People's Democracy

ILO CONFERENCE 96TH SESSION

Emerging Perils For Workers’ Interests

Swadesh Dev Roye

THE International Labour Organisation held the 96th session of its International Labour Conference (ILC) at Geneva, Switzerland, from May 29 to June 16. A total of 4,657 delegates from 170 member states joined it, as compared to 4,500 in 2006 and 4,415 in 2005. The participants included 168 ministers or vice ministers of member countries, as compared to 159 in 2006.

Trade union members in the Indian delegation were Swadesh Dev Roye (CITU), Monohar Deshkar (AITUC), Sankar Saha (UTUC – LS), Thampan Thomas (HMS), N Adyanthaya and Ashok Kumar Singh (both INTUC) and H Dave and C K Sajinarayanan (both BMS). The government delegation included the union labour minister and the labour Ministers of West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Assam.

Other than the standing items, this year’s agenda included the following: (i) work in the fishing sector with a view to adopting a convention and a recommendation (ii) strengthening the ILO’s capacity to help its members achieve its objectives in the context of globalisation (iii) promotion of sustainable enterprises (iv) equality at work: tackling the challenges.

ATTEMPT TO APPEASE

Although the focal points in the director general’s report included the menacing growth of unemployment, growing casualisation of employment, consequent effects on the service condition of workers all over the world and a decent work agenda for the entire international working community, there were many alarming shifts from the time tested perspective of the ILO. While the report made critical observations on the serious consequences of imperialist globalisation on developing economies and the people all over the world, it conspicuously failed to speak on the necessity to reverse these policies. It, instead, campaigned for ‘fair globalisation,’ which is nothing an absurdity.

A careful study of the report reveals rather contradictory directions. On the one hand it uses facts and figures to present the shocking picture of the working people’s sufferings as a consequence of the pro-capital globalisation; on the other, it puts forth pro-capital arguments at the cost of labour, supporting the employers’ demand for deregulation, flexible labour market, etc. It seems to a futile attempt to appease all the constituents.

The latest report notes that, in the era of globalisation, “the labour share in national income is declining, while that of profits is rising in many countries.” Citing the case of inequality in income, it noted, “When national income increasingly goes to the owners of capital rather than to workers, inequality in the distribution of income is likely to increase….. in many countries, both developed and developing, the incomes of people at the upper end of the scale have risen far more rapidly than those in the middle and at the bottom..… the average per capita incomes in the 20 richest countries are now 112 times higher than those in the 20 poorest countries, compared to a 49-fold difference in the early 1960s.”

The report further says on this inequality: the “richest 1 percent of the adults alone owned 40 percent of global assets in 2000, and the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world’s adult population owned barely 1 percent of global wealth. To be amongst the richest 10 percent of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, and over $500.000 was needed to belong to the richest 1 percent.”

On the importance of social security, it pointed out: “We also need to get away from the tendency to think of social protection as purely a cost..… Investing in social protection is a means of preventing the social dislocation that stems from deprivation and of building up the human and social capital of economies..… Currently, only about 20 percent of the world’s population, mainly in the richer countries, benefit from some degree of social security coverage.” According to recent ILO studies, the implementation cost on the “old age and invalidity, child benefits and essential health care elements of such a package would amount to between 5 and 7 percent of GDP in seven African and 3 percent of GDP in five Asian countries. This would amount to around 20 percent of government expenditure in most of the countries concerned.”

DIFFERENT TUNE

Compromising on job security and extending support to the cry for a ‘flexible’ labour market, however, the report argued for a “balancing act between flexibility and security at work.” Shockingly diluting the core concerns of labour, it said “the fundamental principles and rights at work are vitally important in achieving a good balance between flexibility and security at the workplace.”

Like its advocacy for ‘fair’ globalisation, the report used the slogan of ‘fair’ trade. It said: “…fair trading rules are the best guarantee that the negative effects will be contained.”

The report showed signs of surrender to the game of killing the ILO’s distinct identity as the only tripartite organisation in the world and the design to push it into the lap of the Fund-Bank-WTO in the name of UN reforms. It said, “But I believe that dialogue and convergence are possible. The ILO has opened a forum for discussion with other international agencies, including the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO on how to achieve greater coherence.”

The concluding call of the report was significant, “Faith in the magic of the market has faded with the realisation that well-functioning markets require effective states if they are to operate without distortions and balance out uneven social outcomes.”

The deliberations in the main plenary session of the conference as well as in different committee sessions clearly reflected the rising discontent against and louder disapproval to the ongoing neo-liberal, imperialist globalisation. Most of the TU delegates from developing as well as developed countries and even some government representatives from developing countries pointed out the workers’ sufferings as a direct consequence of the neo-liberal globalisation imposed by the Fund-Bank-WTO trio.

FISHING SECTOR, SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISES

The conference adopted an instrument titled “The Work in Fishing Convention 2007” (No. 188) with an accompanying Recommendation (No. 199), with overwhelming support of the delegates. It was on the “new standards designed to improve the conditions of millions of men and women working in the fishing sector.”

The instrument has been designed to mainly address issues like occupational safety, health and medical care at sea, sickness, fatigue or injury requiring care ashore, regular periods of sufficient rest, minimum age for work on board, prohibition of night work for fishers under the age of 18, the provision of work agreement incorporating total service condition including wage/remuneration, social security, etc.

There is provision about ensuring that fishing vessels are constructed and maintained with comfortable living aboard, and about inspection of ships in foreign ports to ensure that the fishers aboard are not working under conditions hazardous to their safety and health.

Inclusion of this item in the conference agenda was a testimony to the fact that ILO has been made to succumb to the forces of imperialist globalisation. Attempt has been made to push in a ‘social clause’ under the guise of ‘fair’ competition: “It is necessary to establish, for the private sector, competition rules that include universal respect for labour and social standards and eliminate anti-competitive practices at national level.” Governments have been asked to “provide for policies and regulations that stimulate long-term productive investment..… lifting barriers to domestic and foreign markets.” To press ILO in the services of capital, it has been designed that the ILO “should work with the Bretton Woods institutions and other international and regional financial institutions, OECD, WTO, academia and other relevant partners involved in the promotion of sustainable enterprises and decent work.”

I represented Indian workers in this committee, was elected to the Workers’ Bureau of its tripartite drafting committee, and also elected one of the three TU speakers in the main plenary session of the conference. I put forward the opinion: “Enterprise sustainability cannot be defined only in the confine of productivity and profit. While undermining the interest of labour, an essential and also a living input of production, an enterprise cannot attain sustainability. In the face of perverse privatisation onslaught, the state owned enterprises (SOE), particularly in the developing countries, are victims of hostile policies and denial of level playing field. Appreciating the commendable contribution of SOEs in socio-economic development, corporate social responsibility and better recognition of right to organise and right to collective bargaining of workers, sustainability of SOEs must be promoted with priority.”

SHADOW OVER ILO

This item has got worrisome linkage with the ongoing ominous UN ‘reforms.’ The entire exercise is designed to dilute and derail the ILO from its aims and objectives.

The ominous ‘reform’ exercise is undertaken on the basis of a report prepared by a high level panel on UN system. The report “Delivering as One,” presented in November 2006, seeks to push the ILO into the grip of perpetrators of imperialist globalisation; the panel also recommended annual meetings of ILO with the Fund-Bank-WTO trio. This is going to be dangerously dilute ILO’s effective identity. The ‘reform’ at country level involves the merger of different UN establishments under “4 Ones” --- one leader; one programme; one budgetary framework and one office.

This threatens to derail the ILO from its aims and objectives. The apprehension is that the ILO’s role in setting international labour standards, its supervisory machinery, workers’ fundamental rights etc shall hardly find a place in one UN programme. The one leader structure will bring the ILO’s tripartite composition under severe strain. Moreover, question has already arisen regarding the transparency in selection process and accountability for such combined responsibility. The most ominous aspect is one budget. The idea is to pool the resources of all UN agencies together with the donors and create a “basket” wherefrom funds would be allocated. In such a situation the ILO’s activities are destined to decline due to resource crunch. The establishment of one office, to be shared by all UN agencies in a country, is bound to mar the distinctly visible identity of the ILO.

In course of deliberations in the tripartite committee on this agenda, the workers group repeatedly expressed loud apprehensions about the real intentions behind this game. One of the interventions in the committee mentioned that “While the Workers group would not support nationalising or regionalising standards…. regional offices should be as well equipped as headquarters.” Rebuffing the motivated advocacy that ILO should adjust with the current world reality, the workers group refused to agree with the idea that fundamental truth has changed with the changing times: “The values enshrined in the Declaration of Philadelphia were as valid today as they had been when that instrument was drafted.”

The committee decided that the discussion should be carried forward to the next ILC session (2008) and in the meantime the ILO should facilitate the widest consultations among the constituents, including intersession consultations.

EQUALITY AT WORK, ISSUE OF STANDARDS

The 96th ILC had a full-day special plenary session on equality at work. The paper presented by the CITU noted, “Inequality or discrimination at work cannot be exhaustively discussed in isolation from the prevailing inequality in the society as a whole. At the same time this vital social ill cannot be addressed superficially without targeting the basic source and causes of inequality.” The session also discussed the discrimination due to caste, sex and religion, migrant labour, the rising inequality as a consequence of imperialist globalisation policies, rising unemployment, casual employment and under-employment, denial of right to association and right to collective bargaining etc.

The major areas identified for action regarding the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation are: (i) narrowing the gender pay gap (ii) promoting pay equality (iii) engendering employment policies and (iv) fighting racism and poverty.

The committee reviewed the status of implementation of various ILO conventions and recommendations in various countries and scrutinized the complaints of violation of ratified conventions received and examined by the committee of experts on application of ILO standards.

However, the fact is that political motive prevails in referring the countries to this committee. This year also, during the presentation of the committee report in the plenary session, many speakers came out heavily against such machinations and pointed out how the most industrialised countries were are given a clean chit by the “custodian of labour rights” despite repeated violation of labour rights.

In this regard, Sankar Saha recalled the exclusion of Colombia from the list of individual cases for examination at the instance of the government and employer groups. This, he said, may undermine the credibility of ILO’s supervisory system all over the world when there is serious state sponsored violence against the trade union movement, killing of 70 workers, 56 cases of arbitrary detention, massive threats and intimidation.

TRIPARTISM AND SOCIAL DIALOGUE

In a special sitting of the main plenary, panellist from the employers side stood for anti-worker, anti-trade union policies under imperialist globalisation. He spoke for unrestricted rights for employers in the name of autonomy, reform and modernisation (!) of labour laws “in the context of economic liberalisation.”

Ms Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, a senator in Argentina, represented the government side. She spoke extempore eloquently, lambasted the IMF-World Bank prescriptions and very strongly defended the true and meaningful tripartism from the workers’ perspective. She said, “social dialogue and tripartism are very closely linked to democracy..… when policies have been adopted where speculation rather than labour and where the transfer of resources rather than production have been the basis for the model of accumulation, there has been very little by way of social dialogue.” Narrating the economic devastation Argentina faced as a result of IMF prescriptions, she said, “Well, after a decade of our being the IMF’s guinea pig --- and I would like to remind you that one president of my country was introduced at an IMF assembly as a great example for the world to follow --- in 2001, the country quite literally collapsed.” She came out scathingly against the speculative economic activities and “casino economy,” neglecting investments in manufacture based productive activities for creation of employment and “a developed domestic market with well paid workers who always have the option to progress.” She was absolutely forthright in her attack against the IMF-prescribed economic growth. Sharing the Argentine experience, she said, “In the 1990s, in the light of what the IMF was advocating, we had economic growth of around 7 percent..… But alongside that economic growth, many thousands of workers lost jobs..… So it is clear to me that the question of social dialogue and tripartism is not just a question of economic growth but also of the character of growth..… The question is sustainability of labour intensive production based growth which is quite different to the sustainability or un-sustainability of the bubble economy which financial speculation produces.”

There were also well-attended meetings of the WFTU’s affiliates and allies present in Geneva. Apart from participating in these deliberations, I had two rounds of one to one discussion with WFTU general secretary, George Mavrikos. I also attended a meeting of the Commonwealth Trade Union Council at Geneva on June 9, and had bilateral meetings with the trade union delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, China, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Libya and Nepal.

The ILC session ended with a question mark against the future shape of the ILO, its role in the interest of labour in the situation emerging from the ongoing ‘reform’ of the UN. The move to modify the format of the future conferences is also to be carefully watched.