COMMISSION ON SOUTH AFRICA AND THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION

Facilitator:

Judica Amri-Makhetha, deputy director of the International Labour Organisation

Speakers:

Les Kettledas, deputy director general of the Department of Labour

Vic van Vuuren, business convenor of the Nedlac Labour Market Chamber.

Issues for discussion

• South Africa's role within the ILO and the influence of the social partners
• The challenges facing the ILO and its member states
• The coordination of agreements of multilateral institutions

Input from Government

South Africa's Role in the ILO

Since readmission to the ILO in 1994, South Africa had played a substantial role in consolidating the voice and actions of Africa member states within the ILO. South Africa is currently serving as the overall co-ordinator for the African government group.

Since 1996, South Africa has served as a deputy member of the ILO Governing Body. It will continue to fulfil this role until 2002.

Government, business and labour will be serving on the ILO Governing Body simultaneously.

South Africa has had considerable input into the ILO since readmission. This had included playing a major role in negotiating the text of the new convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

Conventions

By the end of 1999, South Africa will have ratified the 8 core conventions and Convention 144 on Tripartite Consultation. South Africa is currently ratifying Convention 182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour.

Convention 175 concerning part-time work and Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines are currently being considered for ratification.

Challenges Facing the ILO

The ILO needs to review:

• Its supervisory mechanisms to ensure their strengthening.
• Its governance organs to ensure greater transparency and democracy.

The ILO needs to continue to promote social justice and social dialogue with a view to encouraging global economic stability and equity.

The ILO needs to re-examine its technical assistance programmes and field operation to ensure that they better serve the strategic objectives and needs of the member countries. This includes:

• The promotion and realisation of Fundamental Principles and Rights at work
• The creation of opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and income
• Enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all
• Strengthening tripartism and social dialogue

Co-ordination

South Africa will continue to promote co-ordination between multilateral bodies and International Financial Institutions on policy relating to employment and other social issues. To ensure this co-ordination South Africa will encourage regular meetings between the heads of these organisations and other United Nations organisations.

Input from Business

Participation in the ILO

BSA participates in the ILO as a member of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE). It is in this capacity that a BSA representative is a member of the ILO's governing body.

Although BSA representatives participate in the ILO as representatives of the IOE, Nedlac provides an opportunity for South Africa's business delegates to engage with the representatives of government and labour before leaving for the ILO. This opportunity for dialogue often means that the representatives from South Africa have developed a common position before arriving in Geneva.

The common understanding developed through dialogue with the other social partners in Nedlac has enabled South African business to play a prominent role within the ILO. The strongly developed tripartism in South Africa has had a positive impact on the ability of all the South African representatives to participate in the structures of the ILO. This has meant that South African delegates are well placed to secure resources to assist the building of technical capacity in South Africa.

A widespread opinion amongst the international business community is that the ILO is a labour friendly organisation. However, Business South Africa has experienced the ILO as an institution with which they can work.

Co-ordination

The ILO is engaged in a range of projects to develop the technical capacity of member countries. The African delegation needs to better co-ordinate the identification of their needs to ensure better use of the resources of the ILO. The ILO meeting to be held later in the year in Abidjan would be critical to advancing this co-ordination.

Business is encouraged by the efforts of the ILO's director-general to increase co-ordination between the various international and multilateral bodies.

Tripartism in SADC

While South Africa has developed considerable capacity to engage in tripartite processes and institutions, constituencies within the South African Development Community (SADC) do not have similar levels of capacity. The result is that South Africa is perceived to dominate in meetings of the SADC Employment and Labour sector. Accordingly, it is a priority that the capacity of these constituencies is improved.

ILO Conventions

Business was concerned that:

• Countries that were often most vocal during debates on ILO conventions then failed to ratify those conventions
• Many member countries had not ratified the core conventions of the ILO
• Countries that had ratified the core conventions often failed to implement the conventions

Nedlac provided BSA with a valuable opportunity to debate the national implications of ILO conventions before they were tabled in Parliament. Business was supportive of this process.

General

Business believed that the 'Decent Work' document prepared for the ILO Governing Body meeting in March 1999 should be studied and its implications examined within a South African context.

Discussion

ILO Conventions

Participants raised the following concerns in respect of the conventions:

• A large number of ILO member countries either had not ratified core conventions or had failed to implement the requirements of those conventions
• Business noted that because countries could participate in the formulation of ILO conventions without any obligation to implement them, there was a tendency to formulate ILO conventions in such a manner that many developing countries could not implement their provisions
• There was a need to implement mechanisms that provided some way of disciplining countries that failed to ratify or implement ILO conventions. The threat of censure may ensure that ILO conventions were formulated in such a way as to be more accessible to developing countries

The panellists noted the following in respect of the commission's discussion:

• In order to ensure that ILO conventions accommodated the need of the developing world, those countries needed to organise themselves to ensure that their voices were heard. The process whereby the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour was developed was an example where effective organisation ensured that the voice of the developing world was heard. This was a great improvement over 3 years ago when the developing world was fragmented and accordingly was not heard in the ILO. South Africa had played an important role in consolidating the countries of Africa into a more coherent unit.
• ILO technical support was important in ensuring that countries developed the capacity to implement ILO conventions.
• The supervisory mechanisms of the ILO currently consisted of reviews and visits to member countries as well as reports on the extent of compliance to ratified conventions. The ILO was currently taking action in two instances to address serious abuses in the world of work. These are:
• The ILO had appointed a committee with representatives from South Africa and Zimbabwe to investigate claims that Ethiopian employers had arbitrarily dismissed Eritrean workers following the outbreak of war between those countries. Ethiopian workers had made similar claims against Eritrean employers.
• Because of continued abuse of forced labour in Muamar, the ILO has suspended their access to all technical assistance and participation in working groups, unless for the express purposes of furthering compliance to the convention on forced labour. This is the first time that the ILO has taken n such measures.
• Notwithstanding the measures detailed above the ILO needed to review existing supervisory mechanisms to give them more 'teeth'.

Social Clause

The Minister of Labour noted the following in respect of the social clause:

• Nedlac had completed an agreement on the social clause.
• Government was experiencing difficulty in persuading its developing country allies of the value of the Nedlac agreement. This was largely because of protectionist tendencies within the developed world that sought to link the social clause to the WTO.
• Government was committed to the principles of the Nedlac agreement, but needed to the support of the social partners to promote this agreement in a manner that did not support the protectionist stance of the developed world.

Employment

Clarity was requested as to how the relationship between the SA and the ILO furthered employment creation.

Government explained that South Africa was actively involved in the 'Jobs for Africa' programme that was a project of the ILO and the UNDP. South Africa is one of 16 African member states engaged in this project.

ILO Technical Assistance

Business thanked the ILO for their contribution of technical assistance to the small business sector, thereby enabling them to understand the implication of the new labour legislation for their enterprises.

It was noted that the ILO had undertaken a wide range of work, enabling it to offer considerable technical assistance to all Nedlac parties. Government explained that it would attempt to obtain support from the ILO for projects that had been endorsed by the social partners.

Closure

The facilitator closed the commission with the following comments:

South Africa's participation in the ILO had served to strengthen debate. The well-developed nature of tripartism within South Africa meant that they would have to lead the region in developing functional tripartite dialogue and structures. Many countries were impressed with the Nedlac model and the ILO had received numerous requests for further information on Nedlac. Social dialogue is a necessary feature of effective governance and Nedlac provides an appropriate structure for that dialogue.

The commission had provided her with many ideas and suggestions to take forward within the structures of the ILO.