LABOUR: First Southern ILO Director Takes His Post

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 3 1999 (IPS) - Chile’s Juan Somavia, is the new director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) – the first Southerner to head the entity in its near 80 years of operation.

Somavia, whose five year term starts midnight Wednesday, will replace Michel Hansenne, the Belgian who headed the ILO on two occasions between 1989 and 1999.

The Chilean diplomat offered a preview of his view of the international situation in a declaration distributed before his assumption of the post.

“We have agreed internationally to promote open societies and open economies. That consensus will not hold if ordinary people and their families are not put into the equation,” he said.

ILO is the only agency in the international system where representatives of the non governmental sector, workers and entrepreneurs share the power with delegates and governments in voice and vote.

“I am proud of what the ILO stands for. The Nobel Prize in 1969 acknowledged its contribution to peace,” said Somavia.

“I have the responsibility to modernise and help steer the tripartheid structure, to make ILO values prevail in the new globalised realities,” he said.

The South American diplomat and academic was elected director general by the ILO Administrative Board in a meeting on March 23, 1998.

Somavia came in with 44 votes to 12 for the Filipino candidate Maria Nieves Roldan-Confesor, in the election carried out by the 56 members of the Administration Council, the three-pronged body (governments, workers and entrepreneurs) running the ILO.

His candidacy, born of an initiative in the workers sector and formally proposed by the Chilean government, had support from the Latin America and Caribbean bloc in the early stages, and US State Department backing in the final stretch.

At the time, officials within the international system were struck by the difference in the number of votes for the Chilean diplomat and his nearest rival, reflecting the consensus reached between all sectors and all regions represented in the ILO ruling body.

The 58 year-old Somavia, takes on an ILO in the midst of controversy over the inititive from some developed countries to link the institution with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to submit the trade regime to fulfilment of labour regulations.

This proposal, known as the “social clause,” was not picked up on by governments in the developing countries, being merely reduced to a declaration of principles adopted by the ILO in relation to labour-related basic rights.

The declaration calls for strict observance of certain basic human rights: freedom of association, the right to organise and collective bargaining, the abolition of forced labour and the worst forms of child labour and the elimination of discrimination in employment.

Some industrialised countries, led by the United States, announced they would again be lobbying for the social clause to be discussed in the WTO Ministerial Conference slated for Seattle in late November.

Somavia is expected to give his stance on the issue in a speech to be made on March 22 during the ILO Administrative Board meeting, where he will make his first formal declaration of his plans.