BRASILIA (ILO News) - The Sixteenth American Regional Meeting of the International Labour Organization opened here Wednesday with a call by ILO Director-General Juan Somavia for "a decent work decade" to be launched to "improve prospects for democratic governance and security in the hemisphere".
In opening remarks, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, told government, worker and employer delegates from the Americas that "the world of work could improve by developing democracy and economic growth".
The Brazilian leader said that improved working conditions also "make it necessary to create a framework for sustainable growth".
Brazilian Minister of Labour Luiz Marinho, was elected President of the meeting. Mr. Dagoberto Lima Godoy from Brazil (employers), Luiz Carlos Motta from Brazil (workers) and Julio Faesler Carlisle from Mexico (governments) were elected Vice Presidents.
In his opening statement, the ILO Director-General said "Here and everywhere in the world the employment crisis affects political systems."
"It is not the only factor, but one of the most important ones," Mr. Somavia said, referring to the challenge of tackling a formal employment deficit affecting some 126 million people, of which 23 million are unemployed and 103 million working in the informal sector.
In a report prepared for the meeting, the ILO Director-General presented an agenda for decent work combining action in the economic, legal, institutional and labour market spheres. It covers general policies to enhance the environment for realizing decent work; policies in specific areas of intervention such as youth employment, gender equality and local development; and decent work country programmes that reflect national specificity.
Mr. Somavia said that despite the magnitude of the challenge to create decent work in the region, there is "considerable political awareness about the need to put decent work at the centre of development strategies".
"Although we live in a turbulent region, decent work has become a common objective as many statements show", Mr. Somavia said.
According to the ILO Director-General, the Agenda responds to four features of the present environment:
- Democracy has been consolidated as a means of expressing political alternatives, but citizens hope that democracy will mean more than just casting a vote;
- The economy has improved overall but the economic situation of too many men, women, youth and children remains unjust and unbalanced;
- There is real need for an economic growth model that mainstreams policies for social cohesion; and,
- Globalization has reached a point of no return. While we have to adapt to this situation, the process may lack legitimacy if we do not act to promote transparency and fairness inside the region and beyond.
At the opening session, employer and worker delegates called on governments for "immediate action" to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in the region, and "to elaborate official policies and to set priorities aiming at the elimination of child labour starting with the most intolerable forms".
For more information on the Sixteenth American Regional Meeting and the Report "Decent work in the Americas: An agenda for the Hemisphere, 2006-2015", please refer to the following website: www.oitamericas2006.org