By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2000 (IPS)

The international community has failed to move towards the goal of full employment five years after it made a pledge at a summit on social development in Copenhagen.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that over 150 million people are unemployed and, perhaps, more than 750 million under-employed, in a world population of about seven billion people.

“The global employment situation has not appreciably improved since the 1995 Social Summit,” says a background paper released to coincide with a Special Session of the General Assembly beginning next Monday in Geneva. “And within the last years,” the paper says, “a new series of employment concerns have emerged.”

While poorer countries had hoped to attract greater amounts of foreign investment because of cheap labour, much of the increased investment has gone only to a handful of countries, notably China.

The five-day Special Session, also called “Copenhagen Plus Five,” will take stock of the successes and failures of the 1995 Social Summit which pledged to create an environment conducive to social development, including full employment and the eradication of poverty.

The Special Session is expected to finalise a new global employment strategy and consider the possibility of holding a World Employment Forum in 2001.

The proposal for a new strategy comes at a time when there are moves to establish international labour standards to judge compliance with labour rights. A similar single international standard for corporate conduct in the global economy is also under discussion.

Western nations have been critical of countries such as Pakistan and Brazil for the use of child labour, while countries such as Thailand and Nicaragua have come under fire for manufacturing goods under sweat shop conditions.

But Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, echoing the views of most Third World nations, told the UN General Assembly last year that the West’s concern over child labour and sweat shops is expressive of “a sense of caring.”

Unfortunately, he pointed out, the concern is shown only when the products of child labour and sweat shops compete successfully with the products of highly-paid, high-living, four-day week workers in industrial nations.

The Special Session will urge UN member states to consider ratification and full implementation of all ILO conventions relating to employment rights of minors, women, youth, persons with disabilities, migrants and indigenous peoples.

The meeting is also expected to call on governments and international organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to undertake a multilateral initiative to better understand the social dimensions of globalisation, including the relationship among trade, development, poverty and labour issues.

The Session will also encourage the private sector to respect and promote basic worker rights as defined in relevant ILO conventions.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for a “global compact” between the United Nations and the private sector so that the business community will exercise social responsibility and respect human and labour rights.

“Globalisation has brought both prosperity and inequalities, which are testing the limits of collective responsibility,” says ILO Director General Juan Somavia of Chile, “If we are to avoid a serious backlash against the process of globalisation, concerted action is needed.”

In the aftermath of the Social Summit there have also been other employment-related trends, including the growth of the informal sector.

According to the United Nations, work in the informal sector generally fails to provide the income necessary to sustain a decent standard of living.

As a consequence, the growth of this sector has added to the ranks of the poor. The United Nations says that in some parts of the developing world, companies operating in the formal sector subcontract labour in order to avoid paying employment benefits.

Once seen as only a transitory phenomenon, the shift towards the informal sector, which is taking place both in rich and poor nations, has highlighted the need for greater social protection and minimum standards of employment.

The UN says that there has been a growing separation between wages of skilled and unskilled work and between productive and unproductive labour.

Among the issue to be discussed in Geneva next week are the need to provide skills training, the design and extension of social safety nets, support for people in the informal sector to assert their legal rights, and assistance to vulnerable groups such as disabled workers.

Excerpt:

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 22 2000 (IPS)

The international community has failed to move towards the goal of full employment five years after it made a pledge at a summit on social development in Copenhagen.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that over 150 million people are unemployed and, perhaps, more than 750 million under-employed, in a world population of about seven billion people.

“The global employment situation has not appreciably improved since the 1995 Social Summit,” says a background paper released to coincide with a Special Session of the General Assembly beginning next Monday in Geneva. “And within the last years,” the paper says, “a new series of employment concerns have emerged.”

While poorer countries had hoped to attract greater amounts of foreign investment because of cheap labour, much of the increased investment has gone only to a handful of countries, notably China.

The five-day Special Session, also called “Copenhagen Plus Five,” will take stock of the successes and failures of the 1995 Social Summit which pledged to create an environment conducive to social development, including full employment and the eradication of poverty.

The Special Session is expected to finalise a new global employment strategy and consider the possibility of holding a World Employment Forum in 2001.

The proposal for a new strategy comes at a time when there are moves to establish international labour standards to judge compliance with labour rights. A similar single international standard for corporate conduct in the global economy is also under discussion.

Western nations have been critical of countries such as Pakistan and Brazil for the use of child labour, while countries such as Thailand and Nicaragua have come under fire for manufacturing goods under sweat shop conditions.

But Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, echoing the views of most Third World nations, told the UN General Assembly last year that the West’s concern over child labour and sweat shops is expressive of “a sense of caring.”

Unfortunately, he pointed out, the concern is shown only when the products of child labour and sweat shops compete successfully with the products of highly-paid, high-living, four-day week workers in industrial nations.

The Special Session will urge UN member states to consider ratification and full implementation of all ILO conventions relating to employment rights of minors, women, youth, persons with disabilities, migrants and indigenous peoples.

The meeting is also expected to call on governments and international organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to undertake a multilateral initiative to better understand the social dimensions of globalisation, including the relationship among trade, development, poverty and labour issues.

The Session will also encourage the private sector to respect and promote basic worker rights as defined in relevant ILO conventions.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for a “global compact” between the United Nations and the private sector so that the business community will exercise social responsibility and respect human and labour rights.

“Globalisation has brought both prosperity and inequalities, which are testing the limits of collective responsibility,” says ILO Director General Juan Somavia of Chile, “If we are to avoid a serious backlash against the process of globalisation, concerted action is needed.”

In the aftermath of the Social Summit there have also been other employment-related trends, including the growth of the informal sector.

According to the United Nations, work in the informal sector generally fails to provide the income necessary to sustain a decent standard of living.

As a consequence, the growth of this sector has added to the ranks of the poor. The United Nations says that in some parts of the developing world, companies operating in the formal sector subcontract labour in order to avoid paying employment benefits.

Once seen as only a transitory phenomenon, the shift towards the informal sector, which is taking place both in rich and poor nations, has highlighted the need for greater social protection and minimum standards of employment.

The UN says that there has been a growing separation between wages of skilled and unskilled work and between productive and unproductive labour.

Among the issue to be discussed in Geneva next week are the need to provide skills training, the design and extension of social safety nets, support for people in the informal sector to assert their legal rights, and assistance to vulnerable groups such as disabled workers.

Excerpt: