UN labour agency opens annual conference, pledging to fight poverty with jobs

The United Nations International Labour Office (ILO) opened its three-week annual conference in Geneva today with an agenda ranging from a new plan for fighting poverty worldwide by promoting decent work to enhancing safety and security in the workplace and eliminating discrimination.

Often called the international parliament of labour, the ninety-first International Labour Conference appointed Kenyan Vice President and Labour Minister Michael Wamalwa Kijana as its president.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia is scheduled to introduce his report, “Working out of Poverty,” when plenary debate starts on Monday. The report provides a roadmap for future ILO efforts to forge a strategy for alleviating poverty by promoting decent work for working poor as well as creating new opportunities for people excluded from work.

“Work is the best route out of poverty,” Mr. Somavia says in the report, which includes an appeal to governments, workers and employers to join forces in seeking a tripartite joint effort to help “free people and societies from the global poverty trap.”

Two eminent guest speakers are expected to address the conference – President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa on 11 June and King Abdullah II of Jordan on 12 June.

As part of ILO’s on-going campaign to staunch the toll of work-related accidents and illnesses that take some 2 million lives and cost the global economy an estimated $1.25 trillion each year, delegates will hold a wide-ranging discussion on priorities and aims for action in the area of occupational safety and health. The aim is to elaborate a plan of action, which could encompass international labour standards, other instruments such as codes of practice, technical cooperation, knowledge management and dissemination and inter-agency cooperation.

This year, there will be a special sitting on the afternoon of 12 June where the delegates will examine the ILO Director-General’s report on “The Situation of Workers of the Occupied Arab Territories,” documenting the deteriorating conditions of Arab workers and their families in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and in the Golan, as well as the serious downturn of the Israeli economy. The report offers a technical cooperation package, and urges the donor community to support emergency measures aimed at creating jobs and promoting social dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Conference will also discuss forced labour in Myanmar. In May 2003, the ILO and Myanmar came to a Formal Understanding on a facilitator to help possible victims seek remedies. In addition, a Plan of Action against forced labour is to comprise a road-building project, alternatives to the use of forced labour, and information and awareness raising.

On 13 June, a Plenary Session will be devoted to ILO’s new global report on eliminating discrimination entitled “Time for equality at work.” The report shows that while the most blatant forms of discrimination at work may be waning, many remain a persistent part of daily life or are taking on new, subtler forms.

Listen to UN Radio report on Myanmar