Articles

August 2010

  1. From shipyard to renewable energy centre: Tomorrow’s jobs will be green

    01 August 2010

    The following article shows that – with resources and imagination – ways can be found to meet the twin challenges currently facing the world: the need to move towards an economy based on a much lower carbon footprint whilst at the same time bringing the world out of its present recession and finding employment. Andrew Bibby, a British journalist, reports from Odense, Denmark.

  2. The global challenge of child labour: Going for the goal

    01 August 2010

    The global campaign against child labour – especially in its worst forms – is at a crossroads. From an optimistic projection just four years ago that the end of the worst forms of child labour was in sight, the most recent ILO report casts doubt on whether that goal can be reached by the target year of 2016. It calls for urgent steps to accelerate action against child labour. The key messages of the report were delivered at a Global Conference on Child Labour hosted by the Government of the Netherlands on 10–11 May in The Hague. The Conference adopted a new “roadmap” aimed at achieving the goals set in 2006. IPEC Director Constance Thomas examines achievements made and challenges that remain in the fight against child labour.

April 2010

  1. Strengthening the HIV/AIDS response: Towards a new international labour standard - ILO constituents strengthen their leadership in the HIV/AIDS response

    01 April 2010

    The ILO will reach a major milestone in the global response to HIV/AIDS when the International Labour Conference votes on the adoption of an international standard on HIV/AIDS and the world of work in June 2010, almost a decade after the launching of the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS. Once the standard is adopted by the representatives of governments, employers and workers of ILO member States, it will be the first international human rights instrument entirely dedicated to HIV/AIDS and applicable to all workers in all sectors, formal and informal, as well as to jobseekers, laid-off workers and persons in vocational training.

  2. US domestic workers find their voice

    01 April 2010

    The achievement of decent work for domestic workers ultimately depends on their capacity to organize and engage in collective action. Ground-breaking legislation covering the rights of domestic workers is on the brink of passage in New York State. If signed into law it will be the culmination of a decade of grassroots activism supported by the American labour federations AFL-CIO and may open the door to similar legislation in other states. Gary Humphreys, a California-based journalist, reports.

  3. “Become a man instead of a mere machine”: The ILO and trends in working hours

    01 April 2010

    In 1930, John Maynard Keynes imagined a world in which, a hundred years later, work would be to a large extent replaced by leisure. He speculated about a three-hour shift and a 15-hour working week by 2030.

  4. Decent work for domestic workers: Towards new international labour standards

    01 April 2010

    The work of caring and cleaning in the home for pay is one of the most important occupations for millions of workers, mostly women, around the world. According to a new ILO report prepared for the June 2010 session of the International Labour Conference, domestic work absorbs a significant proportion of the workforce, ranging between 5 and 9 per cent of total employment in developing countries, and making up to 2.5 per cent of total employment in industrialized countries. Manuela Tomei, director of the ILO’s Conditions of Work and Employment Programme, looks at the working conditions of this global and growing workforce and ways to improve them.

  5. Domestic work is not for children

    01 April 2010

    Last November, the Government of Cambodia convened a national consultation on decent work for domestic workers. At the end of the meeting, government, workers’ and employers’ organizations in the country agreed on the need for a new international labour standard extending social protection to those who work in the homes of others. The following article by Bill Salter, Director of the ILO Subregional Office for East Asia, was adapted from an earlier version published in a local newspaper.

December 2009

  1. ILO, WTO joint study on trade and informal employment: Globalization and Informal Jobs in Developing Countries

    01 December 2009

    This study finds that the high incidence of informal employment in the developing world suppresses countries’ ability to benefit from trade opening by creating poverty traps for workers in job transition. It is a product of the collaborative research programme of the ILO International Institute for Labour Studies and the WTO Secretariat.

  2. From Bismarck to Beveridge: Social security for all

    01 December 2009

    120 years ago, Germany became the first nation in the world to adopt an old-age social insurance programme, designed by Otto von Bismarck...

  3. Ageing societies: The benefits, and the costs, of living longer

    01 December 2009

    Population ageing, defined as a process which increases the proportion of old people within the total population, is one of the main problems of this century. It affects or will affect both developed and developing countries. It appears on the agendas of meetings of all kinds, from the G8 conferences to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summits. According to a report for a recent meeting of the International Social Security Association (ISSA) , this does not mean, however, that all the necessary action has been taken yet.