The International Labour Organisation has said that it will continue to review the existing labour standards for an effective, strong, authoritative and relevant standards system.
In his opening remarks at the 105th session of the International Labour Conference, the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation, Guy Ryder, said that another committee would evaluate the landmark 2008 ILO Declaration on Social Justice and Maritime Labour Convention 2006 during the course of the conference.
According to him, the committee will assess how the declaration has been promoted and implemented in the past with a view to identifying what can be done to improve the application of the declaration to meet decent work objectives in the future.
Ryder told delegates that they must assume the responsibilities of the ILO’s social justice mandate if the benefits of transformative change at work were to be realised.
“The inequality, marginalisation and division are not phenomena to which the world of work must react but the consequence of what we do, how we behave and what we decide,” Ryder said.
The Director-General noted that the world had entered an era where technology was generating innovate disruption of productive life.
According to him, the debate among those who celebrate and those who dread such developments takes place against the background of inequality, marginalisation and division.
He said, “If current trends towards and beyond already unacceptable levels of inequality are allowed to continue … ultimately all will be losers.”
Introducing his report to the ILO, entitled, ‘The end to poverty initiative: The ILO and the 2030 Agenda,’ Ryder warned, “The very wealth-creating capacity that offers the prospect of consigning poverty to history also risks taking us further away from social justice rather than carrying us towards it.”
The ILO director-general called on delegates to have this broader context in mind as they went about their work in the coming fortnight.
He said, “This conference will also vote on approving proposed amendments to the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, to modify rules around Maritime Labour Certificates, and to provide guidance on shipboard bullying and harassment. Another vote will be to adopt proposed changes to modernise seafarers’ identity documents as referred to in Convention 185.”
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