Decent work key to future development

Decent work key to future development

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

The International Labor Organization (ILO) lashed out on
Friday at draft documents for the next World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, saying that the drafts
failed to pay attention to employment and decent work, two
essential preconditions for eradicating poverty and implementing
sustainable development.

The ILO director general, Juan Somavia, contended that these
labor issues should be focused on during the current preparatory
committee meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable
Development.

In his statement read out by his special envoy Allan Larsson
during the ILO's roundtable discussion, Somavia stressed that the
question of more and better jobs should be introduced to the
Johannesburg strategy.

Somavia stressed that employment and decent work had always
been the world's most important concerns, and they should also be
the focus of efforts in pursuing sustainable development.

He noted that better jobs were badly needed by some 500
million working poor and an additional 500 million newcomers to
the labor force over the next ten years, 97 percent of whom would
be in developing countries.

"The growing global workforce should be seen as a potential
and essential part of the solution to the challenge of reducing
poverty and promoting social progress rather than as a separate
problem to be dealt with later," Somavia said in his statement.

The 500 million working poor were part of the almost 3 billion
people worldwide who lived on less than US$2 per day, mostly in
developing countries, according to International Conference of
Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) data.

A participant from an India-based NGO explained that a decent
workplace remained an elusive dream for workers in developing
countries.

"Imagine a company located in Kenya, with raw materials from
China, workers from Kenya and owned by Anglo-U.S. businessmen.
The workers labor in a small, hot factory, with two small doors,"
the Indian participant said.

The preparatory committee (PrepCom) meeting for the World
Summit on Sustainable Development was a good opportunity for the
stakeholders -- government officials, NGOs and other major groups
-- to work toward improving working conditions and promoting
proper incomes for workers, said the ICFTU in its statement.

The ICFTU put forward priorities to be highlighted in the
PrepComm, which could later be manifested into an action plan to
be implemented after the World Summit in Johannesburg.

The priorities included putting pressure on developed
countries to help developing countries tackle the poverty
problem.

"The European Union, G-8 countries and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries must
finally agree to take decisive action on poverty alleviation, for
example, by halving world poverty by 2015," said the ICFTU.

The ICFTU cited other commitments that should be brought into
reality by developed countries, including development assistance
and debt write-offs for developing countries. Assistance by
developed countries should target secure employment, which was
the key to an effective strategy for poverty eradication.

Besides secure employment, lack of decent work -- in the form
of occupational health and safety -- was part of the problems
that should be addressed in a bid to achieve sustainable
development.

"The improvement of the working conditions of workers should
be the outcome of the World Summit and this must be enforceable,"
said K. Chetty, assistant director general of the South African
Ministry of Public Health.

The issue was important since workers are a significant
portion of the global population. Moreover, workers, most of whom
were breadwinners, could become the front line messengers for
improving global health and literacy, which were promoted by the
Chairman's Text for the World Summit, she said.

Poverty and labor issues were included as social pillars of
sustainable development. Poverty and social breakdown were
believed to be stumbling blocks for people in adopting
sustainable lifestyles.

Poverty and low economic growth, for example, had prompted the
governments of developing countries to tolerate the operations of
mining companies, disregarding the potential for environmental
damage.