JOB LOSS AND DEEPENING CRISIS OVERSHADOWED INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE OF ILO -Amitava Guha

Fallout of economic crisis causing massive job loss, squeezing social security measures and distancing away future employment creation overshadowed International Labour Conference, annual event of International Labour Organisation (ILO) held at Geneva 1-18 June. Attack of Israeli forces on the flotilla carrying aid to blocked Gaza Strip was the other event caste deep concern on the Conference. Immediately before inauguration of the Conference a small group jumped in the dais demanding ‘Iran out of ILO’. Notably, neither UN security staff nor ILO officials did show much promptness to dissuade them. Even the ILO officials remained casual when some people from the gallery above shouted slogans on the same issue. Workers representative from Iran informed that they are ant-present regime and backed by US Govt.

INAUGURAL SESSION AND REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR GENERAL:

Gilles de Robin, former minister of right-centre French government was elected as the President of the Conference. Doris Leuthard, President of Swiss Confederation inaugurated the Conference. Interestingly, at the initial part of her speech, critical to the market situation she mentioned that recession has left behind a mess in the labour market and interdependence of financial markets can vary quickly cause serious problem for societies even when the problems actually originate in just one country. But she emphesised that ‘globalisation is basically the result of technological change followed by economic development which is inevitable and we hope dynamic.’ She imposed that ‘ILO is the natural partner of the IMF and of the World Bank, of the WTO…,’ the idea which the conference later rejected.

Following inauguration, Juan Somavia, Director General of ILO presented his report. At the very beginning, he condemned the ‘unacceptable events this week off the coast of Gaza’ but did not mention that the illegal occupation of Gaza Strip should be reversed. Later, in a declaration by the Permanent Delegation to the Arab Labour Organisations expressed dissatisfaction on DG’s report.

Somavia’s speech was primarily concerned on macroeconomic development when he specifically declared that ‘no sustainable recovery without job recovery’. He was highly critical about the recovery process adopted by the crisis ridden countries. Recent phenomena those are further affecting the countries are public debt and public deficits. He raised question that why these level of public debt and deficits occurred. ‘We must not forget that part of them went to save the financial system to avert depression’ he said. He explained that the stimulus given to the financial sector had precipitated to fiscal deficit but deficit reduction would slow down recovery in turn contributing to increase in unemployment. This phenomenon is not unknown as classical Marxist analysis on moribund capitalism had described such perpetuality. He also acknowledged that ILO’s estimation of 212million unemployment in the present year is away from reality since ‘in the first part of this year we see no sign of a reduction in the global rate of unemployment.’ He lamented that ‘[P]olitical, social and financial stability are interrelated, and because of the things I have been saying, many people believe that some actors in the financial sector have broken the social contract with the society.” His prescription was to gain only through social dialogue.

SESSION ON RECURRENT DISCUSSION ON EMPLOYMENT:

CITU representative participated to the commission on “Recurrent Discussion on Employment”. Eleven rounds of meetings were held in this chapter which dealt with four strategic objectives of ILO- employment, social protection, labour standard and social dialogue. Spokeperson on the workers group, Sharan Bourrow who later became General Secretary of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) began with her analysis of the contemporary situation. Following the usual line of ITUC, she praised the stimulus measures taken by the rich countries to save the economies from total collapse like 1930s but had to mention that unemployment and underemployment continues to rise. Even before the separate session of the workers group was held, she declared that the Workers group supports the stimulus measures. Her only criticism was that ‘ Having implemented the right macroeconomic strategy(by stimulus measures-au), Governments have failed to move urgently to the next important task which was financial market re-regulation and curbing the power and insider relationship that that exist between the largest banks, financial institution, rating agencies and the largest equity and bond investors.’ Important suggestions she made for ILO to consider were that it should persist for policy coherence and reconvening of ‘Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy” which the employers group resisted with their might. Ronie Goldbarg, spokesperson of employers group strongly advocated that stimulus measures should continue and the financial sector would find out means to minimize fiscal deficits.

COMMISSIONS:

CITU representative intervening in the sessions pointed out that the emergence of speculative market which had out-amounted the manufacturing and services several times. Though the speculative investment had no role in employment generation but it caused disaster in many enterprises which has thrown many out of job. It was pointed that ILO should also consider that rapid caualisation and increase in informal sector employment must be reversed for protecting social justice and erosion of employment generation. It was also pointed out that the third world countries have become the suppliers of skilled workforce for which the developed countries do not pay as well the poor countries do not gain productively. ILO also should insist for captive utilization of skilled workers by direct green filed investment in the primary resource rich countries in the third world. On the initial draft, CITU representative demanded that the idea of collaboration with IMF, World Bank and WTO should be rejected since their policy prescription is also responsible for the financial debacle. This position of CITU was supported by representatives from many other countries and in the final draft, this paragraph was deleted.

Tension mounted in the commission on domestic workers where representative from Govt. of India was opposing every proposals made by the workers group. ILO for the first time initiated discussion on developing a convention for domestic workers. GOI was found in the forefront in opposing any kind of decisions including even formulating guideline. This compelled all the trade unions from India to send message to the Prime Minister to intervene. Finally GOI representative asked for a division for which voting became inevitable and all opposition lost in vote. Therefore next year ILO will work on developing a convention for domestic workers.

SPECIAL PLENARY:

In the special session on ‘ILO Declaration of Fundamental Right to Work with special emphasis on Child Labor’ Mallikarjun Kharge, Labour Minister addressed the plenary. Surfing around the address of the other eminent speakers, he to everybody’s dismay stated that ‘job growth has returned’. He further misinformed that in India legal guarantee has been provided for right to work. He also said that 14.5 million smart cards have been so far provided which allows the holders free treatment. We may need to search with microscope to find out such beneficiaries. He also mentioned many other acts which have been passed by the Parliament including those related to child labour. The castle build in air by the minister was blown away with evidences by the CITU representative when he was given to address the plenary for five minutes.

SESSION OF COMMITTEE ON APPLICATION OF STANDARD:

Meeting of the Committee on the Application of Standard continued in parallel with the Conference. Hearings on complaints against the Govt. and employers are held with due seriousness. This year Venezuela was targeted which the Govt. representative could counter successfully. But killing of trade union leaders in Guatemala was discussed seriously where the Govt. representative was taken in to task by several speakers. At the conclusion, the Govt representative had to ensure that thorough probe shall be made and the criminals will be punished. This is quite interesting session where the Government of different countries was found quite uncomfortable and defensive. The scope provided in this process can be utilized by CITU to generate pressure on the Govt. of India who is not ratifying or implementing the conventions, guidelines and regularly failing to send reports to ILO.

WFTU AND ITUC:

Three meetings were arranged by WFTU before and around the Conference. In the first meeting a briefing was made about the conference procedure. It was also described by some countries how they are being unjustly earmarked for criticism and a kind of barrier would be tried to impose on them. Yet such kind of veiled attempt was not very successful in the different sessions due to firm positions taken by workers representatives in many countries of Africa, Asia and South America. The last session was held on the forthcoming Conference of WFTU scheduled at Athens, Greece next year. This meeting was also attended by the directors and other officials of ILO. George Mavricos, General Secretary, WFTU had separate discussion with representative of CITU where he sought for cooperation for the forthcoming Conference.

One observable situation was that the Conference that it was dominated by the ITUC who put their people in almost all committee head for workers. In some event the Workers Group meeting appeared to be a meeting of ITUC when they started discussion on the ensuing Conference of ITUC scheduled at Vancouver at the end of June 2010. This was possible only because WFTU has not yet regained its strength enough to counter dominance of ITUC.

(Amitava Guha attended the ILO Conference as representative from CITU)

Source: www.citucentre.org