Mission Statement

An overview of the challenges

The world of work is diverse and is constantly adapting to meet new challenges. Elements within it, such as the health and safety environment, the impact of globalization and technology, what training and skills are needed, as well as the aspirations of workers and employers, are constantly changing.

These changes can bring about opportunities as well as conflicts for workers and employers. Ensuring that these changes are managed in the most effective and mutually beneficial manner requires:

• relevant labour laws,
• effective social dialogue, and
• efficient and responsive labour administration.

These are essential in order to meet the needs of workers, employers and their representative organizations. The process of continuous change in the world of work poses challenges to:

• institutions,
• legal frameworks,
• collective bargaining,
• and other practices and procedures that govern the workplace and the labour market.

The services provided by the ILO

Through its social dialogue, labour law and labour administration activities, the ILO promotes an integrated approach to these key components of labour market and workplace governance by providing services that:

• strengthen legal frameworks, institutions, machinery and processes of tripartite and bipartite social dialogue and promote sound industrial relations at national, sectoral, enterprise and sub-regional levels;
• increase the number of member States which base their labour laws and other employment-related legislation on ILO standards and advice and use a tripartite consultative process in the preparation of such legislation;
• strengthen labour administrations in their policy-making capacity, in their role in the implementation of decent work policies and the enforcement of labour laws;
• assist member States to establish and strengthen labour courts, industrial tribunals and dispute resolution mechanisms so that individual and collective disputes are dealt with efficiently, effectively and equitably;
• integrate gender into all aspects of social dialogue, labour law and labour administration;
• increase the participation of employers' and workers' organizations in economic and social policy-making in regional or sub-regional groupings and enhance links with relevant international institutions.

How DIALOGUE works

As part of this integrated approach, these services are provided by a system of overlapping teams:

• thematic (Labour Legislation, Social Dialogue and Labour Administration),
• regional (Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and The Caribbean)

This structure is meant to reflect the realities of the world of work. Labour law, labour administration and social dialogue provide the basic infrastructure that allows effective governance of the world of work and must therefore work in a complementary and integrated way.