Global jobs pact promotes 'decent work'

International Labor Organization (ILO) executive director

The concept of decent work can be a bridge between social partners, and help to build a common framework for social development.

Recovery plans and the colossal investments that accompany them must target employment creation and social protection, not as incidentals but rather as the decisive elements in any sustainable exit strategy from the crisis. Moreover, job cuts and wage freezes are neither correct nor relevant responses to the crisis.

The ILO has made recommendations that are both clear and precise in favor of both decent work as a concept, a policy and an operational strategy for emerging from crises, and sustainable development for a world based on justice and equity.

It is well established that decent work is a solution to the economic crisis, and within that framework a Global Jobs Pact was unanimously adopted in 2009 by national representatives of governments, employers and trade unions of the member States of the ILO during the International Labor Conference.

The Global Jobs Pact is an urgent call to put employment and social protection at the heart of recovery policies. It is a portfolio of practical, operational policy options, tried and tested policies that have worked well in many countries. It is not a single recipe or a one-size-fits-all solution but rather a set of measures that can be tailored to national situations.

In a nutshell, the Global Jobs Pact is the productive response of the actors of the real economy to the excesses and mismanagement of the financial economy that underlies a crisis in which no country has been spared.

Another important tool is the social protection floor, which is also a core milestone of the Decent Work Agenda in responding to the crisis.

(China Daily 03/16/2010 page16)