Recent developments

Colombia

The Office has carried out an assessment on the labour conditions and the industrial relations situation in certain enterprises in Colombia, which are engaged in bottling Coca-Cola products.

The full report of the assessment mission (June-July 2008) is now available.

Governance of Global Food Chains

To develop an agenda for future activities in the food and drink industry which would respond to the new employment challenges posed by global food chains, the ILO held a tripartite sectoral meeting to examine the impact of global food chains on employment at the ILO, Geneva, Switzerland, from 24 to 27 September 2007.

Global food chains today are an example of a global production system enabled by information technology to develop and apply supply chain management throughout the chain—agriculture upstream, food and drink processing at the centre, and catering, marketing and distribution downstream. These are all fields which flow into one another, each often operating within closed circuits in terms of policy and regulation, often with dire consequences without the proper coordination among the fields. While market and product information flows in all directions within what has become known as the value chain, labour concerns and decent work principles are seldom, if ever, programmed among the types of information which appear on the policy agenda. Yet such knowledge is vital to good governance of the food chain, which is a concern for all. Good governance poses challenges to the social partners and public authorities to review policies and safeguard the industry, not only against public health risks which inevitably entail job losses with accompanying social and labour costs, but against “a race to the bottom” with regard to fundamental rights and principles at work.

Awareness-raising/Advocacy

The food and drink sector in many developing countries often lags behind owing to lack of investments and low added value added. On average, 60 per cent of the workers in the food and drink industry in these regions are employed in the informal economy. The jobs they occupy are often precarious in terms of fundamental rights and principles at work and social protection in comparison with jobs in the mainstream economy.

In order to raise awareness and stimulate thinking on concrete measures which could be taken to promote decent work in the sector, the ILO Sectoral Activities Department is currently producing DVDs as well as radio programmes in local languages to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities to promote decent work in the food and drink industry.

Burkina Faso

A DVD/videocassette is forthcoming on the informal economy of the food and drink sector in Burkina Faso, further to the Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on employment and Poverty Reduction in Ouagadougou, 2004.

Three radio programmes in local languages—Dioula, Fufulde and Moore— will also be available soon with a view to sensitizing the general public to the steps needed to develop the informal economy of the food and drink sector as an engine of national development.

Peru

A research study and a DVD are being produced on challenges and opportunities to promote decent work for women workers in the fish-processing sub-sector in selected provinces of Peru. These products will serve as the basis for tripartite discussions at a workshop planned on the same theme to be held in Lima in October 2007.