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The Chief strategic Communication section and public relation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Ms. Corinne Perthuis, said that the media has strategic role to play in creating local and international awareness in the world of work on the importance leaders in the world adhering to the ILO international labour standards. In an interview with Sylvester Enoghase, Senior Correspondent during the recent fellowship award training in Turin, Italy, she insists that the ILO is a very powerful institution, with weapons from the Conventions and recommendations to reach a common goal of decent work and social justice. Excerpts:
The ILO as an institution has since 1919 through conventions been able to integrate the world into a global village. Could you please highlight the principles of this world body?
The ILO promotes social justice because globalization has good aspect and much benefit to a lot of people, but some are excluded from the benefits and our task and our mandate is to have these people protected.
The social justice crusade of the ILO is to protect the poor and the vulnerable people. And to the Conventions to reach its goals, and of course the tripartite body has to social dialogue, with different actors of the economy, starting by the unions, not only the workers’ unions, but also the employers’ unions, because we are very often concentrating our attention to the workers, but for me, I think the employers union is also a key unit for this situation because they are creating the enterprises which gives employment, then you have the legal officers, the economists put together that have to discuss to reach a kind of consensus. And what is nice from the ILO is that it seams to be a youths machinery, where you have the real actors of the economy meeting in Geneva at the National level, or at the regional level for Africa, for instance, this year’s Africa regional conference will take place in South Africa in October.
And during the dialogue, there is a consensus of which when they go back home, and implement the decisions. And so, it is wise to say that the ILO is a very powerful institution, with powerful weapons from the Conventions and recommendations to reach a common goal of decent work and social justice.
With this success story of the ILO, could you please tell us some few challenges which the international labour institution would like to overcome in the nearest future?
Recently at the International Labour Convention (ILC) adopted Convention on domestic workers. It is a new step in the audience of the ILO, because historically, at the beginning the ILO was just taking care of the employees earning money in the formal market, then they had a discussion in 20 years ago, it was accepted that the ILO do take care of the people in the informal sector and now, we have reach the point that domestic workers who are working inside in private houses, are also considered to be protected by the international labour standards.
And so for me, it is a new population and the ILO, through this has enlarged its audience and it’s capacity to protect the people in the world.
And so, it was difficult and a real challenge and the team worked on it has been on since 2009 and we reach the consensus and the voting took place. And now the real challenge is the implementation of the Convention.
It is true, that the tripartite body adopts conventions, but the policy implementation using the political will must be enforced, but if not so, the impact will not be beneficial to the people; rather it will only be for the archives.
The Director General of the ILO, Juan Somavia made this call for new era on social justice clear during the International Labour Conference (ILC) held in Geneva this year
I think the role of communication and journalist is to promote the ILO’s international labour standard to push the authorities at the national level to implement the existing ratified Conventions by adhering to the ILO international labour standards.
And since basically we are global, we want the local actors to implement what we decided and agreed at the global level. And so, we need the Journalist, not only to target audience, but also to partner with the ILO to achieve its target audience. This is why we organize this capacity building training.
Are you saying that the implementation of domestic workers’ Convention would stop modern day slavery?
Yes. The Domestic workers’ Convention of ILO marks the end of modern-day slavery. The Convention, first and foremost, recognises the right of domestic workers to organise in unions, which is still forbidden in many countries. It gives recognition to domestic workers as workers, and as fully-fledged human beings. It also constitutes a mark of respect for work that is traditionally done by women and is therefore underpaid and undervalued.
The Convention also gives the millions of domestic workers around the world the same rights as other workers. Until now, most domestic workers belonged to what is called the informal economy. Once ratified, this Convention has the potential to take millions of workers out of the shadow economy and formalise their employment.
Please explain the call by the ILO for a new era of social justice?
The call for an urgent commitment to a new era of social justice and economic growth based on sustainable development to address mounting crisis in the world of work by the Director General of the ILO was evidence on multiple crisis being faced by the world of work, including the unacceptably high level of youth unemployment, stagnant levels of world investment in the real economy, marginalization of job-creating small enterprises, and indecent levels of income and wealth concentration
The Director General in his report used the call to express concern over complacency regarding a still fragile recovery in the world, as he warned that the world leaders are faced with the bigger danger of further consolidating inefficient growth patterns and unfair globalization rules that were at the root of the crisis, and that have systematically increased inequality almost everywhere in the last 30 years.
He made it clear that the ILO policies contribute to a world with fewer tensions, greater fairness and strengthened security, insisting that the new era of social justice should not just be the addition of a grain of social to current outcomes, but a different growth pattern with different market outcomes; outcomes with freedom, dignity, security and equity; productive outcomes combining the strength of markets, the responsibility of enterprises, the skills of workers, the power of social dialogue, the incentives and regulations of public policies to sustain efficient growth with social justice.
Could you also comment on the ILO regional meeting in Africa that will take place in South Africa this year?
The ILO holds Regional meetings in Africa and other regions of the world every four years to tackle challenges and problems facing the world of work and review ILO’s activities.
The regional meeting that will take place in October this year in South Africa will provide opportunities for delegates to receive reports on the activities of the ILO in Africa during the past four years were discussion would be made on making decent work a reality in Africa.
The report usually refers to the main challenges of ensuring that economic growth promotes employment for all; guaranteeing that labour rights are effectively upheld and respected; extending the coverage and improving the quality of social protection; and promoting good governance together with social dialogue.
Could you please tell us more about yourself?
My name is Ms. Corinne Perthuis. I am now in charge of strategy of communication for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), based in Geneva.
Source: Daily Independent
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