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LABOUR-LATIN AMERICA: More Empty Promises?

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Sep 26 2005 (IPS) - Labour ministers from the Americas are meeting in Mexico Monday and Tuesday to issue ambitious-sounding policy proposals aimed at generating decent jobs – an exercise that has been repeated periodically for over a decade, without leading to major changes in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There is a raft of statistics showing that the region is in crisis, in terms of labour conditions. And there is no indication that the situation is about to improve any time soon.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the regional economy would have to grow by at least seven percent a year on average between 2003 and 2015 – five percent above the average rate over the past 10 years – in order to provide decent jobs to the coming generations.

But that goal looks increasingly distant, especially taking into account the fact that one out of every five minors in the region works, many of them in activities that pose a threat to their health, safety or moral integrity.

In addition, unemployment is growing among young people between the ages of 15 and 29 and is almost twice as high as it is among adults, whose unemployment rate averages 10 percent.

Half of today’s wage-earners do not have social security coverage, and one out of every seven workers in the region earns less than a dollar a day, which means they are considered to live in extreme poverty.

“Crisis is the word that best sums up the employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Víctor Dehesa, a Mexican expert in labour law, told IPS. “The facts fly in the face of the official rhetoric and promises to create more and better jobs.”

The two-day meeting in Mexico is the Organisation of American States’ (OAS) 14th Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labour.

The debates and conclusions will form the central input for the fourth Summit of the Americas, to be held Nov. 4-5 in Argentina under the theme “Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance”.

As the ministers state in the draft declaration to be signed Tuesday, “Work presents the opportunity for people to realise their potential, to foster social cohesion and to advance economic, social, political and cultural development, both individually and as members of society.

“We shall endeavour to advance a labour agenda in our region that promotes dignified employment, placing the person in the centre of all economic activities, as both the creator and beneficiary of work.”

The document was hashed out in preparatory meetings that took place in Argentina, Mexico and the United States between April and August.

This is not the first time the ministers have made such far-reaching promises. In previous ministerial meetings and regional conferences held over the past decade, the declarations have consistently focused on creating more and better jobs, fighting child labour, and promoting equal pay for men and women.

The ILO says decent work is “the heart of social progress.”

“Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives,” says the agency. “It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.”

In its Labour Overview 2004 report, the ILO notes that 27.7 million children and adolescents between the ages of five and 17 work in Latin America and the Caribbean. Of that total, 18.5 million are involved in activities that are banned for minors in local legislation and international treaties, because they pose a risk to their education, health or development.

The share of children who work in jobs that are off-limits to minors ranges from 20 percent in Guatemala to three percent in Chile.

The worst child labour conditions are found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, where 400,000 children, some as young as five, work in small-scale mining, often handling explosives and toxic chemicals like mercury, extracting ore and carrying heavy loads.

At the same time, young people suffer the heaviest burden of unemployment. A study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reports that the average regional unemployment rate among people between the ages of 15 and 29 is 16.1 percent, 3.3 percent higher than in the early 1990s.

And among economically active women, the ILO points out that the unemployment rate is 1.4 times that of men, and adds that the gap is widening.

Based on figures from the first three-quarters of 2004, the ILO puts the unemployment rate in the region at 10.5 percent, barely below the 2003 rate of 11.1 percent.

However, this slight improvement was not matched in terms of quality. From 1990 to 2003, the rise in employment in Latin America and the Caribbean mainly involved the informal economy. Out of every 10 people who found work in that period, six did so in the informal sector.

With regard to social security coverage, only five out of 10 wage-earners and only two out of 10 people active in the informal economy have access to that benefit today.

“We will be paying close attention to the new promises that the governments make in the meeting in Mexico, and later, in the summit in Argentina,” said Dehesa. “But it is not easy for us to believe that important or radical changes are going to arise, with respect to creating more and better jobs.”