The market economy itself is not merely an international system; its global connections extend well beyond the relation between nations... A global approach is, of course, a part of the heritage of labour movements in world history. Based on an initiative from the International Labor Organization [ILO] (1999) decent work represents an aspirational statement about the quality of work that should be available to all people who seek to work around the globe. It made it clear that the level of employment (quantity) cannot be divorced from its quality. A work agenda means the things or a list that you need to be done on that particular time. Each unit of the ILO today determines its programme so as to contribute to one or more of these decent work goals. Labour Conference, Geneva, 1999. The struggle for decent work is in itself a core value... it is a global issue and thus international and local at the same time. T he concept of “decent work” was launched in these terms in 1999, A universalist understanding of work and working relations can be linked to a tradition of solidarity and commitment. Creation of the Decent Work Agenda. In 1999, he submitted his Decent Work Agenda to the International Labour Conference, which was subsequently endorsed by the Governing Body and the Conference. The quality of work is central to the growing inequalities in Africa and the world. By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. We must speak out more loudly against policies which work against the interests of workers. Full Employment and Decent Work with Equal Pay. … The lives of working people are, of course, directly affected by the rules and conventions that govern their employment and work, but they are also influenced, ultimately, by their freedoms as citizens with a voice who can influence policies and even institutional choices. The chapter is insightful as it traces the origins of decent work concept. Jonas Gahr Støre, Foreign Minister of Norway, speaking at the Oslo Conference, 5 September 2008. Many global institutions, including those central to our working lives, have to go well beyond the limits of “international” relations. Although few disagree with the Decent Work Agenda in principle, [citation needed] actually achieving Decent Work poses challenges and controversies. Significant recognition of the “decent work” proposed by the ILO has been achieved in the media and the public. In 1999, the International Labour Organisation coined the term ‘decent work’. Although few disagree with the Decent Work Agenda in principle, [citation needed] actually achieving Decent Work poses challenges and controversies. Decent work is a term originally coined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report published in June 1999, when it described the goal of decent work as ‘not just the creation of jobs, but also the creation of jobs of acceptable quality’. The Fostering of Rights at Work The classic ILO task since its founding in 1919 has been setting international work This article presents some extracts from that speech,1 together with the views of other distinguished leaders and thinkers on the ILO concept of decent work. Decent work is at the heart of peace, because peace cannot be the mere absence of destruction, but rather the struggle to create a dignified and worthy life for all human beings. was begun by the IMF and World Bank in 1999, and in 2000, the ILO became active in the PSRPs of five pilot countries, in which it sought to show the advantages of including the ILO’s Decent Work agenda in poverty reduction. dimensions of the decent work agenda, and this paper is intended to do just that. In contrast, a truly global approach need not see human beings only as (or even primarily as) citizens of particular countries, nor accept that the interactions between citizens of different countries must be inevitably intermediated through the relations between distinct nations. Collective bargaining and labour relations, Employment injury insurance and protection, Forced labour, human trafficking and slavery, Agriculture; plantations;other rural sectors, Financial services; professional services, Shipping; ports; fisheries; inland waterways, Transport (including civil aviation; railways; road transport). 1999: Decent Work, Report of the Director-General, International Labour Conference, 87th Session, (Geneva) - [1.95 Mb] –. The Decent Work Agenda was developed in 1999 by the ILO around four pillars: employment crea-tion, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue (Andrieu et al., 2008).1 It has achieved high-level international endorsement, first in 2008, when it was included in the Millennium De-velopment Goals (MDGs) under MDG 1, and later Decent work is the best, the most powerful and the most sustainable guarantee of economic development and social cohesion on a global scale. The decent work agenda brings together the goals of rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue in a consolidated, gender-sensitive vision which guides economic and social policy choices across the board. Since 1999, the ILO works according to the so-called Decent Work Agenda. Mary Robinson, President, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, speaking at the Oslo Conference, 5 September 2008. This is strongly in line with what is becoming increasingly the United Nations’ general approach to practical policy through rights-based reasoning... Another distinguishing feature of the approach is that it situates conditions of work and employment within a broad economic, political and social framework. The new ILO Declaration reminds us that on the one hand, labour standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes and it makes clear on the other hand that violation of fundamental principles and rights cannot be used as a legitimate comparative advantage. The first important feature in the new ILO vision is the articulation of its goal: the promotion of “opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity”. In 1999, the International Labour Organisation coined the term ‘decent work’. The Agenda has been incorporated in the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. H. E. Oscar Arias, President of the Republic of Costa Rica, speech to the International Labour Conference, 2006. If we, as an international community, are to promote equitable, sustainable and democratic development – development that promotes societal well-being and conforms to basic principles of social justice – we must reform the international economic architecture. GENEVA, June 1999 – This is a crucial moment in the history of working people across the world. 1-2; and in Working for better times: Rethinking work for the 21st century (Geneva, ILO, 2007). In Africa, for example, informal employment is the norm, while well-paying jobs that offer social-protection benefits are the exception. Employment Agenda and the Decent Work Agenda. A decent job is The reach of this objective is indeed momentously large: it includes all workers, wherever and in whatever sector they work; not just workers in the organized sector, nor only wage workers, but also unregulated wage workers, the self-employed, and the homeworkers. [12] Decent work and poverty eradication 4 Ergon Associates, January 2010 Uptake of decent work within the international development agenda The concept of decent work has achieved high-level international endorsement as an objective of the development agenda, most notably with its integration into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Decent work is a term that was coined by the International Labour Organisation and its Director-General Juan Somavia in a June 1999 report, where it was defined as follows: "The primary goal of the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Each unit of the ILO today determines its programme so as to contribute to one or more of these decent work goals. Vladimir Spidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, speaking at the ILO Forum on Decent Work for a Fair Globalization, Lisbon, October 2007. We do not want the Millennium Generation and future generations to pass judgement on our generation... that we have not prepared a better world for them, that we passed on to them an indecent world full of indecent workplaces... Let’s make it a fairer globalization. H. E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, speech to the International Labour Conference, 2006. dimensions of the decent work agenda, and this paper is intended to do just that. ... (1999) decent work represents an aspirational statement about the quality of work that should be available to all people who seek to work around the globe. The Decent Work Agenda is an agenda for development that provides a sustainable route out of poverty. An agenda is like a calendar that you set an event or discussion or meeting on that particular date about your organization. The decent work agenda brings together the goals of rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue in a consolidated, gender-sensitive vision which guides economic and social policy choices across the board. 3 ILO [Date unknown] www.ilo.org. discussion of his Report, The Millennium Declaration, the MDGs and the The "Decent Work" agenda is not new. This rich heritage… can indeed be fruitfully invoked in rising to the challenge of decent work in the contemporary world. It was during this time that the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda was launched and won support from other international bodies. Decent work: Concept and indicators Dharam GHAI * The primary goal of the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equality, security and human dignity (ILO, 1999a, p. 3). Reducing the decent work deficit - a global challenge. The economically globalizing world, with all its opportunities as well as problems, calls for a similarly globalized understanding of the priority of decent work and of its manifold demands on economic, political and social arrangements. –. Effective pursuit of the decent work agenda on OLMs calls for counterhegemonic initiatives through global social movement unionism that reconciles labour differences across the North-South divide. Decent work, employment creation, social protection, rights at work and social dialogue represent integral elements of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. I believe there is ample evidence to say that this equation is true and I believe in essence that it represents the core of a social contract for the 21st century. The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO) is the training arm of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The Declaration institutionalizes the Decent Work concept developed by the ILO since 1999, placing it at the core of the Organization’s policies to reach its constitutional objectives. Joseph Stiglitz, “Employment, social justice and societal well-being”, in International Labour Review, vol. The Sector’s publications consist of books, monographs, working papers, employment reports and policy briefs. Ryder first joined the International Labour Organization in 1998 as Director of its Bureau for Workers’ Activities and then in 1999 became Director of the Office of the Director-General. ILO Conventions: background and preparatory work, Services & Digital Collections(pdf 139 KB), Video: The ILO and the Quest for Social Justice, © 1996-2017 International Labour Organization (ILO) |. I turn now to the fourth and final distinctive feature of the approach under discussion. the ILO calls a “Decent Work Agenda.” One of the specific ways in which the ILO has been promoting the Decent Work Agenda is by define measures of decent work that would permit assessment of progress over time at the national level and cross-country comparisons. While an organization such as the ILO has to go beyond national policies (without overlooking the instrumental importance of actions by governments and societies within nations), there is a critical distinction between an “international” approach and a “global” one. Central to concerns about the decline in ‘labour share’ is the notion of decent work. We need a 21st-century way of implementing the Decent Work Agenda, we need a multisectoral approach... we need in fact a broad movement to make the Decent Work Agenda central to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and to achieving social justice for a fair globalization. It is not adequate to concentrate only on labour legislation since people do not live and work in a compartmentalized environment. Address by Mr. Juan Somavia, Secretary-General of the International Labour Conference, 1 June 1999. At the very least, we must point out the trade-offs, we must insist on democratic processes for determining how economic decisions are made. This paper interrogates the ideas of ‘sustained’ and ‘inclusive’ growth that are intrinsic to one of three UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 8 - Decent Work and Growth) adopted by the UN World Tourism Organisation’s (UNWTO) 2030 sustainable tourism agenda. Keywords Crowdsourcing ... (1999). 2001: Reducing the decent work deficit - a global challenge, Report of the Director-General, International Labour Conference, 89th Session, (Geneva) … The second conceptual feature that needs to be stressed is the idea of rights... the framework begins with acknowledging certain basic rights, whether or not they are legislated, as being a part of a decent society. The beginnings of a truly global approach can be readily detected in the analysis underlying the new directions of the ILO: The increasingly globalized world economy calls for a similarly globalized approach to basic ethics and political and social procedures. The decent work agenda brings together the goals of rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue in a consolidated, gender-sensitive vision which guides economic and social policy choices across the board. It was a strategic positioning of the ILO The concept of decent work, agreed at the international level, facilitates dialogue and cooperation between the industrialized countries, developing countries and emerging economies, as well as dialogue with non-governmental actors. Naomi Hossain, The SDGs and the Empowerment of Bangladeshi Women, The Palgrave Handbook of Development Cooperation for Achieving the 2030 Agenda, 10.1007/978-3-030-57938-8, (453-474), (2021). In the furtherance of this goal the ILO's Decent Work Agenda3 aims to implement decent work at country level by means of policy and institutional intervention, and Decent Work Country Programmes have been developed, in coordination with ILO ... 1 ILO 1999 www.ilo.org. In short, the idea behind Decent Work is first of all an income, which allows the working … It is assumed that combinations of incorrect policy choices and inappropriate micro-institutional arrangements are the cause of bad work. 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