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ILO Mission & Objectives
ILO Mission & Objectives
Rights at work
Achieving the goal of decent work in the globalized economy requires action at the
international level. The world community is responding to this challenge in part by
developing international legal instruments on trade, finance, environment, human rights
and labour. The ILO contributes to this legal framework by elaborating and promoting
international labour standards aimed at making sure that economic growth and
development go along with the creation of decent work. The ILO's unique tripartite
structure ensures that these standards are backed by governments, employers, and
workers alike. International labour standards therefore establish the basic minimum
social standards agreed upon by all actors in the global economy.
Employment creation
Persistent poverty, increasing income inequality and slow job growth further
exacerbated by financial and economic crises and climate change are critical
constraints on economic and social progress. Promoting inclusive job-rich growth is a
central challenge for all countries today. With global unemployment at historically high
levels, there has never been a greater need to put employment at the centre of
economic and social policies. Even among those who work, the extent of poverty
underscores the need for a far greater number of productive and decent jobs.
The insufficient pace in creating decent work worldwide points to the need for greater
international coordination of macro-economic policies, as well as active labour market
policies at the national level.
The Global Employment Agenda The ILO identifies policies that help create and
maintain decent work and income policies that are formulated in a comprehensive
Global Employment Agenda worked out by the three ILO constituents - governments,
employers and workers.
The Agenda's main aim is to place employment at the heart of economic and social
policies. Consistent with the Millennium Development Goals , the Agenda seeks,
through the creation of productive employment, to better the lives of people who are
either unemployed or whose remuneration from work is inadequate to allow them and
their families to escape from poverty.
During the period 201015, the ILOs strategy for promoting full, productive and freely
chosen employment include the following key outcomes:
1. coordinated and coherent policies to generate inclusive job-rich growth
2. skills development policies to increase the employability of workers, the
competitiveness of enterprises and the inclusiveness of growth
3. policies and programmes to promote sustainable enterprises and
entrepreneurship
Social protection
Social dialogue
Social dialogue plays a critical role in achieving the ILO's objective of advancing
opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of
freedom, equality, security and human dignity. Social dialogue includes all types of
negotiation, consultation and exchange of information between, or among,
representatives of governments, employers and workers on issues of common interest.
How social dialogue actually works varies from country to country and from region to
region. It can exist as a tripartite process, with the government as an official party to the
dialogue or it may consist of bipartite relations between labour and management, with or
without indirect government involvement. It can be informal or institutionalised, and
often is a combination of the two. It can take place at the national, regional or at
enterprise level. It can be inter-professional, sectoral or a combination of these.
Enabling the conditions of Social Dialogue
The ILO encourages tripartism within Member States by promoting social dialogue to
help design and implement national policies. Achieving fair terms of employment,
decent working conditions, and development for the benefit of all cannot be achieved
without the active involvement of workers, employers and governments, including a
broad-based effort by all of them. To encourage such an approach, one of the strategic
objectives of the ILO is to strengthen social dialogue among the tripartite constituents. It
helps governments, employers' and workers' organizations to establish sound labour
relations, adapt labour laws to meet changing economic and social needs and improve
labour administration.
Successful social dialogue structures and processes have the potential to resolve
important economic and social issues, encourage good governance, advance social
and industrial peace and stability and boost economic progress. Effective social
dialogue depends on:
Political will and commitment to engage in social dialogue on the part of all
parties
The ILO helps governments and employers and workers organizations establish sound
labour relations, adapt labour laws to changing economic and social circumstances and
improve labour administration. In supporting and reinforcing employers and workers
organizations, the ILO helps to create the conditions for effective dialogue with
governments and with each other.
Freedom of association
Effective dialogue implies the right freely to form and join groups for the promotion and
defence of their occupational interests. Freedom of association and collective
bargaining are among the founding principles of the ILO. Soon after the adoption of
Conventions Nos. 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining , the
ILO came to the conclusion that the principle of freedom of association needed a further
supervisory procedure to ensure compliance with it in countries that had not ratified the
relevant conventions. As a result, in 1951 the ILO set up the Committee on Freedom of
Association (CFA) for the purpose of examining complaints about violations of freedom
of association, whether or not the country concerned had ratified the relevant
conventions.