world of work – no. 25 – 1998 · world of work – no. 25 – 1998 5 created in 1919, the...

WORLD OF WORK – No. 25 – 19981


The ILO in history

For the ILO, June 1948 –exactly half a century ago– marked the end of oneera and the beginning ofanother.On the 12th of that month,

the 32 Members of theOrganization’s Governing

Body (sixteen Governmentmembers, 8 Employer mem-

bers and 8 Worker members)met in San Francisco and, aftera rapid ballot, elected theAmerican Under-Secretary ofLabor David Morse to the post

of Director-General. The 41year-old New Yorker, his coun-

try’s representative on the Gov-erning Body, was appointed vir-

tually unanimously (30 votes for and2 abstentions) and would in due course

become the architect not merely of arebirth of the Organization but of aremarkable expansion of its activities.

The post-1919 era was coming to anend. At his death, Albert Thomas (seeWorld of Work, No. 22) had been suc-ceeded in turn by three of his closecollaborators: Harold Butler, John Winantand Edward Phelan. They had followedthe course set in 1919, strengtheningthe Organization’s structures, firmlyestablishing its authority, developingits services, and expanding its corpusof standards with major Conventionsincluding those concerning working time,occupational diseases and minimum age.

Between two eras:50 years ago

Above all, their skilled leadership between1941 and 1946 had kept the ILO afloateven as the League of Nations floun-


dered. Thanks to heroic efforts ofdiplomacy and organization, the spiritof the ILO had been preserved.

By 1948, the world was finally en-tering the post-war era. The ILO, now“repatriated” to Geneva and armed withthe famous Declaration of Philadelphia,was in a good position to take up thechallenges of the time. The new Di-rector-General, a man of youthful energy,would endeavour to cultivate the seedsplanted by his pioneering predecessorswhile also breaking new ground. In thattask, he was assisted by an exceptional

team that had been strengthened by thetrials of the War and the pre-war period– the British lawyer Wilfred Jenks, thebrain and “memory” of the ILO wherehe had spent his entire career; and theBelgian trade unionist Jeff Rens, theOrganization’s “heart and guts”, as onelong-serving official put it.

The ILO’s achievements during thisperiod, both in terms of its “produc-tion” and influence, are impressive. Fun-damental human rights standards weredrawn up and adopted, including theFreedom of Association and Protectionof the Right to Organise Convention,1948 (No. 87), the Right to Organiseand Collective Bargaining Convention,1949 (No. 98), the Equal RemunerationConvention, 1951 (No. 100), theAbolition of Forced Labour Conven-tion, 1957 (No. 105), and the Discrimi-nation (Employment and Occupation)Convention, 1958 (No. 111). TheTechnical Cooperation Programme was

launched in December 1948 with ini-tiatives on manpower, migrant workersand vocational training, and subsequentlyunderwent rapid expansion in the serviceof countries in Africa, Latin Americaand Asia. Many of these countries, newlyindependent at the time, owe to theProgramme the basic elements of theirsocial infrastructures. The Programmereached its culmination in the AndeanProgramme, a project of particular in-terest to Jeff Rens. The number of ILOmember States grew from 58 in 1949,to 70 in 1955, 80 in 1958, and 121in 1969, the fiftieth anniversary yearin which the Organization was awardedthe Nobel Peace Prize for its achieve-ments.

David Morse had good reason to beproud of his contribution to all theseendeavours. He retired in 1970 and diedin 1990. His name has been commemo-rated in Geneva with the Allée DavidMorse inaugurated on 18 March 1998.

David Morse has been honoured with a place inthe U.S. Labour Hall of Fame and has had a

street named after him in Geneva.S

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● ● ● ● ● Report: The Asian financial crisis is far from over.......................... 6

WHEN WILL IT END?

The pain inflicted on Asian societies by the financial crisis will continue to growin 1998 largely as a result of inadequate policy responses. An ILO report saysnew responses will be needed to offset the disastrous social consequences ofsoaring unemployment

● ● ● ● ● Going home, but not willingly.................................................................10

TIGHT ECONOMIC SITUATION UNLEASHES A FLOOD OF“REVERSE” MIGRATION IN ASIA

Millions of illegal migrants in Southeast Asia are feeling the crush of tighteconomic times. Once welcomed by labour-hungry tiger economies, they areincreasingly victims of tougher immigration policies as national unemploymentrises. Bangkok-based journalist Leyla Alyanak examines the plight of the new“reverse” migrants.

C O N T E N T S

● ● ● ● ● ILO holds tripartite meeting on Asian financial crisis:.................. 12

CONSENSUS: SOCIAL ADVANCEMENTS NEEDED

A report from the ILO’s High-Level Tripartite meeting on Social Responses tothe Financial Crisis in the East and Southeast Asian Countries on 22-24 Aprilsays countries agree to the need for social advancement and improvements.

● ● ● ● ● 86th International Labour Conference...................................................13

CLEARING THE FINAL HURDLE: ILO CONFERENCE ADOPTS RIGHTSDECLARATION, SEEKS END TO CHILD LABOUR ABUSES

Delegates adopted a solemn ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles andRights at Work, committing the Organization’s 174 member States to respectthe principles inherent in seven core labour standards and promoting theiruniversal application. After welcoming hundreds of child marchers, theConference also completed the first round of discussions on a new Conventionon the worst forms of child labour and called on members to take measuresimproving the employment prospects of young persons.

● ● ● ● ● Report from Sialkot:................................................................................ 18

SPECIAL REPORT: PLAYING FAIR AND STILL WINNING

Protecting children is one of the essential elements in the pursuit of socialjustice and universal peace. The ILO’s International Programme on theElimination of Child Labour is currently guiding and supporting projects in morethan 50 countries. The football sewing programme in Sialkot, Pakistan, is amodel for promoting conditions to enable the government to progressivelyprohibit, restrict and regulate child labour. Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman of the ILOreports on her mission to Sialkot and highlights the conclusions of a group ofjournalists who went with her.


Created in 1919, the International Labour Organization (ILO) brings together governments, employers and workersof its 174 member States in common action to improve social protection and conditions of life and work throughoutthe world. The International Labour Office, in Geneva, is the permanent Secretariat of the Organization.

News Section ..................................................... 24

● Report: Solutions for disabled workers sought at Washington con-ference

● Review: “Looking at child workers” Author Michel Bonnet looksat putting children to work prematurely in today’s world

● HIV/AIDS in the workplace: new ILO study finds some progress,but more needs to be done

● Indonesia releases detained unionists, ratifies Convention No. 87

● U.S. President Bill Clinton hails ILO at WTO meeting

Features

THE ILO IN HISTORY ............................................................................... 2

Between two eras: 50 years ago marked the end of one era andthe beginning of another for the ILO

WORKING WORLD ..............................................................................................30

Employment, unemployment, economic news, AIDS in theworkplace, labour issues and working conditions and hours

AROUND THE CONTINENTS ............................................................................ 32

“Jobless growth” and labour migration in South Africa, More and betterjobs for women, Women in trade unions, New jobs and affordable housing,Foreign labour in Eastern Europe, Environment, Social security, etc.

MEDIA FOCUS: THE ILO IN THE PRESS .................................................34

Asian crisis, International Labour Conference capture headlines

MEDIA SHELF .......................................................................................................37

THE EMPLOYMENT AND INVESTMENT POLICY PROGRAMME .................................................................................................39

Creation of employment through the use oflocal resources for infrastructure development

● ● ● ● ● As Telecoms rise, so do job opportunities:.....................................22

CALLING FOR MORE AND BETTER JOBS: NEW ENTERPRISES,NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE INTERNET WILL MEAN LONG-TERM JOB GROWTH

Increasing competition may pose new challenges to works in postal andtelecom sectors around the world. But a new ILO report says faster, bettercommunications will also mean big changes in the nature of jobs held bymillions of workers worldwide, especially women.


n the ongoing financial crisis afflict-ing Asia, the message seems to bepain, pain and more pain. Millions ofjobless in the worst-affected coun-

tries. A major employment shake out inthe construction, financial services andmanufacturing sectors. Underemploymentbecoming widespread. Real earnings ofthose still working falling substantially.And most dramatically, the report pre-dicts, the impressive trends in povertyreduction achieved in these countries overthe past 20 years, will be reversed.

That grim picture of the Asian finan-cial crisis was presented in a recent ILOreport entitled “The Social Impact ofthe Asian Financial Crisis” preparedfor the High-Level Tripartite Meeting onSocial Responses to the Financial Crisisin East and South-East Asian Countriesheld in Bangkok on 22-24 April.

“This combination of sharpand unexpected social painon the one hand, and lack ofcollectively provided relief onthe other”, warns the ILO,“is fertile ground for breedingsocial unrest.”

To make matters worse, the effect ofthese developments will be amplified by“the absence of a meaningful social safetynet”. The vast majority of displaced workersare unlikely to receive assistance of anykind and will be left to fend for them-selves. “This combination of sharp andunexpected social pain on the one hand,

and lack of collectively provided reliefon the other”, warns the ILO, “is fertileground for breeding social unrest”.

Focus on Indonesia,Thailand and

Republic of KoreaThe ILO report, based on the latest

available data, focuses primarily on In-donesia, Thailand and the Republic ofKorea. Although it served as a back-ground paper for Governments, trade unionsand employers’ organizations at the recentBangkok meeting, its message remainscurrent. Here is a country-by-country run-down of the report’s finding:

Indonesia: In Indonesia, the projectedlevel of unemployment for 1998 rangesbetween 8 and 10 per cent – 7.9 to 9.2million workers – depending on the GDPgrowth rate assumed for the year (zerogrowth or a 5per cent contraction). Thiscompares with an unemployment rate of5 per cent in 1996.

In spite of remarkable achievementsin reducing poverty, Indonesia still countedsome 22 million persons living below theofficially defined poverty line in 1996.This figure will increase by “a very size-able number” as the present crisis un-folds. Poverty will be exacerbated byinflation and the disproportionate rise inthe price of food and other essential goods.“The classic mechanism of high foodinflation leading to an increase in theincidence of absolute poverty appears tobe already at work”, says the report. “Thisis illustrated by the fact that the riceequivalent of the daily minimum wage(Rp 5,800) fell from 6.28 kg in January

1997 to 4.76 kg at the end of December1997”.

Republic of Korea: In the Republicof Korea, unemployment is rising rap-idly. The number of jobless increasedfrom 451,000 (2.3 per cent) in October1997 to a record level of 1,240,000 inFebruary 1998 (4.7 per cent). Particu-larly affected are recent school-leaversand first-time job seekers. “In the lastquarter of 1997, the youth unemploy-ment rate was 7.4 per cent and 11.8 percent in the age groups 20-24 and 15-19respectively”, says the report. No im-provement can be expected in the nearfuture: “The Ministry of Labour has recentlypredicted that the number of unemployedwill now exceed 1.5 million between Marchand May, with the seasonally adjustedunemployment rate soaring to a new highof 7 per cent.”

At the same time, real wages whichhad been rising rapidly for almost 30years in the Republic of Korea, fell by2.3 per cent during the last quarter of1997. The inflation-adjusted real incomeof households fell by 4.4 per cent, thefirst drop since the third quarter of 1981.

Thailand: Thailand enjoyed virtual fullemployment prior to the crisis as re-flected by the growing presence of foreignmigrants in the country. By the end of1997, however, unemployment was thoughtto affect 1,170,000 persons, or approxi-mately 3.4 per cent of the labour force.“The Government now forecasts a risein unemployment to just under 2 millionby the end of 1998 and an unemploymentrate of 5.6 per cent”. But these projec-tions may prove to be overly optimistic

When will it end?Report: Asian financial crisis is far from over,

Poverty, unemployment seen rising

The pain inflicted on Asian societies by the financial crisis will continue to grow in1998 largely as a result of inadequate policy responses, says the International LabourOffice (ILO) in a new report. 1 New responses will be needed to offset the disastroussocial consequences of soaring unemployment.

I


assuming, as they do, a zero growth rate.Thai authorities now forecast a negativegrowth rate of minus 3.5 per cent in 1998.

While inflation in Thailand is expectedto reach 15% in 1998, many enterpriseshave reduced nominal wages. Seniormanagement in the hard-hit financial sector,for example, have seen reductions in theirmonthly earnings of between 10 to 30percent. Lower-level employees have beensubjected to a wage freeze. In other sectors,wage cuts and reductions in annual bonuses– traditionally an important componentof total wages – “have been commonresponses to the economic context”.

Women and migrants

Because of their unequal position inthe labour market and their concentrationin the most precarious forms of wageemployment, women have proved espe-cially vulnerable to the crisis throughoutthe region. Though reliable data isunavailable, the evidence at hand sug-gests that gender-biased dismissals are

common practice. The inferior employ-ment status of women often means thatthey are less likely to be entitled tounemployment benefits where these existand to severance pay. Women also findthemselves at a serious disadvantage ingaining access to credit and otheremployment promotion programmes.

Foreign migrant workers also facedifficult prospects (See “Tight economisituation unleashes a flood of ‘reverse’migration in Asia”, pp. 10-11). Theirnumbers grew from one million in theearly 1980s to an estimated 6.5 millionby mid-1997 as a result of labour short-ages in the “tiger economies” of South-east Asia. A large proportion of migrantworkers are undocumented and thusparticularly at risk of arrest and invol-untary repatriation. But repressive meas-ures alone will do little to stem the flowof unauthorized migrants. “It is alreadybeing anticipated”, says the report, “thattrafficking in clandestine labour migrantswill rise” as a consequence of the build-up of emigration pressures in the worst-affected countries.

An inadequateresponse

In the face of this massive crisis andin spite of various efforts to contain itssocial costs, “the overall impression mustbe that the response so far has beeninadequate”, says the ILO report.

Although different initiatives to mini-mize the extent of lay-offs and to saveviable enterprises facing temporary li-quidity crises through “active coopera-tive action between workers and employ-ers” have taken place, these have hadlittle incidence on the course of events.In the Republic of Korea, says the report,“enterprise unions have been unable, inany broad way, to negotiate alternativesto lay-offs or to mitigate their social costs”in spite of “indications that most unionmembers would be willing to acceptredeployment within the enterprise, ora wage reduction if the chaebol ownersmade sincere efforts to reform their businessand avoid lay-offs”.

In Thailand, the “meagre level ofworkplace organization means that col-

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lective bargaining, were it to bear fruitat all in finding solutions to lay-offs,would apply to a narrow minority” ofthe workforce. And in Indonesia, the reportpoints out, the unions have been so“weakened by the loss of membershiparising from lay-offs” that some havebeen unable to monitor the rate of lay-offs involving their own members.

Apart from Korea where different jobcreation programmes are being introduced,measures to assist displaced workers havelargely been confined to labour-inten-sive public works projects of the typeused in the past in poverty alleviationprogrammes, mainly in rural areas. “Thecritical issue in the present crisis is whetherthey can be scaled up sufficiently andsoon enough to cope with the vastly greaternumbers that are likely to be in need ofsuch relief”.

“The limited level of social protectionin many of the countries of the region,and in particular in Indonesia and Thai-land is a reflection of choices on socialand economic policy”, says the report.“Throughout the period of sustainedeconomic growth which pre-dated thecrisis there was a tendency to rely onthe belief that the alleviation of povertywould follow as a direct consequence ofeconomic growth”. Only limited priorityhas, as a rule, been given to the devel-opment of social protection systems basedon redistribution and solidarity. “The safetynet remains the family or individual savings,with the State occupying a relatively minorrole in this respect.”

“The safety net remains thefamily or individual savings, withthe State occupying a relativelyminor role in this respect.”

The extent to which social dialoguehas played a role in the search for practicalsolutions and in defusing the danger ofsocial unrest varies widely among thethree countries covered by the ILO report.“It is clearly in Korea that the evolutionof strong institutions in civil society hasmade the greatest strides in recent years”.Korea’s Tripartite Commission, composedof representatives from the government,workers’ and employers’ organizations,launched on January 15 and the TripartiteSocial Accord, signed on February 9,“have become essential ingredients inthe development of social and economicpolicies to contain the social costs of thefinancial crisis”.

Among the key elements leading tothis development, according to the re-

port, were “the consolidation of politicaland civil democracy evidenced by thevictory of the opposition leader, KimDae-Jung, in last December’s presiden-tial election and the considerable socialand political power of the trade unionmovement, as manifested in the generalstrikes of early 1997”.

In Thailand, by contrast, “the level oftrade union organization is extremely low”.The 245,000 union members registerednationwide represent some 3.5 per centof the 7 million industrial workers whothemselves account for only one fifth ofthe country’s workforce of 34 million.The role that collective bargaining couldplay in negotiating the downturn’s socialconsequences is, under the circumstances,“rather minimal”.

While tripartite bodies do exist inIndonesia, their track record does notsuggest “any ability to effectively con-front the many pressing labour and socialissues arising from the current financialcrisis”, says the report.

At the root of the problem, says thereport, “are the continued constraints onfreedom of association. Neither Koreanor Thailand have ratified ILO’s Free-dom of Association Convention (No. 87),

although following recent political changes,Indonesia has now ratified ConventionNo. 87.

Lessons for the future

To overcome the crisis and current levelsof social distress, “a two-pronged ap-proach is required”, says the ILO report.The first is to bring about economicrecovery by pressing ahead with struc-tural reforms. An array of technicalmeasures must be introduced in order tocorrect various deficiencies in the finan-cial systems of the countries concerned.Among the issues which must be faced,the report underlines, is “the need to findeffective instruments to control the degreeof exposure to foreign debt by privateeconomic agents, to set prudent limitsto debt/equity ratios in the corporate sectorand to discourage speculative and un-productive investment”.

Such measures “are absolutely essen-tial but by no means sufficient”, statesthe report. “It was not only weaknessesin formal institutions that created thepreconditions for the crisis but also thecontamination of market processes bypolitics. Unless the latter are contained,

Geneva, 8 June 1998, at the International Labour Conference: ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne greets Mr. Muchtar Pakpahan, President of theSerikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia, Indonesia’s independent trade unionconfederation. Mr. Pakpahan was released from Cipinang Prison in Jakartaon 26 May. He had been held since 1996 on criminal charges relating to civilunrest and alleged subversion. The ILO Committee on the Freedom of Associationhad repeatedly called for all criminal charges to be dropped and for Mr.Pakpahan to be released (See page 27 on Indonesia).

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no amount of tinkering with institutionsand regulatory mechanisms will be tomuch avail”.

To reduce the risk of future crises,priority attention must furthermore begiven to the strengthening of employ-ment policies. The massive lay-offswitnessed in recent months have dem-onstrated that a high rate of job creationmeans little if their sustainability is notensured. As the report points out, “muchof the job loss since the onset of the crisishas been in activities associated with anover-expanded construction and finan-cial sector”.

Developing the capacity to monitorenterprise restructurings and to facilitatethe redeployment of laid-off workers willrequire major efforts. It “will involvestrengthening the research and policyanalysis functions of labour ministriesand the establishment of close workinglinks between labour and economicministries”. Qualified staff, now in shortsupply, will be needed to plan andadminister active labour market meas-ures as well as for designing and im-plementing direct employment creationschemes targeted at the unemployed andunderemployed.

Social protection

But, as the report underlines, “findingthe economic solutions to a crisis cannotbe divorced from dealing with its socialconsequences”. As high growth rates canno longer be taken for granted, “a sig-nificantly higher degree of social pro-tection must be aimed for. Just as thegreat depression forged a new socialcontract in many industrialized countriesin the 1930s”, says the report, “so toomust the current Asian crisis be an impetusto creating a more socially-oriented modelof development”.

The ILO report outlines several areasrequiring active attention:

● Unemployment insurance – Thelatter “spreads the cost of dealing withthe major social consequences of a crisisevenly among all enterprises”, thusprotecting those most affected withoutdistorting competition between enterprises.“Experience suggests that an adequateunemployment insurance scheme can befinanced by a total contribution rate ofabout 2 per cent of insured earnings (...)shared equally between employers andworkers”, says the report suggesting that“the collection of contributions can bestarted right away”.

● Severance pay guarantees – Al-though not an ideal method of providingsocial protection to the unemployed,severance pay is an established practicein many of the countries concerned. Theproblem is that some employers may failto pay it. Part of the solution is betterenforcement but, another “is to establisha severance pay guarantee scheme whichmay, as in the Republic of Korea, becombined with a guarantee of unpaidwages, in the event of enterprise bank-ruptcy”. Such a scheme, says the report,“should be financed by a modest em-ployer contribution”.

● Social safety net – Essential as itmay be, unemployment insurance doesnothing for first-time job-seekers, theself-employed or workers in the informalsector. “Some kind of safety net is vitalto ensure that everybody falling into suchcategories is able to cover the basicsubsistence needs of themselves and theirdependents”. But setting up social as-sistance schemes of the type, for exam-ple, existing in Hong Kong, will takeyears. “This should not, however, be usedas a pretext for doing nothing”. Analternative “is the guarantee of work onpublic projects in return for a subsistencewage”. This is “a crude solution” ac-knowledges the report, but “in the shortterm it is probably the only feasible safetynet that can be provided in most of thecountries affected by the crisis”.

● Health care – “Services must beexpanded; access to them must be madeconvincingly universal; they must be madecheaper to the user; and for the poor,user costs should be waved.” Strategiesinclude action “to limit the extent to whichhealth care providers can exploit aninflationary situation and “to promotethe extension of health care coverage toworkers who are dismissed”.

● Minimum pension – The crisis hasrevealed just how little protection isprovided by personal savings. Many havelost all they had in stock market crashesand with the collapse of financial insti-tutions, “while devaluation and inflationhave spared only the very rich and thevery well connected”. Moving towardsa social insurance scheme providingperiodical benefits is admittedly difficultbut, because of demographic trends pointingto an aging population, “countries whichdo not make the effort to introduce pensionsnow are going to find themselves in deeptrouble next century”. One way of

addressing the problem is to establish“a minimum basic pension (...) financedfrom general revenues”. For financialreasons, “eligibility should be based onboth age and income. The age criteria”,adds the report, “would need to be setfairly high – over 70 for example – andthe income criteria fairly low – abovethe poverty line, but not much above –in order to provide a subsistence levelof income to those who could nototherwise achieve it.”

● Informal sector – The millions ofworkers in the informal sector enjoy littleor no social protection. One way to assistthem is through a universal pension system.“Another priority is to find suitable waysto finance health care for them”. No quickor easy solutions are on offer, but“governments with a will to achieve realprogress may do so, however, if theytackle the problem simultaneously fromboth ends, i.e. by helping to promote self-help grassroots mutual insurance schemesand by gradually extending compulsorycoverage and improving the level ofcompliance”.

● Vulnerable groups – Policies andprogrammes to cope with the effects ofthe crisis “must be sensitive to the specialneeds of vulnerable groups such as workingchildren, women and migrant workers”.Specific steps appropriate to each groupare discussed in the report.

● International labour standards –“Ratification of all seven of the ILO’sFundamental Conventions concerningforced labour, child labour, discrimina-tion and freedom of association wouldclearly constitute a positive step”. TheFreedom of Association Convention (No.87) is of particular significance. The socialdialogue needed to avert risks of socialunrest requires “the existence of free,representative and strong trade unionsto defend the interests of workers andact authoritatively, as interlocutors forenterprises, employers’ organizations andgovernment. Yet the reality”, regrets thereport, “is that in the three countries mostaffected by the crisis, as in other coun-tries of the region, these conditions arenot met.”

1 The Social Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis.Technical report for discussion at the High-LevelTripartite Meeting on Social Responses to the FinancialCrisis in East and South-East Asian Countries, Bangkok,22-24 April 1998. ILO Regional Office for Asia andthe Pacific, Bangkok. ISBN 92-2-111093-1.

The text is available on the Internet: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/60empfor/cdart/pub.htm.

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ANGKOK– When the policepounded on her door, Tooch leaptout of bed, terrified. She grabbedher purse and pulled on whatever

clothes she could before being bundledonto a bus headed first for Bangkok’simmigration detention centre, and thenfor the Cambodian border.

“I didn’t want to come to Thailand,”said the 35-year old factory worker, “butI couldn’t find work at home.”

Tooch and her sister Sinai were bothswept up in a raid against illegal workersby Thai immigration officials.

Like millions of illegal migrants inSoutheast Asia, they are feeling the crushof tight times as economies shudder underthe weight of financial turmoil. Once thedarlings of labour-hungry tiger econo-mies, illegal workers are increasinglyunwelcome. Immigration policies aregetting tougher as national unemploy-ment rises, and undocumented men andwomen are being sent home by thethousands in reaction to battered budgets.

Thailand and Indonesiaworst affected

Thailand and Indonesia have been shakenhardest. In Thailand growth plunged from6 per cent in 1996 to almost zero in 1997,with prospects for 1998 even grimmer.Indonesia looks even worse. From 8 percent growth well into the latter part oflast year, experts foresee an absolute declineof 5 percent for late 1998, a predictionmade before Jakarta’s economic crisisturned violent.

Illegal immigrantshave to leave

Earlier this year, the Thai labour ministerannounced 300,000 illegal foreign work-ers would have to leave by the end ofJune 1998 to make way for some of thenearly two million unemployed Thainationals, a dramatic turnaround in acountry boasting virtually full employ-ment in pre-crisis days.

Malaysia, the other Southeast Asiancountry which has cracked down severelyon illegal workers, plans to deport 10,000illegal foreigners each month in 1998.Of its 2.2 million foreigners, about amillion are undocumented Indonesians.

Women particularlyhard hit

Particularly hard hit by the clampdownare women. In the 1970s they accounted

for about 15 per cent of the Asian migrantworkforce. Today, half of those seekingwork abroad are women. “They areconcentrated in the most precarious formsof wage employment and are thus morevulnerable to lay-offs,” according to “TheSocial Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis,”an ILO report released in April. Womenare also more widely dispersed, makingit harder for organized labour to reachthem.

The Malaysian and Thai deportationannouncements may have had less thanthe desired effect. By some reports, workerssent home from Thailand are being replacedalmost instantly by clandestine newcom-ers. Malaysia, which detained 8,833 illegalworkers in 1997, apprehended 3,026 injust two weeks this February.

“Administrative systems along South-east Asia’s borders are not that welldeveloped,” said Piyasiri Wickramasekara,Senior Specialist on Labour Market Policiesat the East Asia Multidisciplinary Ad-

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Millions of illegalmigrants in SoutheastAsia are feeling thecrush of tight economictimes. Once welcomedby labour-hungry tigereconomies, they areincreasingly victims oftougher immigrationpolicies as nationalunemployment rises.Bangkok-basedjournalist Leyla Alyanakexamines the plight ofthe new “reverse”migrants.

Going home, but not willing

Tight economic a flood of “rever


visory Team (ILO/EASMAT). “Sendingforeign workers home at least showspolitically that governments are dealingwith the problem. But often the workerssneak right back and this creates a backlash.There is a danger they will be seen asscapegoats.”

Activist groups worry clandestine andillegal migration will grow as bordercontrols get tighter, worsening condi-tions for remaining workers and leadingto greater abuse. In Thailand, there arefears prostitution and bonded labour couldrise as more families sink below the povertyline and try to make ends meet by sendingtheir daughters away to work.

Human rights workers are also worriedabout possible political repercussions oncedeportees get home. Of particular con-cern are Burmese returning to a countrywhich does not want them back andIndonesians from the Sumatran provinceof Aceh which many fled years ago duringan anti-government independence strug-

gle. Foreign embassy compounds havebeen stormed in desperate bids to avoidexpulsion and riots have broken out indetention centres set up to receive returnees.

These illegal migrants have little toshield them from excesses since fewSoutheast Asian countries have signedthe relevant protective Conventions.

ILO Conventions

Convention No.143 offers the best hopefor illegal migrants. It provides for sanctionsagainst the “clandestine movement ofmigrants for employment and illegalemployment of migrants,” and guaran-tees a number of rights including equal-ity of salaries and benefits, the right ofappeal and no-cost expulsion.

Several ILO core Conventions alsoprotect migrant workers but until recentlythey too had few ratifications: No. 29on forced labour and No. 98 on collectivebargaining are relatively well-supported

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INTERNATIONAL LABOURCONVENTIONS OF IMPORTANCETO MIGRANT WORKERS

C. 87 Freedom of Association andProtection of the Right to OrganiseConvention,1948.

C. 98 Right to Organise and Collec-tive Bargaining Convention, 1949.

C. 97 Migration for Employment Con-vention (Revised), 1949.

R. 86 Migration for Employment Rec-ommendation (Revised), 1949.

R. 100 Protection of Migrant Work-ers (Underdeveloped Countries) Rec-ommendation, 1955.

C. 111 Discrimination (Employmentand Occupation) Convention, 1958.

R. 111 Discrimination (Employmentand Occupation) Recommendation,1958.

C. 135 Workers’ Representatives Con-vention, 1971.

R. 143 Workers’ Representatives Rec-ommendation, 1971.

C. 143 Migrant Workers (Supplemen-tary Provisions) Convention, 1975.

R. 151 Migrant Workers Recommen-dation, 1975.

C. 141 Rural Workers’ OrganisationsConvention, 1975.

R. 149 Rural Workers’ OrganisationsRecommendation, 1975.

CONVENTIONS DEALING WITHSOCIAL SECURITY MATTERS ANDBENEFITS CONCERNING OR AP-PLICABLE TO MIGRANT WORKERS

C. 95 Protection of Wages Conven-tion, 1949.

C. 102 Social Security (Minimum Stand-ards) Convention, 1952.

C. 118 Equality of Treatment (SocialSecurity) Convention, 1962.

C. 157 Maintenance of Social Secu-rity Rights Convention, 1982.

R. 167 Maintenance of Social Secu-rity Rights Recommendation, 1983.

C. 173 Protection of Workers’ Claims(Employers’ Insolvency) Convention,1992.

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situation unleashesrse” migration in Asia


Consensus: social advancements needed

ILO HOLDS TRIPARTITE MEETING ON ASIANFINANCIAL CRISIS

BANGKOK – The ILO’s High-Level Tripartite Meeting on Social Responsesto the Financial Crisis in the East and Southeast Asian Countries endedwith clear consensus on the seriousness of Asia’s unfolding economiccrisis and the need for social advancements and improvements in a regionfacing serious deterioration in labour and social conditions.

The meeting, held in Bangkok from 22-24 April 1998, was underpinnedby an ILO report entitled “The Social Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis,”(see main story) which blamed inadequate policy responses for financialturmoil which was expected to extend through 1998. The report predictedmassive unemployment and the reversal of gains in poverty reduction,all made worse by the absence of social safety nets. While analysingthe social impacts of the crisis, the report also looked at prospects forsustainable recovery.

Those prospects, participants at the meeting acknowledged, centredon sustained economic growth needed to fuel social change. They stressedthe need for appropriate regulation of financial systems, better corporategovernance and markets that work.

The meeting agreed on a number of priorities. These included bettergovernment monitoring of economic policy impacts on employment, humanresources development, direct employment creation schemes, informationgathering on vulnerable groups (particularly affected working women andchild workers), promoting sound enterprise development strategies, creatingpro-investment business environments, introducing unemployment schemes,basic minimum pensions, protecting workers’ rights and salaries, improvingsocial security systems, respect for freedom of association, strengtheningcollective bargaining and industrial relations, and preventing costly labourdisputes.

Participants also agreed on the need for improved international cooperation,especially at the regional level, and for closer consultations betweensocial partners and international financial institutions when designingand implementing economic adjustment programmes.

Key to developing a productive social partnership was respect forinternational labour standards, the meeting said, calling on countriesto heed ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne’s campaign for ratificationof core international labour standards.

Mr. Hansenne said at the opening that while more mature economieswith social safety nets and stronger social institutions were vital, so wasthe development of stronger social and economic democracies basedon social dialogue and workers’ rights. “One of the reasons for the crisisis lack of democracy, and we think it’s a good time to convince constituentsto build it,” he told journalists at the conference.

Economic and social development policies should be given equal im-portance, said Chuan Leekpai, Thailand’s Prime Minister. “Sustaineddevelopment cannot coexist side-by-side with social inequities and thedeterioration of our human resource,” he declared while inauguratingthe meeting.

The three-day meeting was attended by representatives of governments(both labour and planning ministries), employers and workers organi-sations from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Republic of Korea,Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Hong Kong Special AdministrativeRegion, as well as by officials of the Asian Development Bank, theInternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Leyla Alyanak

in the region, but No. 111 on dis-crimination has only been ratified byVietnam and No. 138 on minimum ageby Malaysia; Indonesia is the only Stateto have ratified No. 87 on freedom ofassociation in Southeast Asia. Still, thereare signs that the ratification campaignlaunched by ILO Director-General MichelHansenne is making significant inroads.

A willingnessto cooperate

“Things are improving,” said JoachimGrimsmann, Senior International LabourStandards Specialist at ILO/EASMAT.“There is a definite willingness amongcountries in the sub-region to cooperateand the movement to apply, ratify andbe bound by these Conventions has gainedmomentum.”

Lao PDR and Cambodia have submit-ted several Conventions to their com-petent authorities in a move to ratifythem; the Philippines has signed on for138 and Indonesia plans to do so; Thailandintends to ratify 100, and Malaysia ratifiedboth 100 and 138 this year.

“3-D” jobsand “SALEPs”

However politically charged the issueof illegal migration, Southeast Asia stillsuffers from labour shortages, especiallyin sectors known either as “3D” jobs–dirty, dangerous, demanding, or as SALEPs,jobs that are Shunned by All Except thevery Poor, the term favoured by W. R.Bohning, Director of the South-East Asiaand the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advi-sory Team (SEAPAT).

Despite high unemployment at home,many nationals continue to turn downthese undesirable jobs. Employers mayprefer illegal workers, who they see as“obedient” and willing to do more workfor less money. A recent survey of some500 Bangkok-based employers showedthat while 56 per cent supported depor-tation of illegal workers, 30 per cent didnot, saying replacements would be hardto find and local labour too expensive.

Tooch, Sinai and thousands of otherdeportees will probably return as soonas immigration officials turn their backs.Long and porous regional borders, weakand inefficient administrative systems andpolicies, or growing pressure from povertyand even hunger will continue to makeclandestine employment attractive.❑


86thInternational

LabourConference

Delegates to the 86th InternationalLabour Conference adopted a solemnILO Declaration on Fundamental Prin-ciples and Rights at Work, committingthe Organization’s 174 member Statesto respect the principles inherent inseven core labour standards and pro-moting their universal application. Thevote on a decision that reaffirms thecommitment of the international com-munity to uphold fundamental rightsin the workplace was 273 for, and zeroagainst, with 43 abstentions.

The Declaration underlines that all mem-ber countries have an obligation to res-pect the fundamental principles involved,whether or not they have ratified therelevant Conventions. It includes pro-vision for follow-up which will seek to“encourage the efforts made by the Mem-bers of the Organization to promote thefundamental principles and rights en-shrined in the Constitution of the ILOand the Declaration of Philadelphia”. (Fulltext of Declaration on pages 14-15)

A global report will assess the overalltrends and the effectiveness of theOrganization’s technical support and es-tablish future action plans to assist allmember States in their efforts to promotethese fundamental principles and rights.

We can all be proud of the Dec-laration that has been adopted. TheILO can now proceed on the basisof a truly global set of common socialvalues.– Director-General Michel Hansenne

Other developments during the Con-ference, which was attended by over 3,500delegates from 157 countries, including127 ministers:

● Delegates completed the firstround of discussions on a new interna-tional Convention designed to eliminatethe worst forms of child labour, includ-ing hazardous work, debt bondage, forcedlabour and slave-like conditions, and

children in prostitution, pornography anddrug trafficking. The text of the pro-posed Convention and Recommendationswill receive a second reading and isexpected to be adopted at the 1999Conference.

● Efforts to establish a new inter-national Convention on contract labourfailed to generate sufficient consensusand delegates referred the matter backto the ILO Governing Body for furtherconsideration and possible inclusion onthe agenda of a future conference. The86th session of the ILC did adopt aRecommendation on the general condi-tions necessary for the stimulation ofemployment in small and medium-sizedenterprises.

● The Conference also adopted aResolution on Youth Employment, whichcalls on member States to take specificmeasures to increase employment oppor-tunities for young persons, while ensuringemployment protection for them. Thesemeasures include investment and edu-cation, vocational training, counselling,flexible work arrangements, and thecreation of small and medium-sizeenterprises.

● The Conference held a specialsitting to examine the Director-Gener-al’s report on the situation of workersof the occupied Arab territories, duringwhich 39 speakers expressed their concernover difficulties that have arisen in thepeace process. During the discussions,speakers indicated that “there can beno lasting improvement in the situationof workers of the occupied territorieswithout economic development, trainingfor workers and managerial staff, strength-ening of employers’ and workers’ or-ganizations and more efficient socialinstitutions.

● The Conference also included anInformal Tripartite Meeting at the min-isterial level on More and Better Jobsfor Women. Ministers met with employerand worker representatives, as well asrepresentatives from major donor coun-tries and bilateral and multi bilateralagencies.

The 86th International Labour Confer-ence was honoured by the visit of Dr.Rafael Caldera, President of the Republicof Venezuela, who addressed the Con-ference in a special sitting on 9 June. Atotal of 127 ministerial level delegatesparticipated, as well as the Swiss FederalCounsellor, Mr. Pascal Couchepin, rep-resenting the Government of the ILO’shost country.Another distinguished guest,Mrs. Mary Robinson, the U.N. HighCommissioner for Human Rights, addressedthe plenary on 10 June. Mr. KailashSatyarthi, one of the main organizers ofthe Global March, also addressed thedelegates at the opening ceremony of theConference, on 2 June.

New DeclarationThe ILO Declaration on Fundamental

Principles and Rights at Work reaffirmsthe commitment of the Organization’smember States “to respect, to promoteand to realize in good faith” the rightof workers and employers to freedom ofassociation and the effective right tocollective bargaining, and to work to-ward the elimination of all forms of forcedor compulsory labour, the effective abo-lition of child labour and the eliminationof discrimination in respect of employ-ment and occupation.

The Declaration also reinforces theobligation of the Organization “to assistits Members in response to their estab-lished and expressed needs in order toattain these objectives” by making fulluse of its resources, including mobilizingexternal resources and encouraging thesupport of other international organiza-tions with which the ILO has establishedrelations.

The Declaration was adopted at theclosing plenary session, following a seriesof marathon debates in a special Con-ference committee which deliberated overthe past two weeks. The Director-Generalof the ILO, Mr. Michel Hansenne, praisedthe decision as a “watershed point in thestruggle to achieve social justice in theglobalizing economy”.

Clearing the final hurdleILO Conference adopts Rights Declaration,seeks end to child labour abuses

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●●●●● Twelve-year old Mohan Kumar from India wanted to know if the ILO building was“the biggest ILO in the world.” But for this Indian boy, making his first visit to Genevaas part of the Global March against child labour in early June, this event was bigger thanthe institution or its headquarters.Mohan followed a rocky road in his voyage to the International Labour Conference. Sold

into bonded labour in the carpet industry at a very young age, he worked in poor conditionsfor two years before being freed during a raid on his factory. Since then, he has livedin a child rehabilitation centre in New Delhi where he goes to school. Some day, Mohanwants to become Superintendent of Police so that he can help lead raids into areas wheresome of the less fortunate children still work in slave-like conditions.

●●●●● Khokan Raihan is from Bangladesh and has lost one of his legs, but he rushes around in excitement onhis crutches. The 15-year-old works for an electrical welding factory, and has done what he calls this “dangerouswork” for several years.

“He does not go to school but we are still trying,” says Mr. A. Hakim who is with the Child Rights Forum inBangladesh (Shishu Adhikar Forum). “The main problem is that even when we do get these children into school,the drop-out rate is very high. This is mainly because the parents don’t want them to go to school, they wouldrather have them earn money.”

Khokan says he lost his leg in a work-related accident.

Whereas the ILO was founded in theconviction that social justice is essentialto universal and lasting peace;Whereas economic growth is essential butnot sufficient to ensure equity, social progressand the eradication of poverty, confirmingthe need for the ILO to promote strongsocial policies, justice and democraticinstitutions;Whereas the ILO should, now more thanever, draw upon all its standard-setting,technical cooperation and research resourcesin all its areas of competence, in particularemployment, vocational training and workingconditions, to ensure that, in the contextof a global strategy for economic and socialdevelopment, economic and social policiesare mutually reinforcing components inorder to create broad-based sustainabledevelopment;Whereas the ILO should give special attentionto the problems of persons with specialsocial needs, particularly the unemployedand migrant workers, and mobilize andencourage international, regional and nationalefforts aimed at resolving their problems,and promote effective policies aimed atjob creation;Whereas, in seeking to maintain the linkbetween social progress and economicgrowth, the guarantee of fundamentalprinciples and rights at work is of particu-lar significance in that it enables the personsconcerned to claim freely and on the basisof equality of opportunity their fair shareof the wealth which they have helped togenerate, and to achieve fully their humanpotential;Whereas the ILO is the constitutionallymandated international Organization andthe competent body to set and deal withinternational labour standards, and enjoysuniversal support and acknowledgement inpromoting fundamental rights at work asthe expression of its constitutional prin-ciples;Whereas it is urgent, in a situation of growingeconomic interdependence, to reaffirm theimmutable nature of the fundamentalprinciples and rights embodied in theConstitution of the Organization and topromote their universal application;

The International Labour Conference,

1. Recalls:(a) that in freely joining the ILO, all

Members have endorsed the principles andrights set out in its Constitution and in theDeclaration of Philadelphia, and haveundertaken to work towards attaining theoverall objectives of the Organization tothe best of their resources and fully in linewith their specific circumstances;

(b) that these principles and rights havebeen expressed and developed in the formof specific rights and obligations in Con-ventions recognized as fundamental bothinside and outside the Organization.2. Declares that all Members, even if theyhave not ratified the Conventions in question,have an obligation arising from the veryfact of membership in the Organization,to respect, to promote and to realize, ingood faith and in accordance with theConstitution, the principles concerning thefundamental rights which are the subjectof those Conventions, namely:

(a) freedom of association and the ef-fective recognition of the right to collec-tive bargaining;

(b) the elimination of all forms of forcedor compulsory labour;

(c) the effective abolition of child la-bour; and

(d) the elimination of discrimination inrespect of employment and occupation.3. Recognizes the obligation on the Or-ganization to assist its Members, in re-sponse to their established and expressedneeds, in order to attain these objectivesby making full use of its constitutional,operational and budgetary resources, in-cluding by the mobilization of externalresources and support, as well as byencouraging other international organiza-tions with which the ILO has establishedrelations, pursuant to article 12 of itsConstitution, to support these efforts:

(a) by offering technical cooperation andadvisory services to promote the ratifica-tion and implementation of the fundamen-tal Conventions;

(b) by assisting those Members not yetin a position to ratify some or all of theseConventions in their efforts to respect, topromote and to realize the principlesconcerning fundamental rights which are

the subject of those Conventions; and(c) by helping the Members in their efforts

to create a climate for economic and socialdevelopment.4. Decides that, to give full effect to thisDeclaration, a promotional follow-up, whichis meaningful and effective, shall beimplemented in accordance with the measuresspecified in the annex hereto, which shallbe considered as an integral part of thisDeclaration.5. Stresses that labour standards shouldnot be used for protectionist trade pur-poses, and that nothing in this Declarationand its follow-up shall be invoked or otherwiseused for such purposes; in addition, thecomparative advantage of any country shouldin no way be called into question by thisDeclaration and its follow-up.

Annex

Follow-up to the Declaration

I. OVERALL PURPOSE1. The aim of the follow-up described

below is to encourage the efforts made bythe Members of the Organization to pro-mote the fundamental principles and rightsenshrined in the Con-stitution of the ILO andthe Declaration ofPhiladelphia and reaf-firmed in this Decla-ration.

2. In line with thisobjective, which is ofa strictly promotionalnature, this follow-upwill allow the identi-fication of areas inwhich the assistanceof the Organizationthrough its technical co-operation activities mayprove useful to its

International LaInternational LaInternational LaInternational LaInternational La

ILO DECLARATION ON FUILO DECLARATION ON FUILO DECLARATION ON FUILO DECLARATION ON FUILO DECLARATION ON FUAND RIGHTS AT WORK AND RIGHTS AT WORK AND RIGHTS AT WORK AND RIGHTS AT WORK AND RIGHTS AT WORK

ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE GENEVA, 18 GENEVA, 18 GENEVA, 18 GENEVA, 18 GENEVA, 18

Mr. Jean-Jacques Oechslin, tence, and Michel Hansenne, ing the Declaration.

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“The world has enough compassion. This compas-sion has to be transformed into social action forchildren.” Kailash Satyarthi; marching with thechildren at the ILO, Geneva, during the InternationalLabour Conference.

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Members to help them implement thesefundamental principles and rights. It is nota substitute for the established supervisorymechanisms, nor shall it impede theirfunctioning; consequently, specific situa-tions within the purview of those mecha-nisms shall not be examined or re-exam-ined within the framework of this follow-up.

3. The two aspects of this follow-up,described below, are based on existingprocedures: the annual follow-up concern-ing non-ratified fundamental Conventionswill entail merely some adaptation of thepresent modalities of application of article19, paragraph 5(e), of the Constitution; andthe global report will serve to obtain thebest results from the procedures carriedout pursuant to the Constitution.

II. ANNUAL FOLLOW-UP CONCERN-ING NON-RATIFIED FUNDAMENTALCONVENTIONSA. Purpose and scope

1. The purpose is to provide anopportunity to review each year, by meansof simplified procedures to replace the four-year review introduced by the GoverningBody in 1995, the efforts made in accord-

ance with the Decla-ration by Memberswhich have not yetratified all the funda-mental Conventions.

2. The follow-up will cover each yearthe four areas of fun-damental principles andrights specified in theDeclaration.

B. Modalities1. The follow-

up will be based onreports requested fromMembers under article

19, paragraph 5(e), of the Constitution.The report forms will be drawn up so asto obtain information from governmentswhich have not ratified one or more ofthe fundamental Conventions, on any changeswhich may have taken place in their lawand practice, taking due account of article23 of the Constitution and establishedpractice.

2. These reports, as compiled by theOffice, will be reviewed by the GoverningBody.

3. With a view to presenting an in-troduction to the reports thus compiled,drawing attention to any aspects whichmight call for a more in-depth discussion,the Office may call upon a group of expertsappointed for this purpose by the Govern-ing Body.

4. Adjustments to the Governing Body’sexisting procedures should be examinedto allow Members which are not repre-sented on the Governing Body to provide,in the most appropriate way, clarificationswhich might prove necessary or useful duringGoverning Body discussions to supplementthe information contained in their reports.

III. GLOBAL REPORT

A. Purpose and scope1. The purpose of this report is to provide

a dynamic global picture relating to eachcategory of fundamental principles and rightsnoted during the preceding four-year period,and to serve as a basis for assessing theeffectiveness of the assistance provided bythe Organization, and for determiningpriorities for the following period, in theform of action plans for technical coop-eration designed in particular to mobilizethe internal and external resources neces-sary to carry them out.

2. The report will cover, each year,one of the four categories of fundamentalprinciples and rights in turn.

B. Modalities1. The report will be drawn up under

the responsibility of the Director-Generalon the basis of official information, orinformation gathered and assessed inaccordance with established procedures.

In the case of States which have not ratifiedthe fundamental Conventions, it will bebased in particular on the findings of theaforementioned annual follow-up. In thecase of Members which have ratified theConventions concerned, the report will bebased in particular on reports as dealt withpursuant to article 22 of the Constitution.

2. This report will be submitted to theConference for tripartite discussion as areport of the Director-General. The Con-ference may deal with this report sepa-rately from reports under article 12 of itsStanding Orders, and may discuss it duringa sitting devoted entirely to this report,or in any other appropriate way. It willthen be for the Governing Body, at an earlysession, to draw conclusions from thisdiscussion concerning the priorities andplans of action for technical cooperationto be implemented for the following four-year period.

IV. IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT:1. Proposals shall be made for amend-

ments to the Standing Orders of the GoverningBody and the Conference which are re-quired to implement the preceding provi-sions.

2. The Conference shall, in due course,review the operation of this follow-up inthe light of the experience acquired to assesswhether it has adequately fulfilled the overallpurpose articulated in Part I.

The foregoing is the ILO Declaration onFundamental Principles and Rights at Workand its Follow-up duly adopted by the GeneralConference of the International LabourOrganization during its Eighty-sixth Ses-sion which was held at Geneva and de-clared closed the 18 June 1998.

IN FAITH WHEREOF we have appendedour signatures this nineteenth day of June1998.

The President of the Conference,

The Director-General of the InternationalLabour Office.

abour Conferenceabour Conferenceabour Conferenceabour Conferenceabour Conference

UNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESK AND ITS FOLLOW-UPAND ITS FOLLOW-UPK AND ITS FOLLOW-UPAND ITS FOLLOW-UPAND ITS FOLLOW-UP

AT ITS EIGHTY-SIXTH SESSION,AT ITS EIGHTY-SIXTH SESSION,AT ITS EIGHTY-SIXTH SESSION,AT ITS EIGHTY-SIXTH SESSION,AT ITS EIGHTY-SIXTH SESSION,JUNE 1998JUNE 1998JUNE 1998JUNE 1998JUNE 1998

the President of the Confer-ILO Director-General, sign-

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“I was running desperately to catch a bus one daybecause I was late for work,” he says.“And being late for work could mean beingsacked immediately. In doing so, I was runover and lost my leg.”

●●●●● Mosaiful, 14 years old, now goes to schooland lives at the hostel of the BangladeshChild Rights Forum. He still sells sweetsand chocolates in his free time but is proudthat he is getting an education.

“I am angry with my family and do not ever want to live withthem,” he says.

Why? Because he was the youngest – a stepchild – of a largefamily that left the village of Kushtiya to come to Dhaka. No onecould spare money to send him to school, so he had to go outto work.

“My NGO school is my only family now,” he says.


●●●●● The Conference President was Mr. Jean-Jacques Oechslin (France),Honorary President of the International Organization of Employers.

●●●●● The three Vice-Presidents of the Conference were Mr. Alhaji Mu-hammed Mumuni, Minister of Employment and Social Affairs of Ghana,representing governments, Mr. I.P. Anand, of India, representing em-ployers and Mr. Sukesada Ito, of Japan, representing workers.

●●●●● The International Labour Conference meets annually. It providesan international forum for discussion of world labour and social problemsand sets minimum international labour standards and broad policies ofthe Organization. Every two years, the Conference adopts the ILO’s biennialwork programme and budget, which is financed by its 174 member States.Each member country has the right to send four del-egates to the Conference: two from the governmentand one each representing workers and employers,each of whom may speak and vote independently.

●●●●● The ILO Governing Body unanimously electedMr. Nobutoshi Akao, Ambassador Plenipotentiary ofthe Government of Japan, as Chairman of its 1998-99 session. Mr. Rolf Thüsing (Germany), a memberof the Executive Board of the Confederation of GermanEmployers Associations, was elected as employer Vice-Chairman and Mr. William Brett (United Kingdom), amember of the General Council of the UK’s Trades Union Council, wasre-elected as worker Vice-Chairman.

Jean-JacquesOechslin

AlhajiMuhammed Mumuni

I.P. Anand Sukesada Ito

Nobutoshi Akao

Concerns overglobalization

The impetus for the Declaration stemmedfrom concerns in the international com-munity over the processes of globaliza-tion and the possible social consequencesof trade liberalization, expressed notablyat the UN World Summit for SocialDevelopment (Copenhagen, 1995) andthe WTO Ministerial Conference inSingapore (1996), both of which expressedsupport for internationally recognized corelabour standards and identified the ILOas the competent body to deal with andset such standards.

The Declaration “stresses that labourstandards should not be used for protec-tionist trade purposes, and that nothingin this Declaration and its follow-up shallbe invoked or otherwise used for suchpurposes; in addition, the comparativeadvantage of any country should in noway be called into question by thisDeclaration and its follow-up”.

In his address to the Conference, MichelHansenne said that “it was high time forthe ILO to give itself the means to addressthe social consequences of the globali-zation of the economy... I believe wecan all be proud of the Declaration thathas been adopted”, he said, adding “TheILO can now proceed on the basis ofa truly global set of common social values.”

Referring to concerns expressed dur-ing the long Committee debate, Mr.Hansenne said that the follow-up, whichforms an integral part of the Declaration,aims at punishing no one, or condemninganyone: “It serves, on the contrary, topromote the fundamental rights andprinciples embodied in the Declaration:Nothing more, nothing less.”

Following the Copenhagen Summit,the ILO launched an intensive campaignamong its members to increase the numberof ratifications of core standards. Sincethen, more than 80 new ratifications havebeen registered, and the campaign toachieve universal ratification will con-tinue.

To date, 37 countries have ratified allseven of the Conventions.* ConventionNo. 87 (Freedom of Association andProtection of the Right to Organize, 1948)has received 122 ratifications, roughly70 per cent of ILO members. ConventionNo. 98 (Right to Organize and CollectiveBargaining, 1949) has received 138ratifications, roughly 80 per cent of ILOmembers. The Forced Labour Conven-tion (No. 29, 1930) has been ratified by149 member States, (84 per cent) and

the Abolition of Forced Labour Conven-tion (No. 105) has received 130 ratifications(75 per cent). The two Conventions ondiscrimination (No. 100, Equal Remu-neration, 1951, and No. 111, Discrimi-nation – Employment and Occupation,1958) have received, respectively, 137and 130 ratifications, covering 79 and74 per cent of ILO member States. TheMinimum Age Convention, (No. 138,1973) has received 63 ratifications,covering 36 per cent of member States.

Discussions on the worstforms of child labour

Following discussions on a new Con-vention and Recommendations concern-ing child labour, the Conference unani-mously adopted a resolution to place theitem on the agenda of its 87th sessionin June 1999. The move concluded anintense, three-week series of activitiesfocusing on child labour, which includedthe reception by the delegates at the Con-ference of hundreds of children partici-

pating in a “Global March against ChildLabour” which got underway in Januaryand had crossed over 100 countriesbefore arriving in Geneva. (See profilesof the marchers on pp. 14-15)

A 181-member Committee on ChildLabour composed of government, workerand employer representatives adopted aseries of improvements to a proposeddraft Convention. The proposed con-clusions urge the Conference to adoptnew standards on the immediate ban ofthe “worst” forms of child labour, andstrengthen existing standards, includingthe ILO Minimum Age Convention,1973 (No. 138), of 1973 and its accom-panying Recommendation No. 146 whichare aimed at the total abolition of childlabour. More than the previous Conven-tion, the new instrument would bring intosharper focus the kinds of measures neededto suppress “the worst forms of childlabour.”

The Committee also proposed that:● The term “child” in a new Con-

vention should apply to all persons underthe age of 18;


● The “worst” forms of child labourshould include:

All forms of slavery and practices similarto slavery, such as the sale and traffick-ing of children, forced or compulsorylabour, debt bondage and serfdom;

● The use, procuring or offering ofa child for prostitution, for productionof pornography or for pornographicperformances, as well as illegal activi-ties, such as the production and traffick-ing of drugs; and

● Any other type of work or activitywhich, by its nature or the circumstancesin which it is carried out, could jeop-ardize the health, safety or morals ofchildren.

The draft calls on each ratifying memberState to establish “appropriate mecha-nisms” for monitoring the provisions ofthe proposed Convention, as well asdesigning and carrying out programmesof action to eliminate the worst formsof child labour. In addition, it urges eachratifying member State to “take allnecessary measures to ensure its effec-tive implementation and enforcementincluding the provision and applicationof penal and other sanctions.”

Finally, it calls on members to takeinto account the importance of educationin eliminating child labour, and adopt“effective, time-bound measures” to assistin the removal of children from the worstforms of work and “provide rehabilita-tion and social reintegration”.

This was the first discussion of the newinstrument and it will be discussed againnext year with the view to adoption. Underthe ILO Constitution, the new Conven-tion, if adopted in 1999, will come intoforce one calendar year after the secondratification by an ILO member State.

“Contract labour”:Future directions

The Conference adopted a Resolutionconcerning the possible adoption ofinternational instruments for the protec-tion of workers in the situations iden-tified by the Committee on Contract Labour,inviting the Governing Body of the ILOto place these issues on the agenda ofthe International Labour Conference bythe year 2002, with a view to the possibleadoption of a Convention supplementedby a Recommendation, if considerednecessary.

Persisting conceptual problems, com-bined with divergences of viewpoints,prevented the Committee on ContractLabour from recommending to theConference the adoption of proposedinstruments on contract labour as hadbeen originally foreseen. Not since 1961has a Committee of the International LabourConference set up to examine draftinstruments not reported back to theConference with proposals for the adop-tion of international labour standards.

The Worker Members at this year’sConference expressed disappointment thatthe Committee did not come up with adraft Convention and Recommendation.The Workers’ Vice-Chairperson, how-ever, welcomed the fact that there willbe a follow-up to the work of the Committeewith guidance given to the GoverningBody to ensure that all the necessarysteps will be taken to bring back a draftConvention and Recommendation forfuture consideration. Such a Committeeshould “address the situations identifiedby the actual Committee where workersrequire protection and complete the workcommenced by this Committee on ContractLabour”, he said.

According to the Employers’ Vice-Chairperson, “the outcome of the Com-mittee’s work reflects the fact that thesubject of contract labour should not havebeen on the agenda for consideration ofan international instrument. It has beendemonstrated that the conceptual,definitional and linguistic difficulties,associated with the term contract labourmade any meaningful considerationimpossible”. He expressed his hope that“future considerations will be much moretightly focused and based on a more preciseunderstanding of the issues under dis-cussion”.

The Committee’s Chairperson, and itsReporter, as well as a number of other

(Continued on p. 28)

Addressing a special sitting ofthe 86th International Labour Con-ference, President Rafael Calderasaid that while globalization andmarket economics are inevitable andpotentially positive developments“there are also characteristics ofglobalization which must be dealtwith carefully so that they will notcause harm to humanity...In the eraof globalization, the struggle forsocial justice needs to be interna-tional: globalization should not breedfurther injustice but be harnessedas an element for strengtheningpeace in the world.”

Echoing the 1944 Declaration ofPhiladelphia, he said that povertyanywhere poses risks to peace andprosperity everywhere. “It was avalid principle yesterday and it isstill a valid principle today. We muststress the fact that globalization isnot a matter for discussion, some-thing that one can be for or against.It is a fact.”

His Excellency Rafael Caldera, President ofVenezuela (left) is welcomed by ILO Director-General, Michel Hansenne.

He said that while the market isimportant for governing relationsamong individuals, it is not an all-powerful force. “There is one thingthat the market cannot solve by itself:this is the unfair distribution of wealth,”he said. “We live today in a world

where two words predominate: pro-ductivity and competition. Theycannot be the only standards of socialrelations. If we only think in termsof competition, the social conse-quences will be very serious.”

Mr. Caldera also voiced supportfor the Declaration on FundamentalRights of Workers, saying “thisdeclaration of principles, this re-affirmation of worker rights, mustnot be invoked by protectionist in-terests wishing to take advantageof the difficult circumstances pre-vailing in some countries in orderto circumvent the principle of faircompetition.”

The President praised the recentelection of his “Latin American com-patriot, Juan Somavía of Chile,” whowill succeed Michel Hansenne asDirector-General of the ILO (in March1999). He said the decision to electa Director-General from a develop-ing country reflected a positiveevolution.

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ust weeks beforethe FootballWorld Cupteams kick off in

France on 10 June, theILO took a media teamfrom Europe to visitSialkot, Pakistan.

Footballs (soccer balls inthe United States) are part ofa global sporting goods industry.Seventy-five per cent are hand-stitchedin Sialkot for an export market thatgenerates US$1 billion in retail salesannually. According to the ILO, some5,000 to 7,000 children currently workin the industry in Sialkot region. Totell the story, nine journalists spentfive days with ILO staff, travellingto villages and visiting homes, stitch-ing centres, non-formal learning andrehabilitation centres, the Sialkot Cham-ber of Commerce and Industry andsome large modern manufacturing fa-cilities.

Sialkot – We are at the FazalpuraUmang Talimi Centre in the district ofSambrial, meeting with Aamir, Ali Akbarand several other children. This is oneof the 90 village non-formal educationcentres run by the ILO’s IPEC programmeand its partners (see box on FACTS).The centre is a mud and brick buildingwith a few wooden benches. Aamir, AliAkbar, Ameena, and Rubina are, like allthe others, child workers who stitch foot-

balls around here.Aamir, 10, waits

watchfully before hedecides to come forthto talk to us. He at-

tends this non-formalschool and works on

footballs when he returnshome.

Ali Akbar, 13, has neverbeen to school. His fingers show healing

wounds that bear witness to the fact thathe still stitches footballs. His friend, alsonamed Ali Akbar, says that some yearsago he had attended school. “But I hadto leave under pressure from my parentswho needed me to stitch footballs foradded income.”

When asked whether they play foot-ball, Aamir and Ali Akbar answerspontaneously: “No”. Do they know any-thing about how football is played or howmany players make up a team? Another“No”. In fact they don’t know any realgames.

This programme enables many chil-dren to leave their homes and forget stitch-ing for a few hours, attend lessons, learnrecreational activities and games, and atthe same time get some free health care.We ask: “What is it that you like bestabout coming here”? No hesitationwhatsoever from any child: “Studying”.They understand the importance of edu-cation in realizing their dreams of be-coming teachers, pilots, nurses or doc-

The ILO Constitution statesthat protection of children isone of the essential ele-ments in the pursuit ofsocial justice and universalpeace. ILO’s InternationalProgramme on the Elimi-nation of Child Labour(IPEC) is the world’s largesttechnical cooperation pro-gramme on child labour.More than fifty countries onfour continents are currentlyparticipating. The pro-gramme is inspiring, guidingand supporting nationalinitiatives in key areas ofpolicy-making and directaction. In June 1994, theGovernment of Pakistan andthe ILO signed a Memoran-dum of Understanding on anational programme for theprogressive elimination ofchild labour within theframework of IPEC. Its aim isto promote conditions toenable the government toprogressively prohibit,restrict and regulate childlabour so that child labourcan be gradually eliminated.

Playingfairand stillwinning

FACTSPakistan is a major exporter of sporting goods, particularly hand-stitchedfootballs. The industry, concentrated in and around Sialkot, has comeunder considerable international pressure because of the involvementof children in the manufacturing of these balls. An agreement signedbetween the ILO, UNICEF and the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce andIndustry (SCCI) in February 1997 in Atlanta, USA, has led to a projectwhich aims to eliminate child labour in the manufacturing of footballsthrough the voluntary participation of manufacturers. The overall projectis being implemented jointly by the ILO, UNICEF, SCCI, Save the Children-UK, Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal, and the Bunyad Literacy Community Council.The project has two main components: Prevention and Monitoring, andSocial Protection. (See box “Who’s paying for the soccer ball project?).

Prevention and Monitoring: The ILO has set up an external monitoringsystem to identify the occurrence of child labour in the football industryin Sialkot and to ascertain its phase-out. The monitoring team collab-orates with the participating manufacturers, who are responsible forthe internal monitoring.

Social Protection: A wide range of activities have been designed toprovide alternatives to the working children and their families who areaffected by the Prevention and Monitoring Programme. For the ILO theseactivities include the establishment of Village Education and ActionCentres which are to provide rehabilitation services, including non-formal education, skills training, income generation activities for adultsin the family, credit/loan/savings facilities, and awareness-raising.

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tors. In all, there are now over 2,000children registered in such rehabilitationcentres and several more siblings whojust “tag along”. It’s something differentand new and the knowledge they gainwill help them eventually join the main-stream education system.

We continue to the Hajipura Stitch-ing Centre, also in Sambrial. This is asmall dimly-lit room. There is just enoughspace for the men squatting on the floor,huddled over the wooden form onto whichthey assemble intricate pieces of thickmulti-layered material, using a long needle-like tool and waxed thread.

ILO monitoring teams make surprisevisits to such stitching centres on a regu-lar basis to ensure that no child under14 works there. By bringing the stitchingout of homes into formal centres, theinspectors are able to confirm that theproduction from that centre is indeedchild-labour free. When they do find achild, sanctions are taken against thesupervisor of the centre and the parentsare advised to send their children to oneof the learning centres. Convincing themis not always easy because the time thechild spends at school means that fewerfootballs will be produced.

We also take the time to visit twomodern manufacturing facilities. The largemanufacturers have their own stitchingcentres and some have tried to eliminatethe middleman. In this way they canaccount for the production of each footballand claim to be producing only child-

The aim of this project is to elim-inate child labour in the soccer ballstitching industry in Sialkot over thenext two years. It had an initial con-tribution of about US$1.5 million whichhas now risen to over US$2 million.■ ILO-IPEC funds, amounting to overUS$755,700, are provided by theUnited States Department of Labour.■ Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal has commit-ted an additional amount of aboutUS$195,000 towards the ILO’s SocialProtection and Rehabilitation pro-gramme of the project. ■ UNICEF’scontribution is US$200,000 and ■The Sialkot Chamber of Commerceand Industry (SCCI) is contributingUS$250,000 towards the project’sPrevention and Monitoring Pro-gramme. ■ Save the Children – UKhas a commitment of aboutUS$900,000 from the British Depart-ment for International Development’sbilateral programme funds. ■ TheSoccer Industries Council of Amer-ica (SICA) and (FIFA) have providedUS$100,000 each towards the project.■ As a token of the commitment ofPakistani workers to the cause ofelimination of child labour in Paki-stan, The All Pakistan Federation ofTrade Unions (APFTU) has made acontribution of US$1,000 to the Sialkotproject.

A Project Coordinating Committeehas been established under the overallSialkot project and the Partners’Operational Framework for the ac-tivities has been endorsed by theProject Coordinating Committee.

WHO’S PAYING FORTHE SOCCER BALL

PROJECT?

Stitching soccer balls at home in Sialkot, Pakistan.

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labour free footballs. These are two ofthe 34 manufacturers who have joinedthe ILO/IPEC programme to try to elimi-nate child labour. These 34 alone, outof about 70 manufacturers in the region,produce around 70 per cent of the ballsfor export.

Another day, another village and aftera one-hour drive on bumpy, dusty villagetracks, we arrive unannounced in Mundeke Barian in Pasur district. Once the villageelders have invited us to enter the narrowalleys of the village, we try to visit homesto find children who might be stitchingfootballs. Many a time when we entera home, the children working there dis-appear.

Haleema Bibi sits outside her smallone-room house stitching footballs, helpedby her 10-year-old daughter Taheera.Taheera is silent and, except for a momentwhen she pauses to throw us a dolefullook, she does not stop her work. At thisyoung age, she spends most of the dayhelping her widowed mother put togetherfootballs. “I cannot afford to let her goto school”, sighs her widowed mother.“We are the two main breadwinners ofthe family. I have four younger childrento feed”, she adds. Hoping that educationwill improve their lot, she does send thetwo younger daughters to a part-timeschool when they are not polishing andassembling footballs.

While we weave our way through themaze of alleys, we meet Nazia, ten yearsold. She is wearing a school uniformwhich means that she must attend agovernment school. Yes, after school shegenerally stitches footballs. Saying that,she runs away. After several attempts tolocate her, a village elder leads us toher home. We find her sitting on thefloor, already busy stitching. Her 14-year-old sister is doing the same. Shedoes not go to school. Being the elderchild, she has had to sacrifice so thatthe others can get an education. A 12-year-old sister is at school and is ex-pected to return soon, to do her shareof work. This family seems relativelywell off since the father works inassembling surgical instruments and the

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mother spends a few hours each nightmaking crochet covers.

The children of Sialkot work longhours sewing footballs, an intricate task,especially hard on little fingers.

To get an objective view of every-one’s side of the story, here are someexcerpts from articles published in thepress following this visit.

Kiran Mehra-KerpelmanTen-year-old Taheera spends most ofher day stitching foothalls.


Excerpt from an article which appearedin Le Soir (Belgium)25 May 1998(Original in French)

...The boycott panic

Piled up high and dangling off trucks,stacked in horse-drawn carriages, anddangerously heaped on motorcycles. InSialkot, there are footballs everywhere.

Seven out of every ten footballs usedin matches around the world are pro-duced in the Sialkot province. Around40 million hand-sewn balls, conformingto FIFA standards, are exported eachyear. This is an old tradition developedunder the British Empire. Today, Sialkotspecializes in two industries: sportinggoods and...surgical instruments.

The footballs are manufactured forlarge sporting-goods multinationals,Reebok, Nike, Adidas, etc., by about70 local manufacturing firms in theirostentatious headquarters in this mis-erable decor. In these factories syntheticleather is prepared and cut to shape. Thehexagonal pieces are decorated withstencils and the quality of the ball ischecked. The balls are prepared forshipping: in all, a lot of manual tasks– but labour is cheap!

But there are also the “little hands”which sew the pieces of leather thoughrarely in the factories. They work moregenerally at home, in the outlying villages,or in groups in any space that can befound. Seventy thousand people stitchthese balls, of which 7,000 to 10,000are children under 14. All do not workfull time, says Mr. Aslam Dar, Presidentof the Sialkot Chamber of Commerceand Industry.

Industry has accepted the eliminationof child labour (under 14 years) withintwo years, already at the end of 1998.As Western public opinion mobilizesagainst the “scandal”, the panic of boycottsets in...

“The footballs of shame” had alreadymobilized opinion during the EnglishEURO of 1996.

At the beginning of 1997, an agree-ment was signed in Atlanta (USA) betweenthe Chamber, the International LabourOrganization (UN agency for workersrights), UNICEF, the non-governmentalorganization Save the Children-UK andtwo local associations. Half of the localmanufacturers (70% of the production)have joined the project. They have pledgednot to use child labour and have regroupedthe stitchers in centres which are moni-

tored by “flying squad” inspectors of theILO. The little workers receive an in-formal education.

We visited these places, at the invi-tation of the ILO, together with a pho-tographer and eight colleagues, all fromEuropean countries selected for the WorldCup. A head-on collision with a complexreality. And multi-faceted: According tothe ILO, 3.3 million children work inPakistan: bonded labourers forced toreimburse past debts, domestic servants,carpet weavers, workers in brick kilns.So many activities which do not benefitfrom the spotlight of the World Cup...

Philippe Regnier

Excerpt from an article which appearedin three parts on 14, 15 and 16 May 1998in La Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy).The article appeared in three parts on14, 15 and 16 May 1998.(Original in Italian)

...When you visit a sewing centre, itdoesn’t take you long to realize why theproduction activities are concentrated inPakistan and not the United States orEurope. The work is unpleasant and noWestern worker would be prepared touse a needle and thread for over twohours in exchange for one dollar. “That’sanother matter,” says Faiz Shah and he’sright because purchasing power in Pa-kistan and in the poorer Asian countriesin general is another matter comparedto the developed world. Born in Sialkotand a graduate from the University ofKentucky, Shah came back home to becomea manager. Friendly and evidently in-telligent, he makes the mistake of de-scribing his Saga City like a miniatureDisneyland and when he assures you thathe has nothing against the introductionof the unions (“On the contrary...”) hisaffability does not ring completely true.But maybe that’s just my impression: theinspection of his factory making ballsand goalkeepers’ gloves reveals a healthyenvironment. The hall where the mate-

TheFazalpuraUmangTalimiCentreofinformaleducationin thedistrictofSambrial,Sialkot.

Georges Cabrera/ILO

rials are treated with ammonia is wellventilated, for example. And, above all,there’s no trace of children.

Saga City and other 33 local compa-nies did not hesitate in joining the UNLabour Organization’s programme. Thosecompanies employing minors first re-ported then enrolled them in the newschool programme. The ILO subsidy(initially 500 thousand dollars then 753thousand) together with the UNICEF con-tribution (200 thousand dollars) and thatof the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce (afurther 200 thousand dollars) now allowsthe “reported” children to study withouttheir families suffering from an economicpoint of view. The 34 factories linkedto the UN programme are nearly exactlyhalf of the total number of factories (70)and together they produce 70 per centof Pakistanifootballs. Amongthem are all theexclusive dealersof the sports in-dustry giants. Weonly saw oneb r a n d - n a m efootball (Umbro)being sewn by a child(Assaf, 8 years old) in thevillage of Bhagwaland. Butany optimistic interpreta-tion of the general trend israpidly halted by the resent-ful reaction of a manufac-turer from the Chamber ofCommerce to our questions,“I ask myself why you don’tgo and put the same questionsto companies in China. Alwaysin Pakistan, only in Pakistan.Thanks to the international presspicking on us, China has alreadystolen 15 per cent of the productionfrom us.” Experience has taught usthat whenever someone thinks the massmedia is plotting against them, thatperson usually has something to hide...

Paolo Condò


today, i.e. the threat of consumer boy-cotting and the American Senator Harkin’sproposed Bill prohibiting the importa-tion to the USA of goods manufacturedby children. A football producer fromthe factory Recto estimates that due tothe campaign, manufacturers in Sialkotof the less well-known brands have ex-perienced a 20 per cent drop in orders.

It is the irony of fate that many of thecheap footballs, which have come on themarket, are produced in China, India andMexico under conditions which are nolonger tolerated in Pakistan. The newsfrom France that the 500 Adidas foot-balls, to be used at the World Cup shortly,have been manufactured in Morocco –by Pakistani families – in order to avoidpolemics on child labour in Pakistan,reflects the seriousness of the situation...

Anne Mette Skipper

Excerpt from an article which appearedin Trouw (The Netherlands)16 May 1998.(Original in Dutch)

Of all the footballs produced in Pa-kistan, about 75 per cent are manufac-tured in Sialkot. Sporting goods produc-tion in this city accounts for 40 per centof its total exports. To save the threat-ened football industry, the local Cham-ber of Commerce promised to put an endto the use of child labour, and in 1997,agreed to join a program co-organized

by the International Labour Organi-zation (ILO), Unicef, the WorldFederation of Sporting Goods In-dustry (WFSGI), as well as the Savethe Children Fund, an English NGO.This NGO had estimated that outof a total of 40,000 workers em-ployed in the football industry inSialkot, about 7,000 were children.

Until 1997, balls were stitched athome. Since it is so difficult to monitorthe use of child labour in the privacyof homes, the stitchers have beengathered together in stitching cen-tres, which enables the ILO to carryout checks to ensure that no chil-dren under the age of 14 are employed.Of the 73 football manufacturers inSialkot, around half voluntarily joinedthe program, accounting for around70 per cent of the total productionof footballs in this region. The re-mainder who decided not to join,still rely on production of balls “oftencheaper and lower in quality” beingstitched at home, and using childlabour. Children are allowed to

continue earning a wage, but their full-time employment, which prevents themattending school, is forbidden under Pa-kistani Law.

The manufacturers who joined the pro-gramme at present only produce a certainamount of their footballs in the stitchingcentres and without the use of child labour.By mid-1999, however, they will beexpected to produce all their balls in suchcentres and without the use of child labour.Come next October, the target is for atleast half of the production to be organ-ized in such centres. In May, 41 per centof footballs were being produced in thisway. The manufacturers, it seems, areon schedule.

Missing

“But it’s the last phase which is goingto be the toughest”, predicts Rijk vanHaarlem, a Dutch labour inspector whoset up the program for monitoring inSialkot. “To date, our monitors have onlyfound 91 children in the stitching cen-tres. All the rest are older. About 2,000are in the special rehabilitation programme.That means around 4,900 children arestill missing. It’s pretty obvious that theyare still working from home and it’s goingto be a hard task to remove such labourfrom the chain of production.”

Saskia Jansens

Excerpts from other newspapers andmagazines will appear in the next issue.

Georges Cabrera/ILO

Excerpt from an article which ap-peared in Jyllands-Posten (Den-mark)22 May 1998.(Original in Danish)

Sialkot

“Show me your hands. If the skinon your fingers is callous from manystitches, it proves that you have beensewing footballs daily for years”.

Thirteen-year-old Ali Akbar hasdone just that and he cannot reador write; nor can he explain howto play football because since hewas 7 years old he has been sewingso many footballs every day thatthere was no time left for neitherplay nor school attendance.

He is fed up with sewing foot-balls. He still does it though whenhe comes home from school be-cause his mother says that if theother children in the family can doit, so can he, and thus contributeto the family income; it is difficultto resist that kind of pressure. He doesnot dream of spending the rest of hislife sewing footballs; he would like tobe a miller like his father, but like themajority of children in Pakistan he comesfrom a large family which cannot make

both ends meet.Nine reporters from nine Euro-

pean countries met Ali Akbarand more than 100 other

children from footballsewing families in aschool in the villageMunde ke Barian nearSialkot where ILO,UNICEF and the localchamber of com-merce are cooperat-ing in a project, theobject of which is toeradicate child labourin the football indus-try...

Driven into acorner

The campaignagainst child labourhas in fact drivenSialkot’s footballproducers into acorner, so much sothat at present theyare fighting to sur-vive. They are facedwith one of thestrong weapons of


ill the telecommunctions revolu-tion mean more and better jobs?Yes – eventually – says a newreport,* prepared for a tripartite

meeting on posts and telecommunica-tions.

Although the study notes that postaland telecommunications services, tradi-tionally organized on the basis of publicmonopolies or private quasi-monopolies,have often seen a decline in the numberof jobs over the past decade as they goprivate, the growth of new enterprises– often recently established or the sub-sidiaries of existing enterprises as wellas telecoms and the Internet – will offernew prospects for ultimately increasingthe number of jobs in the sector--espe-cially for women.

Governments from some 20 countriesmet at ILO offices in Geneva on 20-24April with representatives of trade unionsand employers from privatized and publicpostal and telecommunications operatorsto discuss the new trends. Subjects in-cluded liberalization and deregulation prac-tices, social implications of privatizationand restructuring, labour relations, workingconditions and human resources devel-opment and training.

Big sector, big impact

The report cites data from the 1995World Telecommunication DevelopmentReport showing that employment in thepublic telecommunications services sec-

tor has fallen by 6 per cent since 1982,with significant reductions in the AsiaPacific region (-25 per cent) and inNorth America (-23 per cent).

Among public postal operators (PPOs),employment increased slightly in someindustrialized countries such as the UnitedStates or the United Kingdom between1990-95, while in most other developedcountries the number of postal employ-ees remained stable or decreased.

“Employment in most PPOs of the Eu-ropean Union is expected to decrease upto the year 2000,” the report says. “Mostredundancies have occurred in postaldeliveries, counter services, letter andparcel sorting and transportation sectors.”

The report states that, as a result ofthe rapid pace of change in the telecom-munications sector, workers will face theprospect of a two-stage change in em-ployment. In the first phase, traditionaltelecommunications operators may losebetween 25 per cent and 50 per cent oftheir staff, mainly in occupations maderedundant by technology or “external-ized” following a refocusing on com-mercial and high value-added services.The report cites one study by BIPEConsulting Group, prepared on behalfof the European Commission, predictingthat British Telecom, for example, “willexperience another 45,000 to 55,000 re-dundancies, depending on the scenariochosen, from now until the end of thecentury.”

The study goes on to say, however,that this initial phase may be followed

by a “change in the nature itself ofemployment,” (now being seen in par-ticular in the United States for example)in which “permanent adjustments andredeployment follow one another at abrisk pace.” In the postal sector, thereport cites the example of Sweden, wherefollowing the liberalization of the postalsector at the beginning of the 1990s, around1,000 new jobs were created by new en-terprises.

The report notes, however, that thistwo-phase scenario may not occur every-where, adding “on the contrary, this two-phase movement in the evolution ofemployment could be accelerated – evenbypassed – in its first phase in variouscountries as a result of new techniques(satellites, mobile telephones, alternativeenterprise structure) allowing some re-gions to save on complete telegraphicinfrastructure – as well as a desire forrapid withdrawal by States for budgetaryreasons.”

“Creative destruction” and“destructive erosion”

The report cites examples of changesin occupations, termed “a creative de-struction.” It notes that already in theearly 1990s, various occupations were onthe way out: operators of manual tel-ephone exchanges, traditional fitters andlinesmen, staff of telephone directoryinquiry services affected by computeri-zation and the introduction of electronic

Calling for more andbetter jobs

Telecoms on the rise: New enterprises, newtechnologies, internet, will mean long-term job growth

Increasing competition from private enterprises, new means of communication,elimination of monopolies and the growth of such new media as the Internet posemajor challenges to workers in postal administrations and telecoms around theworld. A new ILO report says faster, better communications will mean big changesin the nature of jobs held by millions workers worldwide, especially women.

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directory services, workers in manualsorting stations and clerical employeeswhose daily jobs are increasingly per-formed by office machinery.

“The evolution of occupations has in-creased since the beginning of the 1990s,”the report says, “and totally new func-tions have appeared, in particular thoserelated to access services to the Internetor multimedia.”

Not only are new occupations appear-ing, but the separation line between variousoccupations and some branches is blur-ring with computerization encouragingversatility and distance work, the reportsays. At Telecom Italia, for example, acompany-level agreement negotiated andsigned in 1995 allowed the redeploymentof staff, such as operators who wouldotherwise have run the risk of dismissal,to home where they could work on a part-time basis.

Meanwhile, the legal status of employ-ees is seeing a “destructive erosion.” Jobsecurity, for example, has been sacri-ficed in the process of structural reform,resulting in an increase in the precari-ousness of employment as a result of amove from a technological and/or publiclogic to a commercial logic.

“The organization of enterprises (in-cluding postal services) by type of marketreflects the priority given to the clientover functions of general interest,” thereport says, adding that while public service

functions and client interests may co-exist, “the consequences of such an evo-lution appear to be considerable for thestatus of employees and the manner inwhich they exercise their occupation.”

The report cites the example of DeutscheTelekom which halted recruitment of publicemployees since 1995. At the same timetop management has called for a movefrom an administrative status of the operatorto that of a multinational on marketsopening up to competition.

Transformation of the MalaysianDepartment of Telecommunications intoan enterprise (Telekom Malaysia) in the1980s, for example, resulted in the trans-fer of all staff into the new publicly ownedcompany, with job stability guaranteedfor five years. Subsequently, in the 1990s,employees whose work had becomeobsolete (manual operators, accountants)were redeployed while analysts andprogrammers were recruited.

Impact of changes onfemale employment

The new realities in the postal andtelecommunications services are expectedto especially benefit female workers who,though large in numbers, often performlow-paying and low-skilled jobs.

Citing Malaysia as fairly characteristicof the general trend in the employment

of women in telecommunications, thereport says women are beginning to takeup technical or management jobs. Whereasin 1990 almost 25 per cent of TelekomMalaysia employees were women (mostlyemployed at that time in data entryoperations, administrative jobs or asoperators), since then women with tech-nical or commercial skills have beenincreasingly sought.

The report notes that the same con-ditions apply where automated sortingsystems have become increasingly usedand electronic communications of all kindsare growing faster than ever. Thus, inthe European Union, women’s share ofemployment increased from 18.9 per centin 1990 to 24.6 per cent in 1995 amongpublic postal operators. Except for Finland,the figures have increased in the publicpostal operators of every Member State.

“The reorganization of working timeand the development of the informationsociety – which is substantially basedon individual skills, experience and talent– should encourage the growth of femaleemployment in the emerging or futurenew services,” the report says.

Impact of the growingtelecommunications sector

and the Internet

According to studies cited in the report,a significant number of jobs should be

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I can dobetter withnew technology...


created by newnetwork operators

resulting from thegradual opening up of

markets to competition,as well as by providers of

telecommunications services.New operations and service pro-

viders in the European Union couldlead to creation of between 114,000

and 162,000 new jobs by 2005, althoughthis rate of expansion may not cover joblosses among traditional operators.

“The new jobs created are appearingabove all in sectors adjacent to commu-nications, in various activities linked withmultimedia convergence and the infor-mation society,” the report says. “Thepostal services, as a result of the use ofnew technologies and their frequent offerof financial products or saving devices,should be affected more or less directlyby this tendency.”

While the loss of jobs among tradi-tional telecommunications operators inthe industrial countries may be offset,to some degree, by the “creation of newand dynamic enterprises and individualjob-creating initiatives”, the report notesthat most new jobs should result fromthe arrival of new entrants, whether theyestablish their own networks, or use thoseof existing or alternative infrastructures,or offer new services with labour re-cruited specially at market cost or on atemporary basis.

“Internet service providers (which aredeveloping at a rapid pace) and, moregenerally, the providers of on-line in-formation services are developing as aresult of the rapid growth of computeri-zation in homes and among small andmedium enterprises,” the report says. “Fur-thermore, many enterprises whichrepackage information which is providedthrough servers are being increasinglyused, as well as content editors or in-termediation companies which put to-gether virtual commercial centres.”

* Structural and regulatory changes and global-ization in postal and telecommunications services:The human resources dimension. Report for dis-cussion at the Tripartite Meeting on the HumanResources Dimension of Structural and RegulatoryChanges and Globalization in Postal and Telecom-munication Services. International Labour Office,Geneva, 1998. ISBN 92-2-110966-6.

❑

News Section

Solutions sought inWashington, D.C.

ConferenceILO study: Worker disability problems rising in

industrialized countries

A new ILO International ResearchProject on Job Retention and Returnto Work Strategies for Disabled Workersfound that in eight countries – Canada,France, Germany, the Netherlands, NewZealand, Sweden, United Kingdom andthe United States, laws protecting disa-bled workers may increase the reluctance

of private companies to hire them. What’smore, the study found that existing socialinsurance system regulations may dis-courage their return to work. These andother preliminary findings were presentedat the Washington Symposium, an inter-national conference on job retention andreturn to work strategies for workers with

More and more workers suffer from the “new” occupational dis-eases, for example those related to stress...

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“Looking at childworkers”

Putting children to work in today’s world

Analysis and case-studies

Publication of Editions Page deux (Lausanne, Switzerland), 231 pp., 30 Swissfrancs

Michel Bonnet was one of the experts of the International Programmeon the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), launched in 1991 by the ILO.His book: Regards sur les enfants travailleurs is based on experience acquiredin the design of IPEC projects, among other activities. In less than sevenyears, IPEC has extended its initiatives to some 40 countries.

Regards sur les enfants travailleurs is a “manual” in the literal sense: abook which should always be carried around by anybody and everybody whohas understood the extent and the gravity of putting children to work prematurelyeven now at the end of the 20th Century. It is also a manual in the wayit systematically presents the main forces that constitute the world of workof children.

A close look at the table of contents confirms this. After having gone throughthe trajectory of “child workers as human beings in flesh and bone”, Mr.Bonnet treats eight crucial questions whose recounting uncovers the meaningof this book: the different means of putting children to work; individualstrategies of the children as well as those of their parents and of employers;domestic work and work in enterprises, in all its intricate forms; governmentpolicies; the role of non-governmental organizations, consumer associationsand the mass media; the game of quantifying the value of putting childrento work in the framework of increased globalization of the economy; the causesof bonded labour and its function in uncovering oppressive social relationsregarding children; the role of large enterprises in child labour.

Mr. Bonnet presents his analyses in the spirit which inspired the work andthe projects of IPEC. Schematically one can resume it as follows: First ofall, one must begin from the optimal development of riches a child possessesand on whose use he has a right to speak out on. Next, every initiative takenregarding child workers must take into account local conditions, understandwhere local and global realities meet, and give due consideration to localactors as well as the potential of the child workers to become the subjectsof their emancipation.

disabilities, organized by U.S. Govern-ment agencies in Washington, D.C. fromMay 20-22, 1998.

WASHINGTON – Claims for disabil-ity benefits are surging in industrializedcountries – up to 600 per cent in somenations – encouraging governments, pri-vate companies and unions to search forways to get disabled people back to work.The ILO estimates that some 600 millionpeople have mental and physical dis-abilities, or 10 per cent of the worldpopulation. Approximately 50 per centare of working age. Statistics show asteady increase in these numbers.

The reasons include:● emergence of new diseases and

other causes of impairment, such as HIV/AIDS, stress and alcohol and drug abuse;

● increasing life span and numbersof elderly persons, many of whom haveimpairments;

● projected increases in the numberof disabled children over the next 30years, particularly in the developingcountries, due to malnutrition, diseases,child labour and other causes;

● armed conflict and violence.“The new economic reality – growing

global competition, shrinking profitmargins, a declining resource base – isforcing firms the world over to seek waysof decreasing personnel costs, but suchcost reductions should not come on thebacks of disabled workers,” says Ali Taqi,ILO Assistant Director-General. “Instead,creative ways must be found to keepthem in the workforce, and bring backthose disabled people who can and wantto work.”

Information from countries participat-ing in the ILO study reveals:

● In the United States, the numberof working age people benefiting fromSocial Security disability benefit pro-grams increased 60 per cent between 1984and 1994, with less than one-half of oneper cent of such beneficiaries ever leav-ing the disability rolls to return to work;

● The number of beneficiaries claim-ing disability benefits increased by over50 per cent in the Netherlands, to morethan 900,000 people, between 1980 and1992;

● Expenditures for workers compen-sation increased by more than 700 percent in Australia between 1976 and 1986,and averaged $5 billion annually duringthe 1980s in direct costs, with indirectcosts at four times the direct ones. Indirectcosts include productivity losses fromlost time and skills, and retraining costs;

● In Sweden, between 1980 and 1990,

people receiving supplementary disabil-ity pension or sickness allowances formore than one year increased from 300,000to 436,000 – which triggered a reductionin benefit levels and an increased pres-sure on employers to encourage workerswho become disabled to return to work.

Recent innovations in national laws topromote the employment of disabled

persons have often not been adequate toassist individuals with new types ofimpairments, the study finds. “This isparticularly true for those workers suf-fering from the “new” occupationaldiseases, for example those related tostress and repetitive strain injury, andfor those who have invisible disabilities,such as mental illness and chronic pain,


that do not fall within the scope of legaldefinitions in some countries”, Mr. Taqisays.

Supportive laws found insome countries

The ILO study found that in the more-regulated German, French, Dutch andSwedish systems, laws controlling thehiring and dismissal of workers and theirconditions of employment provide thefoundation of support for public employ-ment policies to protect persons withdisabilities. The “laissez-faire” approachesin the United States, New Zealand andthe United Kingdom, on the other hand,avoid imposing restraints on business andopen the door to voluntary or profit-maximizing disability employment poli-cies.

“Public subsidies to employers to hiredisabled persons are incompatible withthe free-market philosophy in the USA,”the ILO study says. “The United King-dom has not developed wage subsidiesspecifically for disabled people in thecompetitive labour market, although ifunemployed they will benefit from a new‘Welfare to Work’ programme which in-cludes retirement benefits.”

The ILO study finds, however: “Acrossmainland Europe, wage subsidies, recruit-ment grants and relief of national insur-ance contributions are widely used tocreate jobs for long-term unemployedand other disadvantaged groups, includ-ing disabled people. There are also specialincentive schemes in Germany, Franceand Sweden to promote employment ofdisabled people. Swedish active labourmarket policies positively favour disabledpeople. Incentives (to employ disabledemployees) are a new feature of Dutchpolicy.”

“Staying in work has become moredifficult for workers with disabilities ingeneral, due to the deregulation of thelabour market in many countries, and asa result of pressures on enterprises toremain competitive in an increasinglyglobal market,” says Mr. Taqi, who leadthe ILO delegation to the WashingtonSymposium and gave the keynote speech.

“At the same time, the escalating coststo public and private insurance systemsof compensating workers who leaveemployment due to disability are drivinga search for strategies to keep in em-ployment such workers who can and wantto work,” Mr. Taqi adds. “Some enter-prises have found job retention to be acost-effective option and have developed

HIV/AIDS in theworkplace

New ILO study finds some progress, but moreneeds to be done

GENEVA – Through its impact onindividuals, the pandemic of AcquiredImmunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) andinfection with the human immunodefi-ciency virus (HIV) has had a major effecton the workplace. And according to anew study by the ILO, some of the reactionsto the prospect of employing personswith a feared and often misunderstood

disease have included such practices ascompulsory testing, non-respect of medicalconfidentiality, and unjust dismissals.

The new study “HIV/AIDS andEmployment”* addresses the issue ofhow to deal with the impact of HIV/AIDSand work. Analysing different legalframeworks and describing enterprisepractices in 12 countries, the study found

their own practices for managing disabil-ity.”

The ILO study finds that corporations,unions, insurance and rehabilitation serviceproviders and medical practitioners inmany countries are increasingly recog-nizing the costs of disability and the benefitsof return to work. Such organizations aremaking re-employment the primaryobjective for the disabled worker whocan and wants to continue or return towork.

“New approaches to medical andvocational rehabilitation that emphasizeearly intervention and rapid return towork have shown positive results,” Mr.Taqi says.

Union involvement

Unions are becoming involved in thereturn to work through the direct pro-vision of services, and through disabilitymanagement programs in the workplace,the ILO says, adding that private insur-ance providers are introducing more flexiblearrangements so that workers who be-come disabled and attempt a gradualtransition to work do not lose their benefits.Companies are looking for ways to reducecosts by introducing disability manage-ment programs in the workplace.

“Our analysis of the situation suggeststhat while any one component of a nationalsystem of legislation, regulation, social

security benefits, worker compensation,vocational rehabilitation services, orcompany level practices may favour returnto work, the system as a whole may not,”Mr. Taqi says. “In fact, to the disabledworker, the overall system may offermany incentives not to return to work,or disincentives to doing so.”

The ILO says this problem stems fromfragmented, uncoordinated and oftencontradictory policies and practices, andthe interplay between different parts ofnational systems. Discriminatory prac-tices also continue to deny persons withdisabilities, as well as workers who becomedisabled, access to the world of work.

The Washington Symposium examinedthe ILO findings with the goal of iden-tifying promising strategies for encour-aging job retention or the return to workfor disabled workers. Participants includedresearchers as well as representatives ofgovernment departments, social securityagencies, workers compensation corpo-rations, employer organizations, tradeunions, rehabilitation agencies and dis-abled persons organizations from theeight countries examined in the ILO study.

Among the long-term goals of the projectis the development of comprehensive,cost-effective strategies involving work-ers, employers and government agencies,which favour job retention and rapid returnto work for disabled workers.

Source: ILO Press Release ILO/98/19


negative enterprise practices had occurredin some countries that represented in-fringements of fundamental rights ofworkers, such as:

● Compulsory HIV tests: Thispractice has been required, either at timeof recruitment or during employment,notably in Indonesia, Mexico, where thispractice can be seen in large enterprises,in India (especially in the hotel busi-ness), South Africa and the Côte d’Ivoire.

● Non-respect of medical confi-dentiality: Many doctors of occupationalmedicine have been known to disregardmedical confidentiality as a result of theirsubordination to employers. This has beenobserved in India and Côte d’Ivoire. Inthe Jamaican companies visited, medicalfiles which might include HIV test resultsare kept in the same place as other personnelinformation (CVs, evaluations, etc.). InMexico, laboratories testing for the virusdo not hesitate to return the results toemployers in the form of a list of names.

● Unjust dismissals: Cases of un-justified dismissals have been observedin Uganda, in South Africa, in the Côted’Ivoire, in Jamaica and in Hungary.Frequently, the employees concerned arelaid off for incapacity for work or areput under pressure to resign.

Except for a few cases, the study notesthat on the whole in the countries con-cerned, many employers have implementedpolicies based on the rights of personswith HIV/AIDS, in order to eliminatediscrimination during recruitment oremployment. Moreover, compensation andtargeted assistance is often proposed. Thisis especially the case in France and theUnited States where the law requiresadoption of a practice combining thera-peutic part-time work and compensationfollowed by an invalidity pension.

Other countries such as Thailand,Jamaica, Uganda, South Africa and Côted’Ivoire in particular, allocate specialsocial coverage for workers with HIV/AIDS or allow them to take prematureretirement with acquired social securityrights. Occupational reclassificationmeasures also encourage people to returnto work.

Awareness-raising campaigns, togetherwith a code of conduct within the en-terprises are also key factors in any strategyto fight this pandemic. Among the countriesstudied, South Africa provides an exam-ple of positive practices that were ini-tiated to counter negative reactions atthe workplace.

Various initiatives observed are proofof the importance of establishing per-sonnel education programmes geared

towards prevention and especially to abatenegative attitudes that AIDS has givenrise to in the workplace and in privatelife. It should be noted that in SouthAfrica and in the United States, enter-prises have internal resource persons whocan organize such awareness campaigns.

AIDS is a problem on a global scaleand the world of work has not been spared.Many enterprises have already formedcollective agreements, drawn up AIDSeducation and awareness-raising pro-grammes, and given support to commu-nity activities to combat HIV/AIDS.

But it’s not only one group’s actions:laws, employer initiatives and other actionswill make a dent in the wall of discrimi-nation facing persons affected, the studysays. It is important to support andencourage lasting participation of all thesocial actors concerned (States, employ-ers, unions) in this “civic action”.

It is in this perspective, which is, afterall, vital to the ILO’s global messageon workers rights, that the ILO studyunderlines the need to carry out collec-tive and concerted action in order to adoptclear policies based on effective prin-ciples of law which guarantee workers’rights without discrimination.

Finally, the report notes that the ILOcan play a larger role than it already has,tapping into its experience in workers’education and employers’ relations, aswell as providing policy advice to Statesand moral suasion in other intergovern-mental bodies regarding furnishing tech-nical assistance to governments, to em-ployers’ organizations and to trade unions.

By Bernard E. Gbézo, Paris

* HIV/AIDS and employment, by Louis N’Dabaand Jane Hodges-Aeberhard, ILO Geneva, May 1998.

GENEVA – The Director-General ofthe ILO, Mr. Michel Hansenne, haswelcomed the decisions of the new In-donesian Government to ratify ILO coreConventions, including No. 87 (Freedomof Association and Protection of the Rightto Organize, 1948), and to release Mr.Muchtar Pakpahan, President of the SerikatBuruh Sejahtera Indonesia, and severalof his colleagues, who are members ofIndonesia’s independent trade unionconfederation.

Indonesia’s Minister of Manpower,Mr. Fahmi Idris, formally notified theDirector-General during the June Inter-national Labour Conference of the rati-fication. In an address to the Conference,Minister Idris also indicated the intentionof the Government of Indonesia to ratifyother ILO Conventions, including No.105 (Abolition of Forced Labour, 1957),No. 111 (Discrimination – Employmentand Occupation, 1958 and No. 138(Minimum Age, 1973).

Mr. Hansenne said “the ILO standsready to help Indonesia in the transfor-mation underway.” He added that “theratification of this all-important Conven-

tion represents a major step on the roadto institutionaliszing democracy and hu-man rights in the workplace.”

The ratification of these Conventionswould mean that Indonesia would countamong the 37 countries which have rati-fied all seven of the ILO’s “core” humanrights Conventions.* To date, Conven-tion No. 87, which guarantees the rightof workers to organize and engage incollective bargaining, has received 122ratifications among the 174 member States.

Pakpahan released

Mr. Pakpahan was released fromCipinang Prison in Jakarta where he hadbeen held since 1996 on criminal chargesrelating to civil unrest and alleged sub-version, charges which the ILO Com-mittee on Freedom of Association con-sidered as unjustified and deriving fromlegitimate trade union activities. TheILO Committee has repeatedly called forall criminal charges to be dropped andfor Mr. Pakpahan to be released.

The Director-General expressed “thegreat pleasure that I take from this news,

Indonesia releasesdetained trade unionists,

ratifies Convention No. 87


U.S. President Bill Clintonspeaking about the ILOon 18 May during theWorld Trade Organiza-tion’s 50th AnniversaryCommemoration. ThePresident said “the WTOand the ILO shouldcommit to work togetherto make certain that opentrade does lift livingstandards and respects thecore labour standards thatare essential not only toworker rights, but tohuman rights.” He added“We must work hard toensure that the ILO is avibrant institution.”

delegates, put forward fresh approachesto dealing with the issues addressed bythe Committee.

The Resolution approved by theConference invites the Governing Bodyof the ILO to take measures to have thework commenced by the Committee onContract Labour completed. These stepsare to include meetings of experts toassist the International Labour Office indoing the preparatory work for the futureConference discussion.

Recommendation stimulatesjob creation in SMEs

The International Labour Conferenceadopted a Recommendation on GeneralConditions to Stimulate Job Creation inSmall and Medium-Size Enterprises(SME),2 enterprises which generate morethan 80 per cent of new jobs worldwide.A Recommendation sets a non-binding,international benchmark for activities.

In order to create a business environ-ment conducive to the growth and de-velopment of SMEs, the Recommenda-tion asks member States to adopt “meas-ures which are appropriate to national

conditions and consistent with nationalpractice in order to recognize and to promotethe fundamental role that small andmedium-size enterprises can play as regardsthe promotion of full, productive andfully chosen employment.” The Recom-mendation also highlights inter alia thecontribution of SMEs to greater income-earning opportunities, sustainable eco-nomic growth, increased economic par-ticipation of disadvantaged groups, in-creased investment, training and devel-opment of human resources and a bal-anced development of local and regionalmarkets.

The Recommendation encouragesmember States to adopt policies to promotea stable economic environment, as re-gards inflation, interest and exchange rates,taxation and employment and socialstability, remove constraints to thedevelopment and growth of SMEs, in-clude specific measures aimed at assist-ing and upgrading the informal sectorto become part of the organized sector,ensure the extension of social protectionto workers in SMEs and compliance withsocial security regulations.

The Recommendation also calls onmember States to adopt measures inconsultation with representatives ofemployers and workers, to create and

Conference (cont’d from p. 17)

Tania Tang/WTO

which constitutes an importantand positive development withregard to freedom of associa-tion.” Mr. Hansenne added hehopes this release of impris-oned trade unionists “will bebut one of a series of measureswhich will contribute to thepositive development of the tradeunion situation in Indonesia andto the full respect of the prin-ciples contained in the ILOConventions on freedom ofassociation.”

Mr. Hansenne also wrote tothe released trade unionist, Mr.Pakpahan, assuring him that “theILO will continue to closelyfollow the trade union situa-tion in Indonesia, especially withregard to developments con-cerning the SBSI”.

*Freedom of association and collec-tive bargaining (Nos. 87 and 98); Forcedlabour (Nos. 29 and 105); Non-discrimi-nation (Nos. 100 and 111); and Mini-mum age (No. 138).

strengthen an “enterprise culture” favouringinitiative, enterprise creation, productiv-ity, environmental consciousness, qual-ity, good labour and industrial relations.It also calls for consideration to be given

In a “crazy world...250 million chil-dren forced to work while 800 millionadults are unemployed”.

The German Minister of Labour, NorbertBlüm (left), brought the participants ofa roundtable discussion news from what

he called a crazy world: “250 million childrenare forced to work and some 800 millionadults are out of work.” The Minister askedgovernment, employers’ and workers’ del-egates, NGOs and the participants of theGlobal March to concentrate their fighton the worst forms of child labour, saying“transitional solutions in the abolition ofthe worst forms of child labour are un-


to the availability of a range of directand indirect support services to enhancethe growth, job-creation potential andcompetitiveness of the SME sector.

Committee onApplication of Standards

The Committee on the Application ofStandards cited two countries in specialparagraphs, Myanmar and Sudan, forcontinued failure to implement ratifiedConventions.

In the case of Myanmar, the Commit-tee noted severe and longstanding vio-lations of fundamental and trade unionrights in the country and persistent non-compliance with the terms and principlesof Convention No. 87 (Freedom ofAssociation and Protection of the Rightto Organise, 1948).

The Committee recalled that the casehad previously been discussed on severaloccasions and that it was “once againobliged to deplore the fact that nogovernment report had been received bythe ILO Committee of Experts” despiterepeated calls from the Committee. Itrecalled that Myanmar has already beenmentioned in special paragraphs the lasttwo years as being among the cases ofcontinued failure to implement Conven-tion No. 87.

In the case of Sudan, the Committeeheard evidence of slavery and related

Mary Robinson, U.N. High Com-missioner for Human Rights

In the first appearance at an In-ternational Labour Conference by aU.N. High Commissioner for Hu-man Rights since the post was createdby the World Conference on HumanRights in Vienna in 1993, Mrs.Robinson said she was “heartened”by the discussion on a proposedDeclaration on Fundamental Rightsof Workers.

“All countries have human rightsproblems, and that includes prob-lems with basic labour rights”, Mrs.Robinson said. There is no room foranyone anywhere to be complacentin relation to human rights...”

She also urged that a proposednew ILO Convention on the elimi-nation of the worst forms of childlabour be approved next year, saying“Is there a better way for the ILOto enter the next millennium thanby adopting this Convention? Clearly,there is no better way.”

Referring to the Declaration onFundamental Rights of Workers –on freedom of association, the HighCommissioner said she “subscribedfully” to it. “I am pleased to see itso clearly stated.”

Jacq

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s M

aill

ard

ment should address soon with ILOtechnical assistance, and which the ILOsupervisory bodies would pursue further.

Application by the Russian Federationof the Convention on wage protection(No. 95) was discussed, revealing con-tinuing difficulty in ensuring paymentof wages and the need for effectiveinspections and penalties for non-pay-ment of arrears.

In all 59 government delegationscollaborated with the Committee byproviding information on the situationin their countries. The Committee noted32 fresh cases of progress, and foundits proceedings operating under the ILOConstitution a constructive contributionto the social dimension of globalization.

1 Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Belarus, Belgium,Botswana, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus,Denmark, Dominica, Finland, France, Germany,Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary,Israel, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Niger,Norway, Poland, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia,Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zam-bia.

2 Vote on the Recommendation: Yes – 403; No– 0; Abstentions – 4

acceptable.”He didn’t hesitate to give a critical look

to the past of his own country: “Bad excuseswere also common in Germany in the lastcentury when it came to forbid child labour:first the general situation must improveetc...it was only when the army becameafraid that there would be no more healthysoldiers that child labour was forbiddenovernight.”

“A market economy”, the Minister added,“has its own weapons to fight injustice.Nobody is forced to buy carpets woven bychildren’s hands.” The Minister gave theILO a leading role in the fight against childlabour, warning that action was needed morethan analysis of the problem.

The ILO’s International Programme onthe Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)goes back to a German initiative. TheAssistant-Director General of the ILO, AliTaqi (centre), referred to Mr. Blüm as the“founding father of IPEC” – Germany hascontributed 100 million DM to IPEC since1992.

practices in the country, in violation ofILO Convention No. 29 (Forced Labour,1930). The Committee stressed in itsconclusions that “this was a particularlyserious case affecting human rights” aswitness by the inclusion of Sudan lastyear in a special paragraph for similarfacts. The Committee noted informationprovided by the Government on meas-ures being taken to track down and bringan end to practices of slavery” and urgedthat there be “a serious attempt to elimi-nate slavery throughout the country.” Inview of the very serious nature of theevidence and the widespread accusationsof serious human rights violations in Sudan,the Committee agreed that the case shouldcontinue to be mentioned in a specialparagraph.

The report of the tripartite Committeeon the Application of Standards recordedthe views of Conference delegates oncurrent issues of freedom of associationand forced labour in the world, as wellas problems of application of variousConventions in specific countries.

The Committee based its discussionson the report of the ILO’s independentCommittee of Experts, which had drawnattention to phenomena arising especiallyin a time of economic globalization –such as export processing zones, migra-tion for employment, some aspects ofthe right to strike – and creating prob-lems for application of the leadingConvention on freedom of association(No. 87), adopted by the Conference in1948.

Another issue attracting debate has beenforced labour, and especially the caseof prisoners who do work for privatecompanies or in privately run prisons.The Committee was told that in, forexample, Canada and the United Statesquestions such as prisoners’ consent towork and the control exercised by publicauthorities over prison labour are beinglooked at in terms of conformity withthe ILO’s standards. Worker memberssee the forced labour issue both as oneof basic human rights and one of unfaircompetition: they raised the cases ofMalaysia and Singapore, which denouncedConvention No. 105.

Over 20 individual cases of the ap-plication of ratified Conventions werediscussed in detail. The Committeewelcomed the move by Indonesia to ratifyConvention No. 87 and the release ofseveral trade union leaders, although thereremained many problems in applying ILOstandards on the right to organize underConvention No. 98 which the Govern-

❑


Working

A regular review of trends anddevelopments in the

world of work

WorldEMPLOYMENT,

UNEMPLOYMENT

● “Affirmative action” hasarrived in South Africa. Thepublic sector has been domi-nated by whites. Now, accord-ing to a recently announcedprogramme, public sectoremployment will be diversi-fied. Thus, between now andthe year 2000, measures shouldbe taken so that 50 per centof the country’s public serv-ice jobs are held by blacks,while 30 percent are held bywomen and 2 per cent by dis-abled persons. The governmentsays these “quotas” are man-datory, and should be imple-mented by managers if theywant to keep their jobs.Parliament is to oversee theimplementation of the quotas.(Jeune Afrique)

● The booming U.S.economy is bearing fruit interms of creating new jobs.Last April, the unemploymentrate in the United States fellto its lowest since 1970: 4.3per cent of the economicallyactive population, down from5 per cent in April of last year.Most of the 262,000 new jobswere created in the servicesectors. In addition, wages havebeen on the rise over the last12 months and the 4.4 per centincrease recorded is the high-est since 1983. Nevertheless,there is sill no sign of infla-tion. (Le Figaro)

● As unemployment hitrecord highs in Japan recently(3.9 per cent in March), work-ers and the unemployed tooktheir unease to the streets in

the first May Day protest inseven years. Marchers ex-pressed their concern over therise in unemployment, andconcerns that the lengtheningeconomic slump may mean lesswelfare benefits. (Japan pro-vides unemployment benefitsfor a maximum of 300 days.)Workers reportedly believe “theworst is yet to come” prompt-ing fears that the crisis couldupset the social stability hasbeen the bedrock of Japaneseculture for decades. (Source:Financial Times, 8 May 1998)

ECONOMIC NEWS

● Economic indicators inUruguay have improved. TheGDP grew by a healthy 5.1percent last year, above theaverage of 3.75 per centachieved since 1985. House-hold purchasing power wasup by 3.3 per cent during thequarter ending in January, whileduring the past year, theinflation rate fell by half (12.3per cent compared to 23.7 percent). For the first time in 40years, Uruguay seems to be

within arm’s reach of single-digit inflation. (Latin Ameri-can Monitor)

● In Mauritania, salariesin certain sectors are increas-ing. In an announcement, thegovernment said an increaseof 15 per cent was granted inthe low salaries prevailing inthe public sector, as well asa increase of the same amountin retirement pension benefits.(Source: Marchés Tropicaux,No. 61)

● The Inter-American De-velopment Bank (IADB) isre-orienting its financing to-wards local communities and“civil society”. In 1997, 10.2percent of its financial assist-ance went to education, com-pared to 4.2 per cent for thesame sector between 1961 and1997. In addition, 13.2 percent of the funds were ear-marked for “social invest-ments”, compared to 4.3 percent in 1961-1997 and some11.3 per cent went to urbandevelopment (compared to 6.3per cent). (Source: Le Monde,5 May 1998)

● Micro-credit schemes aredeveloping in Morocco. Thenew schemes are geared to-ward small producers orbusinesses which until nowwere without access to classicforms of credit (or could onlyobtain funds with absolutelyprohibitive interest rates). Thishas been made possible byassociations or foundations,assisted by international or-ganizations or in cooperationwith certain banks. Among thebeneficiaries, 92 per cent arewomen from the rural or semi-

●●●●● Labour disputes onthe decline? Reports sayyes.

The employers’ confed-eration in Spain (CEOE)notes that between 1996and 1997 the number oflabour conflicts decreasedby about 20 per cent (707in 1997 against 883 in 1996and 1,212 in 1995). Thishas reduced the numberof work hours lost by 11per cent.

In Finland, the WorkTribunal decided to abol-ish one of its two sectionsas the number of cases it

handled annually had de-clined from a high of 244in 1987 to 100 cases a yearsince 1993.

In France, the numberof working days lost fellby 21 percent between 1996and 1997, marking an all-time low for the past 50years. The number ofworkers on strike was re-ported at 109,299 out of16 million wage earners,the lowest rate since 1935. (Source: Social Interna-tional, April 1998;Libération, April 16 1998)


● A paralyzing, nationwidestrike in Denmark by nearly500,000 workers in the trans-port, industrial, service andbuilding sectors in April 1998demanding a sixth week ofpaid holiday has prompted theGovernment to seek newlegislative measures. A newdraft law, presented to theFolketing, would require thereturn to work of those on strikebut also grant the additionalholiday. In order to win thesupport of Conservative andLiberal politicians, the law alsoprovides for lower contribu-tions by employers to retire-ment funds to finance theadditional week of holiday.(Source: Le Monde, Le Figaro,April 1998)

● In Australia, a five-weekstrike by dock workers whichhad paralyzed the country’sports has resulted in a partialvictory for the so-called“Wharfies”. An appeals courtin charge of arbitrating theconflict ordered the re-employ-ment of some 1,400 dockworkers who had been fireden masse by their employer,a stowage company, in anapparent victory for theMaritime Union of Australia(MUA). Meanwhile, govern-ment officials have vowed tofight for “reform on thewharves” while stowage com-panies are seeking legislationthat will redefine productiv-ity in the sector. (Source: LeFigaro, 8 May 1998, Reuters,7 May 1998)

WORKINGCONDITIONS

● The multinational retailerIKEA and the InternationalFederation of Building andWoodworkers (IFBWW)recently signed an agreementrelating to working conditions,the environment and health andsafety for workers at IKEA’ssuppliers all over the world.According to the Code ofConduct, IKEA will demandthat its supplier’s workers enjoyworking conditions which at

urban areas. The proportionof micro-credits which are paidback has reached 95 per cent,compared to a rate of non-payment in the classic creditsector of 35 per cent. (Source:Jeune Afrique, 19-25 May1998).

AIDS IN THEWORKPLACE

● In the province of ThuaThien-Hue, Viet Nam, tradeunions have launched aninformation campaign onawareness of HIV-AIDS amongworkers. Some two thousandworkers have already attendedawareness-raising workshops.At the end of 1997, the prov-ince reported 42 persons in-fected with HIV (the humanimmunodeficiency virus whichcauses AIDS), either peoplewith the disease and six personswho had died of AIDS. (Source:Vietnamese Trade Union No.2, 1998)

LABOURISSUES

● The Labour Governmentof the United Kingdom hasannounced an ambitious re-form in trade union legislation.Employers will be now requiredto pay half of the expensesincurred towards organizingvotes on the recognition oftrade unions, while employ-ees may bring a case for unfairjob termination after only oneyear of employment, insteadof the previous requirementthat they work two years inorder to have the right to doso. In case of a conflict withan employer, every worker canbe assisted by a trade unionwhether or not it is recognizedby the enterprise. Employersare unhappy with this move.Trade unions are also protest-ing because recognition of atrade union requires a favour-able vote of 40 per cent ofthe total number of workersin an enterprise instead of, asthey had proposed, only amajority of votes cast. (Source:Le Temps, May 1998)

● Reduced working hours: Snapshot ofEurope (and the United States)

In France, the Parliament voted a law foreseeing themove to a 35-hour week between now and the year 2000or 2002 based on the size of the enterprise. In Italy,a law was proposed by the government, foreseeing thesame legal work week in 2001 for enterprises employingmore than 15 persons. In Germany, trade unions aredivided on demanding 30 hours per week. In Spain, theSecretary-General of the UGT is asking for a reductionin the legal duration of work to 35 hours per week atthe beginning of the next century, without any cut insalary. (Source: Social International)

Here is a table showing the evolution of the conven-tional length of working time in industry between 1987and 1997*

State Annual conventional Modification inaverage duration percent ofof work (in hours) working time

1987 1997

Portugal 2,025 1,823 -10

West Germany 1,716 1,573 -8.3

Japan** 2,138 1,990 -6.9 Denmark 1,756 1,665 -5.2

Finland 1,784 1,716 -3.8

Italy 1,800 1,736 -3.6

Switzerland 1,913 1,844 -3.6

Ireland 1,864 1,802 -3.3

Belgium 1,756 1,702 -3.1 Sweden 1,800 1,752 -2.7

The Netherlands 1,748 1,715 -1.9

Austria 1,743 1,713 -1.7

Spain 1,800 1,782 -1.0

Luxembourg 1,800 1,784 -0.9 United States 1,912 1,904 -0.4

Norway 1,740 1,733 -0.4

United Kingdom 1,778 1,774 -0.2

France 1,771 1,771 +/-0

Greece 1,840 1,840 +/-0

*The number of potential working days was 261 in1987 and in 1997.** Working time on average during the period1986/1996 in enterprises of at least 30 workers.

least comply with national leg-islation or national agreements.The suppliers must also re-spect the relevant ILO Con-ventions and Recommenda-tions applicable to their busi-nesses. This means that childlabour is not acceptable andthat workers shall have the

right to join trade unions andto free collective bargaining.The joint statement issued byIKEA and IFBWW said theserules already apply to manu-facturing companies owned byIKEA. (Source: IKEA, IFBWWPress Release)

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AROUND THE CONTINENTS

“JOBLESS GROWTH” INSOUTH AFRICA ?

The global debate over “jobless growth”is moving south. The latest focus is thesouthern African region and especiallySouth Africa, where three years ofaccelerating economic growth havenonetheless seen declining employmentin key industrial sectors. But a prelimi-nary ILO report, Patterns of EconomicGrowth and Employment in SADC (South-ern African Development Community)warns against jumping to hasty and negativeconclusions about growth prospects inthe regional labour market as the argu-ments in support of “jobless growth” arenot supported by the hard facts. In SouthAfrica, the currently weak employmentresponse to the strengthening nationaleconomy is seen as the result of tem-porary factors – rather than chronic trends– in the post-apartheid, restructuring andliberalizing economy. For example, re-structuring in the context of globaliza-tion has exerted short-term pressure onformal sector labour markets, whilebusinesses and employers have adopteda wait-and-see attitude to future labourmarket policies. Furthermore, the reportsays, South African employment has beenstatistically undercounted – and unem-ployment exaggerated.

For further information please contactMr. Peter Peek, Director, ILO SouthernAfrican Multidisciplinary Advisory Team(SAMAT), Harare (Zimbabwe), phone+263-4/759438; Fax: +263-4/759373; e-mail: [email protected]

LABOUR MIGRATION TOSOUTH AFRICA

Migrants are not the primary factorbehind the South African unemploymentcrisis, argues another ILO report on LabourMigration to South Africa during the 1990s.It blames internal factors such as themove in recent years towards more capital-intensive forms of production which employfewer workers. The report notes that thenumber of formally-contacted labourmigrants has declined dramatically overthe last decade. In the key mining sector,for example, employment of foreigners

has fallen from 600,000 in the early 1950sto just over 150,000 in the mid 1990s.At the same time the number of forcedrepatriations of illegal migrants rose by300 per cent between 1990 and 1995.

The ILO recommends a less politicizedand more considered analysis of the mi-gration problem grounded in the emerg-ing reality of regional integration andproposes a Regional Reconstruction andDevelopment Plan to enhance future re-gional integration and labour marketstability.

For further information please contactMr. Peter Peek, Director, ILO SouthernAfrican Multidisciplinary Advisory Team(SAMAT), Harare (Zimbabwe), phone+263-4/759438; Fax: +263-4/759373;e-mail: [email protected]

MORE AND BETTER JOBSFOR WOMEN

Global women’s economic activity rateshave climbed from 54 per cent in 1950to 67 per cent in 1996 and are expectedto reach almost 70 per cent in 2010. Yet,despite this steady but slow progress,inequalities persist on a global basis.Depending on their home country, womenearn between 50 and 80 per cent of averagemale wages. The first action plans in thecontext of the International Programmeon More and Better Jobs for Women werecompleted in Estonia, Pakistan andTanzania. Action plans focused on thestrengthening of womens’ representativeinstitutions, the legal framework and bet-

A regular review of the International LabourOrganization and ILO-

related activities and eventstaking place around

the world.

The year 1997 saw the expansion oftechnical cooperation approvals. Totalapprovals increased by 6 per cent, risingfrom US$114.5 million in 1996 toUS$121.4 million in 1997.

Of this amount, multi-bilateral ap-provals were US$60.2 million or ap-proximately 50 per cent of total ap-provals in 1997. The United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) reg-istered a remarkable increase of 81 percent as a major contributor to ILO tech-nical cooperation activities.

The approval levels were highestfor development policies (US$33.3million), employment and training(US$25.2 million) and enterprise andcooperative development (US$23.4million), followed by working condi-

tions and environment (US$11.4 mil-lion) and social security (US$11 mil-lion).

In terms of geographical distribu-tion, African, European and Arab Statesregions have experienced an importantincrease in approvals. Africa accountsfor 46 per cent of the total approvals,followed by Asia and the Pacific andinter-regional projects and programmes(17 per cent each).

For further information please contactMr D. Duysens, Promotion of ActivePartnership and Technical Coopera-tion Department of the ILO (PROPAR/TEC), tel. +4122/799.6379;fax: +4122/799.6668; e-mail: [email protected]

ILO TECHNICAL COOPERATION IN 1997

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ter information on the labour market forwomen as well as employment promo-tion activities for specific target groups.Similar programmes have been launchedin Burkina Faso. Mexico and the WestBank and Gaza.

For more information please contactMs. Lin Lean Lim, International Programmeon More and Better Jobs for Women, tel.+41-22-799.7843; e-mail: [email protected]

WOMEN IN TRADE UNIONS

Women are breaking new ground astrade union leaders, thanks to an ILOproject fostering the integration of womenin rural workers organizations in Ghana,Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Womenare now members of the National Ex-ecutive Committees in Ghana and Uganda,a woman has become a member of theInternational Executive Committee forthe Agricultural Trade Group of theInternational Food Workers Union (IUF)for Ghana, and another has become actingGeneral Secretary in Zambia. Anotherbeneficial effect of the project was anincrease in trade union membership amongwomen and men in all four countries,including over 20,000 new members inGhana and nearly 7,000 in Zambia.

For more information please contactMr. Enevoldsen, Bureau for Workers Ac-tivities, tel. +4122/799.6691; fax: +4122/799.6570; e-mail: [email protected]

NEW JOBS AND AFFORDABLEHOUSING

The ILO-DECO (Development of con-struction enterprises producing localbuilding materials) project has made asignificant contribution to the develop-ment of the construction industry in severalcountries. Over its ten years of existence,it helped to create over 250 enterprisesin 12 countries in Africa and SoutheastAsia, generating more than 2,500 jobsand resulting in the construction of over20,000 buildings roofed with local buildingmaterials. Support services by variousprivate or semi-private local bodiesenjoying large financial and managerialautonomy assure the sustainability andprofitability of these newly createdenterprises in the construction sector. Theuse of low-cost raw materials also fa-cilitates access to affordable housing.The project is part of the ILO’s activitiesto promote small and medium-sizedenterprises.

For further information please contactMr. Brys, Entrepreneurship and Man-agement Branch (ENT/MAN), tel. +4122/799.6447; fax: +4122/799.7978; e-mail:[email protected]

FOREIGN LABOUR PROBLEMSIN EASTERN EUROPE

Central and Eastern European coun-tries have experienced great difficultiesin dealing with the steady increase inthe numbers of unauthorized migrant work-ers since the lifting of the restrictionson freedom of movement which existedin many cases up to 1989. To help thecountries take stock of the situation andidentify policy options, the ILO initiatedthe “Informal Network on Foreign Labourin Central and Eastern Europe” in 1995.The two annual meetings of the Networkin Budapest in 1996 and Bratislava in1997 have already improved cooperationbetween 13 countries in the region onmigration issues. The Network’s 1998meeting was held in Prague (11-13 May).

For further information please contactMr. Abella, Conditions of Work and WelfareFacilities Branch (CONDI/T), tel. +4122/799.7892; fax: +4122/799.8451; e-mail:[email protected]

ENVIRONMENT AND THEWORLD OF WORK

A good example of collaboration be-tween the social partners in the field ofenvironment and the world of work comesfrom Chile, where several mining com-panies and the Mineworkers’ Federationlaunched a joint hazard mapping andprevention programme in plants and mineswith the support of the ILO. Hazardmapping is a technique originally pio-neered by Italian trade unions and sub-sequently taken up health and safetyinstitutions in Spain and several LatinAmerican countries. It involves theidentification of potential hazards byworkers and employers, their assessmentand the adoption of solutions. In a similarvein, management and workers in a number

of enterprises in Sri Lanka agreed tocollaborate for the identification andintroduction of cleaner production methods.

For further information please contactMr. Takala, Occupational Safety andHealth Branch (SEC/HYG), tel. +4122/799.6716; fax:+41-22-799.6878;e-mail:[email protected]

PROGRESS IN SOCIALSECURITY SCHEMES

A number of ILO member States haveregistered significant progress in the fieldof social security in 1996/97:

– Costa Rica included ILO commentsin the final text of the draft basic lawon social security that is under exami-nation by the national parliament;

– Lao People’s Democratic Republic,Malaysia, the Philippines and Namibiaparticipate in new ILO social securityprojects and show their commitment tocarry out reforms;

– Following ILO advice on the appli-cation of its Social Security (MinimumStandards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102),

Latvia is considering changes in nationallegislation, including reforms of unem-ployment and pension benefits;

– United Republic of Tanzania andZambia have adopted legislation estab-lishing national pension schemes cov-ering employees in the formal sector;

– Thailand’s social security scheme setup under an ILO project in 1990 is operatingsatisfactorily. It is primarily concernedwith providing entitlement to health carebut consideration is now given both toextending the range of coverage and tothe introduction of new benefits, inparticular pensions.

For further information please contactMr. Gillion, Social Security Department,tel.+4122/799.6633;fax:+4122/799.7962;e-mail: [email protected]

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April 25th - May 1st 1998

Asia’s new joblessThe countries of East Asia need to giveunemployed workers better protection.But they can also do more to createnew jobs.

(Asian)...governments are under pressureat home and abroad to play a greater rolein protecting workers. Typical of thisthinking is a report presented this weekto a conference in Bangkok of East-Asianemployment ministers, trade unionistsand employers. In it, the InternationalLabour Organization (ILO) argues thatEast Asia needs greater social protectionfor the unemployed (jobless benefitsand state pensions) and stronger tradeunions. “Just as the Great Depressionforged a new social contract in manyindustrialized countries”, it argues, “sotoo must the current Asian crisis be animpetus to creating a more socially-orientedmodel of development.”

Up to a point, this is right. In the past,Asian governments got away with littleor no unemployment benefit because rapidgrowth created lots of new jobs, andfirms provided “jobs for life” in returnfor government favours. In the face ofthe present economic crisis, many gov-ernments have bought time by sendingforeign workers home. But they will indeedeventually need to put in place someminimum safety net. This needs to bedesigned with care.

(Thailand) 26 April 1998

ILO calls for more market regulationsDiscrimination and child labour debated

ILO’s chief policy analyst Eddy Leewrote in a report issued earlier this weekthat some Asian countries were poorlyprepared to cope with the economic turmoilthat had engulfed them so quickly.

He said crony capitalism, a blinkeredapproach to growth, and a lack of demo-cratic balanced during the preceding Asianboom had all delayed development ofthe social structures needed to deal witha crisis of this magnitude.

In the countries following IMF poli-cies, Indonesia, South Korea and Thai-land, unemployment was expected todouble this year and rates of absolutepoverty were also expected to rise sharply,the report said.

Lee said the strength of traditional safetynets in Asia, such as the extended familynetworks and the ability of city dwellersto return to rural roots, was exaggeratedand inadequate to cope in the currentconditions.

Al - Qabas, Tuesday 21 Apr.1998

Millions of Workers will Payfor Unemployment

ILO warns of the socialconsequences of theeconomic crisis in Asia

Lack of democracybehind Asian crisis

Bangkok – The International LabourOrganization (ILO) yesterday struck outat international financial institutions forfailing to deal with the social impactof the region-wide economic turmoil.

Speaking at a conference here, ILOdirector-general Michel Hansenne alsosaid that a lack of democracy in theregion was at least in part responsiblefor the crisis and the severity of itsaftermath.– AFP

Handelsblatt(Germany) 16 April 1998

SÜDOSTASIEN/Bericht der InternationalenArbeitsorganisation über die sozialen und politischenfolgen der Krise

(Indonesia), 23 April 1998

– ILO calls for new policyresponses to the crisis in Asia– Social Crisis in Asia: ILOmeeting identifies areas forpriority action(ILO Press Releases Nos. 98/15and 98/18

Media focus on...

The social crisis in Asia and theInternational Labour Conference


La OIT prevé que el alto parogenerará disturbios en AsiaLa respuesta de los gobiernosafectados se cree inadecuada

...Según la OIT, el brusco abandono delas altas tasas de crecimiento que disfrutabaAsia desde hacía un decenio significaque el impacto de la tormenta financieraserá mucho más severo que las con-secuencias de la crisis mexicana de peso....En el estudio titulado «El impacto socialde la crisis económica» ... la OIT afirmaque las consecuencias de la crisis fueronagravadas por la ausencia de una red deprotección social.

(Spain) 20 April 1998

BANGKOK BUSINESS“The ILO report indicated that the measures taken by the Thai governmentin dealing with the problem of retrenched workers were inadequate.”

(Thailand) 23 April 1998

FINANCIEELE DAGBLAD

O P K O M E N D E M A R K T E N(Netherlands) 8 April 1998

Crisis Thailand brengt werkgever tot samenwerking

Bangkok - ...De tendens is positief,maar bereikt is er nog weinig. Eenmiddel om de huidige crisis zo goedmogelijk door te komen, is hettripartiete overleg waarbij de driepartijen, werkgevers, werknemersen regering, bij elkaar komen. De

International Labour Organisation(ILO) heeft onlangs met moeite eenerste overleg georganiseerd. ‘Wehebben ze nu een keer met zijn allenom de tafel gehad. Maar we staan nogmaar aan het begin’, vertelt Tan PengBoo van de ILO.

Freitag, 5. Juni 1998

Kinderarbeit ist nicht nur einProblem der Dritten Welt

Wer einen generellen Boykottbestimmter Waren fordert, machtes sich zu bequem

Kinderarbeit ist eine Investition auf dasElend der Zukunft. “Diese Analyse imBlick, will Bundesarbeitsminister NorbertBlüm nicht warten, bis Lösungen zurBekämpfung aller Ausprägungen dieses“Skandals” gefunden werden.

Wier brauchen einen fundamentalenPragmatismus, fordert der CDU-Politiker.Weil die Eltern arbeitslos sind, müssendie Kinder arbeiten, weil die Kinder zurArbeit gezwungen werden, können sie keineSchule besuchen. Deshalb werden sie alsErwachsene ebenfalls arbeitslos und ihreKinder wieder zu Arbeit gezwungen sein.diesen Teufelskreis gelte es zu durchbrechen.

Dieses Ziel hat sich auch die InternationaleArbeisorganisation (ILO) gesetzt,.Delegationen dieser UN-Behörde, denenRegierungsvertreter, Gewerkschafter undArbeitgeber angehören, wollen in dennächsten Tagen in Genf über ein Verbotzumindest der extremen Formen derKinderarbeit beraten...

✔ 86th International LabourConference(ILO Press Releases Nos. 98/23-98/28)


Wednesday 3 June 1998

RI to ratify ILO pactJakarta (IO) – President B.J. Habibie

yesterday signified Indonesia will ratifythe International Labor Organization (ILO)convention on freedom of assembly andorganization, Manpower Minister FahmiIdris said...

The minister also said that an addi-tional private labor organization will alsobe given recognition from the govern-ment, however he declined to be morespecific.

L’OIT résonne sous les pas des enfantsLa Marche mondiale contre le travail des enfants a fait ses derniers pas, hier, au sein mêmede la Conférence interntionale du travail (Assemblée générale tripartite de l’OIT). Centcinquante marcheurs, munis de banderoles bariolées et scandant des slogans le poing levé,ont pénétré dans une salle comble de délégués, qui se sont levés pour les applaudir.

Friday 29 May 1998

Genève est au coeur du combat contrele travail des enfants venus des quatrecoins du monde, des petits travailleursarrivent ce weekend à Genève pourune conférence de l’OIT.

Des centaines d’enfants venusd’Asie, d’Afrique et d’Amériquelatine ont ouvert hier la conférenceinternationale du travail dans legrand hall de l’ONU à Genèveau terme d’une marchesymbolique pour soutenir unprojet de traité contre le travaildes enfants dans le monde.

“L’histoire est témoinaujourd’hui d’un momentunique où les victimes del’esclavage, de la dépendanceet de l’exploitation partout dansle monde ont frappé au portesdes Nations unies”, a dit KailashSatyarthi, l’organisateur de lamarche mondiale des enfants.

Al Hayat, Egypt, 3.6.98ILO facing the globalization challenges. Fighting childlabour and the “social factor”.

Centenas de crianças procedentes da América Latina,Ásia e África inauguraram ontem no pédio dasOrganização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT).

France Soir, 23 mai 1998

Esclavage

L’appel desenfants dumonde

Ils sont une vingtaine,venus d’Inde, duBrésil et du Bangla-desh parcourir 98pays. Objectif : saisirl’opinion mondialepour faire cesser cescandale


Media shelf■■■■■ Safety and health inforestry work: An ILO codeof practice, ISBN 92-2-110826-0, Price: 27.50 Swissfrancs.

This new Code is designedfor most countries and enter-prises. It covers all types offorestry workers, includinggroups with above-averageaccident statistics such ascontractors, the self-employedand forest farmers. It does notfocus on technical measuresand safe performance, butemphasizes that safety startsat the top – at the nationallevel, in enterprises and atworksites. It outlines a safetymanagement system for en-terprises that integrates safetyinto overall management, andprovides for training andmandatory skill certificationas key conditions for safetyin forestry.

The code applies to allforestry activities and allorganizations and individualswhose activities influence thesafety, health and welfare offorestry workers.

■■■■■ Violence at work, by Duncan Chappelland Vittorio Di Martino. ILO, Geneva. ISBN 92-2-110335-8. Price: 25 Swiss francs.

The workplace has traditionally been viewed asa relatively benign and violence-free environment,in which confrontation and dialogue form part ofnormal operations. Workers and managers are facedon a daily basis with personal and work-relatedproblems, but dialogue usually prevails over con-frontation. People manage to develop efficient andproductive activities within the workplace. Some-times, however, this fails to develop in a positiveway; relationships between workers, managers, clients orthe public deteriorate, and the objectives of working effi-ciently and achieving results is affected. When this occurs,as it seems to be with increasing frequency, violence mayenter the workplace and make it a hostile and hazardoussetting.

Based on rich case-study material and experience, thisILO report addresses the problem, and is intended to constitutea stimulus for action. It is centred on the analysis of existingliterature and information, deliberately avoiding the more“sensational” presentations of violence to concentrate onthose data, experiences and publications which best helpto explain and interpret the roots of violence at work, and

to promote proactive initiatives. It provides worldwidecoverage, as violence at work is found in bothdeveloping and industrialized nations. However,the information from developing countries is fre-quently limited, episodic and ill-defined. Thus thereport concentrates mainly on industrialized coun-tries, where violence at work is better documentedand the field of investigation more homogenous.

The underlying causes of violence at work,rooted in wider social, cultural, economic and relatedareas, are briefly reviewed. Limited attention isalso paid to issues already covered by specific ILO

action, such as occupational stress, alcohol and drug abuse,sexual harassment, child labour and migrant workers. Certaintechnical issues, including violence associated with terror-ism or military action, are excluded.

The report is intended to provide a basis for understandingthe nature of workplace violence, and ways of preventingit in the future. It highlights best practice and successfulmethods of prevention, illustrating the positive lessons tobe drawn from such experience. It is directed towards allthose engaged in combating violence at work: policy makersin government agencies, employers’ and workers’ organi-zations, health and safety professionals, consultants, train-ers, managers’ and workers’ representatives.

This book aims to protectworkers from hazards in for-estry work and to prevent orreduce the incidence of occu-pational illness or injury. Itis especially valuable for thosecountries and enterprises whichlack relevant regulations andguidelines. Several countrieshave already decided to usethe code to revise their na-tional regulations.

■■■■■ Employee ownershipin privatization: Lessonsfrom Central and EasternEurope. Experts’ policy re-port. ILO, 1998. ISBN 92-2-111011-7.

Along with privatization andthe emergence of a great varietyof different property forms inCentral and Eastern Europe,

the important question of “cor-porate governance” has recentlybecome the focus of the debateon transition economies. Whileseveral privatization issueshave been widely studied, aclosely related aspect whichhas received considerably lessanalytical attention is the de-velopment of employee share-ownership.

The aim of this policy reportis to describe the extent andlikely impact of employeeownership on the transitionprocess under way in Centraland Eastern Europe and topresent its particular strengthsand deficiencies as a priva-tization strategy; on this ba-sis, we provide a number ofconcrete policy options to gov-ernments, employers, and em-

ployees and their respec-tive representatives.

The aim pursued hereby the ILO is not tofavour one form of pri-vatization over another,but to help govern-ments and social ac-tors which decide todevelop employeeownership as a possible pri-vatization form to do so underthe best possible conditions.

■■■■■ Work organizationand ergonomics, edited byVittorio Di Martino and NigelCorlett. Price: 25 Swiss francs.ISBN 92-2-109518-5

This book is intended to dem-onstrate how to use the po-tential of ergonomics and ofwork organization to improveworking conditions, increaseproductivity and enhancequality and performance.

In the past few years, pro-found changes have occurredin the way efficient compa-nies are run. This book drawstogether some of the basicchanges now being applied byenterprises around the worldand explains briefly what theyare and how other enterprisescan start to benefit from them.

It looks at practical aspectsof the operation of enterprises

In print


ILO publications on sale can be obtained through major booksellers or ILO local offices in many countries, or directly from ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-1211Geneva 22, Switzerland. Tel: +4122/799-7301; fax: +4122/799-6938; http://www.ilo.org. Catalogues or lists of new publications are available free of charge from the above address.The ILO Publications Center in the US can be contacted at tel: +301/638-3152; fax: +301/843-0159; E-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.un.org/depts/ilowbo.

where knowledge from researchand applications of ergono-mics and work organization

has been utilized tomatch the work environ-ment to the needs andcharacteristics of theworkers and the pro-cesses. The objective isto remove obstacleswhich hamper the work-ers’ ability to work ef-fectively and efficiently

to produce high-quality out-put. This is to be achieved bycreating human-oriented workorganizations and ergonomi-cally sound environments,which will lead to major gainsfor both the workers and theemployers.

The study will suit manag-ers, supervisors, workers’ rep-resentatives, engineers, train-ers and consultants, both indeveloping and industrializedcountries.

■■■■■ Chemical Safety,Training Modules. Asian-Pa-cific Newsletter on Occupa-tional Health and Safety.African Newsletter on Occu-pational Health and Safety.International Programme onChemical Safety. Supplement1/1998. ISSN 0788-4877, 1237-0843.

This training material is in-tended for those who need towiden their general knowledgeof chemical safety in the

workplace. It could beused by those whohandle chemicals atwork, those who haveto decide on safetymeasures and those whoguide and educate othersin handling and usingchemicals. This pack-age covers different ar-eas of managing chemi-

cal hazards and can be usedas background material for ses-sions and discussions.

This material may be freelycopied, used, adapted or trans-lated for local educational meet-ings and workshops (with ref-

■ International LabourReview, Vol. 137, No. 1, ISSN0020-7780. 90Swiss francs,US$72, UK£44 for a one-yearsubscription.

The elimination of discrimi-nation in respect of employ-ment and occupation in all itsforms is the objective of oneof the ILO’s core labour stand-ards (Convention No. 111,1958), and anti-discriminationprovisions have been incor-porated into national legisla-tion in a great many countries.Furthering that objective re-quires not only a clear con-ception of the target but alsoreliable data and informationto determine the existence ofdiscrimination and to meas-ure progress in its elimina-tion. Two of the articles anda perspective in this issue ofthe International LabourReview contribute to thatobjective in respect of discrimi-nation against women.

The first article, by DerekRobinson (well known for hisexceptional expertise in ana-lysing pay structures) providesthe results of an examinationof differences in occupationalearnings by sex. Using allavailable desegregated data(from the ILO’s OctoberInquiry) that allow the com-parison of like activities, heshows empirically the extentof inequality in earningsbetween persons in the sameoccupation. Detailed resultsare given for two major oc-cupational groupings – formedical personnel and for

public service, banking andinsurance. This is the kind ofsystematic analysis that isnecessary in order to deter-mine where unequal pay forsubstantially similar workoccurs – a crucial step inredressing discrimination-based inequality in pay.

Next, Julie Nelson (an econo-mist who has published widelyon gender issues), discussessome of the biases that inhibitanalysts from taking dueaccount of women’s roles. Herfocus is on the traditional waysin which academic speciali-ties delimit subjects for analy-sis, often leaving out the messyquestions less amenable toquantitative approaches. Fol-lowing a critique of narroweconomic analysis she suggestsother paths worth exploring.

One of the perspectives thencompletes the coverage in thisissue of gender issues. Draw-ing on background materialshe prepared for an ILO meetingand reflecting on the debates,Linda Wirth (ILO) discusseswomen’s substantial gains inmanagement and what stillremains of the “glass ceiling”that hinders their rise to thevery top of corporate manage-ment.

The focus then turns toworkers – first, their provi-sion of venture capital, thentheir experience in the courseof transition to a marketeconomy. Pierre Lalibertéanalyses the labour-sponsoredventure capital corporationsin Quebec that have madepossible the provision of directinvestment in a number ofsmaller firms that might other-wise have succumbed, for lackof financing. Several institu-tions have been created inCanada to facilitate the chan-nelling of workers’ funds tofirms, and this analysis helpsto show how they work andtheir potential value.

Academics in Poland andthe United States (Mary Winter,Earl W. Morris, Krystyna

Gutkowska and MarzenaJezewska-Zychowicz) under-took to study what happenedto individual workers in theprocess of transition. A rep-resentative sample of a fairlytypical Polish province cov-ering the period a few yearsbefore and after the changein regime in 1989 providesthe basis for examining thetransition at a more humanlevel. While the results arenot so surprising – that manyworkers were engaged in thesame activity before and af-ter, and that those with bettereducation, good health andrelative youth fared better –this micro-level study com-plements the more commonmacroeconomic and strategicanalyses of the transitionprocess.

In a perspective on the socialimplications of the Asian crisisthat has gripped world mar-kets since the summer of 1997,Eddy Lee (ILO) explains theorigins of that crisis and thenear-term outlook. Workers,whose rising productivityhelped to create the Asianmiracle, were obviously notto blame for the crisis thatarose first in financial mar-kets and has subsequently haddramatic effects on the econo-mies of the affected countries,on employment and on politi-cal fortunes. This overviewhelps to put in perspective thevarious forces – internationaland national – that are at playin these high-stakes games.

The books section of thisissue starts with a review ofa book on the managementstyle of large enterprises inthe United States in recentdecades: Masuru Ishida reflectson that empirical analysiscomparing it to informationon other major industrializedcountries. Along with otherreviews and book notes, in-formation is provided on docu-ments for the 1998 Session ofthe International Labour Con-ference.

erence to the source). The textis also available on computerdiskette to modify and reusewhere necessary. Limitednumber of copies availablefrom: International Occupa-tional Safety and Health In-formation Centre (CIS), ILO,CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzer-land. Tel: +4122/799-6740;fax: +4122/798-6253;[email protected].


What it is

Lack of access to basic produc-tive resources, basic social servicesand remunerative employment isone of the biggest problems facedby developing countries. Thisproblem is directly related to povertyand cannot be solved by social orcompensatory programmes alone;what is required are investmentstargeting the poor and not com-pensation programmes.

The Employment and InvestmentPolicy (EIP) Programme is a sub-programme of the DevelopmentPolicies Department (POLDEV) ofthe International Labour Office (ILO).

Over the past decade the EIP pro-gramme has helped more than 40member States to develop sustain-able employment creation policies.Approximately 1 million direct jobsand close to 2 million indirect jobshave been generated in only thoseinvestment programmes to which theEIP, with donor support, was directlylinked to through demonstration andcapacity-building activities. It has alsohelped to improve the productive socialand transport infrastructure in manycountries, particularly in sub-Saha-ran Africa and Asia where the majorityof its activities are located. Recently,the Programme has been taking newinitiatives in Latin America and EasternEurope.

What it does

The EIP Programme works withlocal government units, private con-tractors and communities in both ruraland urban areas in developing coun-tries. It promotes democratization atthe grass-roots level by assisting poorpeople to organize themselves and tonegotiate with public authorities fora greater share of, and more controlover, national investment resources.

Based on more than two decadesof experience with research and de-velopment, training, implementationand replication of practical methodsof employment-generation throughthe provision of infrastructure, theEIP Programme:

● at policy level promotes em-ployment by orienting investmentstowards (i) employment-intensivepublic infrastructure and (ii) urbanand rural works schemes of localcommunity interest. These works arecarried out using local resources, locallabour and local capacities, whichmaximise employment and incomegeneration for the poor;

● provides technical advisory andcapacity building services relating toemployment-intensive interventionsfor different types of infrastructure(roads, irrigation, soil conservation,water supply);

● upgrades the competitiveness,productivity and cost-effectivenessof local contractors while promotingfair conditions for them to competein public works;

● promotes participation and em-powerment of the working poor byintroducing innovative collective bar-gaining schemes;

● introduces – through relevantlabour regulation – fair working con-ditions and basic labour standards(including the prohibition of childlabour, forced and bonded labour andnon-discrimination of women) inemployment-intensive works pro-grammes.

In this way, the EIP Programmeprovides Ministries of Labour witha practical and policy tool enablingthem to work closely with technicalministries, employers and workerson employment creation and socialprotection.

The Employment and Investment Policy (EIP) Programme:

Creation of employment throughthe use of local resources for

infrastructure development

It has helped to forge links between employ-ment policies, private sector development andthe promotion of relevant labour standards.


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The Employment and Invest-ment Policy Programme looks athow public and private invest-ments in infrastructure can beoriented towards the creation ofproductive employment, whomthey will benefit and how theycan serve the development of aviable local construction industry.

W ith donor support, the EIPProgramme has helped morethan 40 ILO member States toundertake employment-intensiveinfrastructure projects, createjobs and reduce poverty. Someresults of the EIP Programme’sactivities are the generation ofapproximately 3 million jobsworldwide over the last 10 yearsand the improvement of ruraland urban infrastructure in manydeveloping countries.

I n introducing investment poli-cies that take into account botheconomic and, more importantly,social concerns, the Programmeis an important tool to introducefair working conditions and en-force respect of basic labourstandards.

For further information pleasecontact POLDEV, phone: +4122/799.6892; fax:+4122/799.6489; e-mail: [email protected]

The ILO’s Employment and Investment Policy (EIP) Programme

sustainable jobsfor developing countries

world of work – no. 25 – 1998 · world of work – no. 25 – 1998 5 created in 1919, the...

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