Brussels, 09/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - At the initiative of the Luxembourg EU Council Presidency and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the EU ministers for labour and social affairs met in informal session on 9 June in Geneva under the chairmanship of François Biltgen and in the presence of Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla and the representatives of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Croatia. The meeting unfolded within the 93rd session of the International Labour Conference to be held till 16 June in Geneva.
Informal session on social dimension: EU/ILO collaboration and internationalisation of employment
During their informal meeting, the EU25 ministers discussed future EU collaboration with the ILO, internationalisation of employment, the management of change and company restructuring. “Strengthening the social dimension of globalisation and the promotion of decent employment requires greater consistency between the actions carried out by the ILO, the European institutions, the EU Member States, social partners and the other multilateral organisations”, Vladimir Spidla said. The United Nations summit on the Millennium Goals held in New York in September is expected to “strengthen the role of productive employment and decent work for all” as an “essential contribution to sustainable development and eradication of poverty”, Mr Spidla stressed, saying “EU external policy should better integrate social government, employment and decent employment”. On the subject of restructuring, Mr Spidla pointed out that, each year, 10% of European companies come into being or disappear and that, each day, in each Member State, from 5,000 to 15,000 jobs are created or lost. In order to contribute to the creation of new opportunities for decent employment in Europe, Mr Spidla - who has high hopes of the “national decent employment programmes” proposed by the ILO - cited the European Restructuring Forum (where the Commission, the EP, governments, local public authorities and social partners are represented) as well as the establishment by social partners of partnerships allowing restructuring to be anticipated and more effectively managed.
Annual ILO conference: health and safety at work, youth employment, working conditions in fishing industry
On Thursday, François Biltgen addressed the plenary session of the annual conference which brings together around 4,000 delegates including Heads of State, Labour Ministers and the leaders of workers' and employers' organisations from 178 ILO member nations. Mr Biltgen and Juan Somavia, Director General of the International Labour Office (the permanent secretariat of the ILO), took stock during a bilateral meeting of progress on the different subjects on the agenda: efforts to eliminate forced labour at global level, working time trends, health and safety at work, the promotion of youth employment, the situation of workers in Arab occupied territories as well as in Myanmar and elsewhere, and working conditions in the fishing industry.
Participants also examined two reports by Juan Somavia entitled “Consolidating progress and moving forward” and “A global alliance against forced labour”. The latter contains extremely eloquent data on what Juan Somavia defined as a “scourge that should not exist in the modern world”: - 12.3 million people at least are victims of forced labour in the world, nearly 10 million of whom are exploited by a private agent, including 2.4 million who are victim to the trade in human beings; - earnings made from work by women, men and children who are the victims of this trafficking amount to US$32 billion, i.e. on average $13,000/year/per victim (first global estimate); - Asia is the region where one finds the largest number of forced workers (9.5 million people), compared to 1.3 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 660,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, 260,000 in the Middle East and North Africa, 360,000 in the industrialised countries and 210,000 in transition economies.