On 91ST International Labour Conference

                                                                                                Tapan Sen

THE 91st Conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) held on June 3-19, 2003 at Geneva revealed glaring reflection of the rising discontent against the ongoing process of neo-liberal imperialist globalisation. Not only the workers delegates attending the conference from both developing and developed countries, but even the government representatives from many of the developing countries, particularly from Asia, Africa and Latin America, made strong observations against the neo-liberal globalisation process perpetrated by the international monetary agencies at the behest of few rich nations and their multinational companies.

No doubt, the increasing tempo of anti-globalisation protest actions across the world from the very onset of the new millennium, against an economic order which generated filthy inequality and deeper poverty even in the highly industrialised countries has provided the backdrop. In particular, the French workers’ mighty countrywide strike action on May 13, 2003 against their government’s move to drastically slash down the pension rates while increasing the contribution by the workers, followed by a chain of sectoral actions by the workers from different segments of the French economy from June 3 onwards, ie during the ILO conference itself, had been a matter of wide discourse between the delegates during the conference. The workers group at the ILO conference has conveyed their warm solidarity to the French workers’ ongoing struggle.  That is why, even the Director General in his speech while placing the Report before the conference could not but comment on the so called shortcomings of globalisation policies reflected in aggravation of poverty, unemployment and marginalisation of developing countries.

DISCUSSION ON DG’s REPORT

In the 90th Conference of ILO held in 2002, the Director General, Juan Somavia had to mention in his speech before the full assembly that the globalisation is facing a crisis of legitimacy. In the 91st Conference, the Director General’s report titled “Working out of Poverty” had to observe, “While for some globalisation has generated wealth and welfare, many see it as a source of persistent inequality and social exclusion…Inequality within many countries and between the richest and poorest has grown exponentially over the last few decades.(page-6)…. Yet the dominant policy message has been: Grow fast, distribute later. It has not really worked. (page-6,7).” While reflecting on the impact of the present brand of globalisation on the mass of the world populace the DG’s Report commented, “In 1960, income gap between the wealthiest fifth of the world’s population and the poorest fifth was 30 to 1. By 1999, it was 74 to 1….Would growth have been impaired, if wealth creation had been more evenly distributed these last forty years? If we had at least maintained the ratio of 1960? Certainly not. On the contrary there would be fewer people living in poverty…there would be more consumers, greater demand and a more dynamic global economy. We need growth and equity- a globalisation that leaves no one behind. (page-7).”

But as usual, and may be due to systemic compulsion, despite admitting the inefficacy of the present model of globalisation in providing a better humane living for all, the Director General still sought to find a solution within the frame work of free market-globalisation itself. He suggested for making the globalisation more inclusive, open economies to be more responsive to social concerns. He did not mention anything about neo-colonial ploy of the economic superpowers to deindustrialise the developing economies and to thrive at their cost. He remained silent about the imperialist game plan to establish hegemony over the rest of the world and combine both their military and economic policy designs in that direction.

The DG admitted about the conflicting interests of the labour and the capital and the design of the capital owners to promote informalisation of the economy for the growth of their business, talked quite loudly on the ‘race to the bottom’ by the governments in respect of labour standards in their madness to woo foreign capital, but still prescribed a reconciliatory approach without any caveat. He did not bother to mention even in his introductory-speech in the plenary session about  the rising waves of strikes and struggles by the working class all over the world and preferred not to assert the truth that the united resistance struggle by the working class can create grounds and condition for such “social dialogues” as per ILO vocabulary.   

SOME IMPORTANT INTERVENTIONS

Many speakers on the DG’s report were forthright in denouncing the present globalisation process and identified it as the root cause of widespread poverty. Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa in his address to the conference said that one of the main consequence of globalisation has been the marginalisation of the majority of the poorer nations, sinking  them more and more into poverty. He also firmly maintained, citing concrete examples, that problems of underdevelopment cannot be addressed by policies driven by profit maximisation.

The workers’ delegate from Russian Federation stated that poverty has been a pressing issue in Russia for over ten years; about 30 per cent Russian workers are “working poor” since their salary level is below subsistence wages. The entire social security system is being severely threatened and accumulation of unpaid wage arrears remains a cancerous problem.

The representative of International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation stated that unregulated and unprotected work by millions of workers in the developing countries in the textile, garments and clothing and leather industries owing to policies of the respective governments to compete with each other at workers’ cost in the globalised economy, has become a  passport to permanent poverty for all the workers.

The workers’ delegate from Paraguay said that neo-liberalism has imposed the anarchy of market on the workers. Under globalised economy, the crisis continues without any growth, leading to widespread closures, job losses and rising unemployment and attack on labour rights. Paraguayan workers are already in the path of long drawn struggle braving murderous attack of the state administration.

The workers’ delegate from Venezuela stressed upon the urgent need for “reform of the international economic systems which currently help to make the rich countries richer and the poor countries poorer”.   

Sukomal Sen, while speaking at the plenary on behalf of the Trade Union International of Public and Allied Employees, criticised the DG’s report for not referring to the resistance struggles by the workers in different parts of the world against neo-liberal globalisation. These struggles should be considered  central to the peoples’ drive to fight out poverty and inequality and ILO must come out with all support to such struggles as a part of its strategy for creating conditions for eradication of poverty, Sen asserted. He also urged that the governing body of ILO should be made truly representative, representing all trends and opinions. 

John Sutton of TUI of Workers of the Building, Wood and the Building Material Industries stated that while high sounding concepts like social dialogue and social partnership have an important place, the key to liberating working people from poverty and exploitation lies in teaching workers to unite and struggle together and the real task involves exposing the class based nature of society and facilitating militant struggles to challenge for power in the workplace and power in the society. 

DELIBERATION IN COMMITTEES

As per the usual practice, the conference deliberated on five issues in four different committees. The issues discussed were:

• on scope of employment relationship
• on human resource development and training
• on revising the convention on seafarers identity
• on occupational health and safety
• on application of standards

Tapan Sen (CITU) represented the workers delegation from India in the Committee on the Scope of Employment Relationship along with Ashok Singh (INTUC). The Human Resource Development Committee was represented by Ravi Raman (BMS), Occupational Safety and Health Committee by H Mahadevan (AITUC) and Hiralal Sharma (INTUC), Application of Standards Committee by K J Thakkar (BMS) and Shankar Saha (UTUC-LS) and the Committee on Seafarers by Abdul Gani Serang of HMS.

The Committee on Employment Relationship discussed the situation arising out of the gradual informalisation of various economies following globalisation.  This phenomena was leading to proliferation of various type of employment relationship, eg of employees under contractors and subcontractors, and many other type of disguised and ambiguous relationship under the garb of false self-employment, independent and individual civil and commercial contracts, all aimed at depriving the concerned workers of their rights and other protection measures including social securities. The deliberation at the Conference was aimed at devising an ILO instrument on the subject matter to identify various facets of disguised, ambiguous and triangular employment relationship emerging increasingly in various sectors and devise suitable measures for extending protection to all such employment relationship, both through proper legislations, and also through strengthening enforcement machineries and related institutions. The employers group opposed the initiative and tried to block the effort up to the last minute. But ultimately following an intense debate in the committee and subsequent voting on some of the issues, they had to come round to agree for devising an appropriate ILO instrument in the form of a recommendation to address the issue of disguised employment relationship, promote collective bargaining and social dialogue to find solution to the problems.

The Committee on Human Resource Development and Training worked on the need for revising and improving upon the existing ILO standards vide Convention no 142 and Recommendation no 150. This was necessitated by the changes in the business and economic scenario following globalisation on the one hand, and the swift changes in the technologies on the other. The discussion was aimed at going deep into all the aspects of issue with an integrated approach in preparation of devising new standards in 2004 ILO Conference. The Committee after prolonged deliberation has drawn unanimous conclusions on various aspects of human resource development and training for further deliberation in the ILO Conference of 2004 to finalise the revised standards in the form of recommendation or convention or both.

Similarly, the Committee on Occupational Safety and Health has drawn up a document on plan of action and strategy on ILO standards related activities on the vital issue of occupational safety and health.

The Committee on improved security of Seafarers identification discussed various aspects of security concerns raised by various governments in the matter of identification of the seafarers to finalise the text of a new ILO Convention on Seafarers Identity Documents in place of the old Convention(1958) on the subject.

The Committee on Application of Standards reviewed  the situation relating to implementation of various conventions and recommendations of ILO in various countries and also scrutinised the cases of complaints of violation of ratified conventions received and examined by Committee of Experts on application of ILO standards.