application of standards

For the fifth time, the committee on the application of standards held a special sitting on the application by Myanmar of Convention No. 29 on forced labour, a matter of regular concern to the ILO in recent years (EIRR 344 p.24 and ILO meets for 91st Conference). The committee noted that the extent of forced labour in the country had not significantly changed and that its worst forms continued, and expressed particular alarm at the Myanmar government's stated intention to prosecute those it accuses of making false forced labour complaints and the apparent intimidation of complainants. Other serious issues identified as being in need of urgent resolution include outstanding serious allegations of forced labour, the freedom of movement of the ILO liaison officer, and the issuing of visas to strengthen the ILO presence in Myanmar.

Arguing that the "wait and see" attitude adopted by most ILO members since 2001 cannot continue, the committee urged the tripartite groups from all countries urgently to review their relations with Myanmar, including foreign direct investment and state- and military-owned enterprises, and report back before the next governing body meeting in November 2005. Depending on developments in Myanmar, the governing body should then be ready to consider new and further steps.

The committee thus singled out Myanmar in its report for continued failure to implement Convention No. 29. It also concluded that, as the persistence of forced labour cannot be disassociated from the prevailing situation of a complete absence of freedom of association in the country, the functions of the ILO liaison officer should include assistance to the government to implement fully its obligations under ILO Convention No. 87 on the latter issue.

Another high-profile issue dealt with by the committee was freedom of association in Belarus. The committee noted that no real concrete and tangible measures have been taken by the government to comply with the recommendations of an ILO commission of inquiry. As details of a government plan of action on freedom of association were not known yet, the committee urged that an ILO mission be sent to Belarus, to assist the government and to evaluate the measures that the latter has taken to comply with the recommendations of the commission of inquiry.

The committee also carried out an examination of 25 other individual cases related to possible breaches of international labour standards, covering freedom of association, forced labour, discrimination, child labour, employment policy, labour inspection and wages.

Other issues

Two guest speakers told delegates that various problems related to globalisation and "decent work" should be addressed urgently. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the President of Algeria and current President of the Arab League, called for a summit to be held in September 2005 to review the UN Millennium Declaration to promote renewed international efforts to build a social dimension of globalisation. Noting that employment creation has become "an explicit and central objective" of Africa's economic and social policies, Olusegun Obasanjo, the President of Nigeria and currently Chair of the African Union (AU), urged the continent's development partners to join it in making the ILO's decent work agenda a global goal.

The Conference adopted a programme and a budget (of US$594 million) for the 2006-07 period. The new programme and budget focuses on decent work as a global goal and the action needed at local, national, regional and international levels to make this happen, including "decent work country programmes". The programme seeks to reinforce and deepen the four strategic objectives of the ILO:

The programme also proposes initiatives on decent work for youth, corporate social responsibility, export-processing zones, and the informal economy.

Finally, as usual, delegates debated the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories (in Palestine).

In his closing speech, the ILO director-general, Juan Somavia, summed up the 93rd International Labour Conference as follows: "Faced with a global jobs crisis that involves trillions in GDP growth but just a trickle of new jobs, we need as many good ideas as we can generate to guide our future course of action.

"The credibility of democracy and open markets are at stake. This conference has risen to the challenge by providing a rich laboratory of ideas for our efforts to make decent work a global goal."