Decent Work Agenda Research Articles

EU – Central Asia Partnership for Conducive Business Environment and Decent Work

Summary EU-Central Asia (CA) relations have developed significantly over recent years. Nowadays, both regions are gong through of a unique global hybrid crisis with major challenges for business and social environment. An international partnership under the follow up on fundamental principles and trends of a global development framework is of prime importance. The article aims to address some of the issues outlined in the Decent Work Agenda which is a core doctrine of the 2030 Agenda’s concept and that are relevant to the CA countries. At first the article looks at a brief conceptual overview of the economic transformation of CA economies and role of sustainable business environment in achieving sustainable development goals. The authors discuss the promotion of EU values in employment relations and social dialogue in CA as a precondition for productive and decent employment. Finally, the article article concludes that the theoretical approach to the EU support programmes and instruments followed by their practical implications should be multi- dimensional in nature and benefit from direct in-situ exposure. Furthermore, a comparative assessment approach by experts on benefits of the EU external programmes is badly needed for EU and CA.

Developing Evidence-Based Alternatives to Dual Salary Systems

Abstract. The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.5 aims to “achieve equal pay for work of equal value” globally by 2030. This goal conflicts with a widespread and continuing practice of paying skilled workers from higher-income economies working in lower-income settings more than their host worker counterparts. This brief summarizes research that has found that dual salaries undermine host colleagues' sense of wage justice, work motivation, and team relations. At organizational levels, they fuel turnover, increase brain drain, and reduce mental well-being of workers. Higher ratios fuel a “double demotivation” – extending to international staff who overrate their own abilities and reduce their effort at work. International, multisector evidence shows conventional dual salaries to be neither compatible nor to align with the SDGs. Organizational options for meeting SDG 8.5 identified in civil society groups include reducing dual salary ratios and implementing single salary systems at a national level. We offer three macro policy frameworks (Project Fair's Principles and Standards of INGO Fair Reward, the UN Global Compact, and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises) that can serve to render salary systems more facilitative of the SDGs and the Decent Work Agenda.

Co-creating changes to achieve decent work conditions in the New Zealand fishing industry

In 2014, New Zealand enacted the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Act in response to ongoing labour abuses on board South Korean vessels in New Zealand’s foreign charter vessel sector. Importantly, the legislation expresses the universality of the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Agenda: all member countries must pursue policies based on the strategic objectives of equality, dignity, safe working conditions and that workers are protected from exploitation. The Act was in response to the identification of widespread labour abuses in this sector. In June 2011, the extent of the abuses came to light when 32 Indonesian crewmen of the Oyang 75 walked off their vessel. In this paper, we explore how a range of stakeholders worked organically to bring about change. We do this qualitatively by combining semi-structured interview (with over 160 Indonesian migrant crewmen between 2011 and 2017), observation and document analysis. We analyse our data through the lens of participatory action research which provides a framework to document the processes of who was involved, the cycles of change, what was achieved in each cycle, and importantly the platform for change. Specifically, we look at how stakeholders – the crew themselves, their advocates, academics, non-governmental organisations, journalists, activists, among others – all played a part in achieving legislated protections.

From recognising health rights to realising labour protections? Sex work, ILOAIDS and the Decent Work Agenda in Ghana

This paper examines recent evolutions in global development policy that link decent work, HIV and sex work—particularly through the ILO Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work—and considers the implications for migrant sex workers in Ghana. Drawing on original primary data gathered in 2020, namely interviews with grassroots NGOs based in Accra, the paper explores the conditions for and barriers to expanding rights-based sexual health frameworks to include the promotion and protection of sex workers’ labour rights. The paper finds that civil society actors face multiple barriers to expanding sexual health frameworks, which include Ghana’s prevailing socio-legal regime of prohibition and stigmatisation, the overwhelming focus of development funding on HIV, and the failure of existing policy efforts to address the political–economic determinants of migrant women’s experiences of labour exploitation in the sex sector. Theoretically, the paper contributes to the interdisciplinary literatures on commercial sex, gender, migration, and development policy by advancing a feminist political economy analysis of the constraints and opportunities for civil society actors seeking to advance sex workers’ rights within and beyond sexual health.

ON THE QUESTION OF THE DISCOURSE ON ENSURING DECENT WORK IN THE DIMENSION OF THE MODERN DOCTRINE OF LABOR LAW OF UKRAINE

The article examines the problems of implementation and legal support of decent work in the dimension of modern doctrine of labor law. The author substantiates the need to continue the study of decent work in Ukraine in historical and praxeological discourses in order to identify patterns and trends, existing and potential needs for further development of decent work in Ukraine and in the world. The purpose of the study is to highlight the stages of implementation and legal support of the concept of decent work in Ukraine, identify doctrinal and legislative problems in ensuring decent working conditions under the influence of globalization and develop proposals to improve the legal mechanism for ensuring these working conditions in the light of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda for Ukraine. The article argues that the coverage of the five stages of implementation and legal support of the concept of decent work in Ukraine through the implementation of several ILO’s Decent Work Agendas for Ukraine starting from 2006 to the present, allows to explore in historical and theoretical-praxeological discourse step-by-step institutionalization of the concept of decent work in the science of labor law. Analysis of a large array of legislation on employment, vocational education and training, wages, non-discrimination, occupational safety, social protection and social dialogue, special literature in the field of decent work revealed several problems of doctrinal and legislative nature in ensuring decent working conditions (Permanent recoding of labor law does not allow for new priorities and tasks for labor law in the light of the idea of decent work, frequent change of government does not allow either to start large-scale reforms (concerning the pay system, vocational education and training) or to complete them effectively in the field of employment, labor protection management systems, etc.) Promising areas of further research on the issue of decent work in the dimension of the modern doctrine of labor law of Ukraine are to improve the legal regulation of decent work on the basis of modern methods of discourse analysis.

Cultural skills as drivers of decency in decent work: an investigation of skilled workers in the informal economy

ABSTRACT Over 61% of the world’s population lives and works in the informal economic sector. However, workers in the informal economy are conspicuous by their relative absence in work psychology research and practice. Policy agendas inspired by economic research often combine skilled and unskilled workers into a single category, lacking the voice of the poor worker and a psychological understanding of work in the informal sector. Using grassroots-level field data from highly skilled artisans in rural India, this study unearths the person-centric inner experiences of informal work, and examines the psychological foundations of Decent Work in a heretofore unexamined population of workers in the informal economy. Using inductive and abductive approaches, results reveal the affective, attentional, task and culturally-embedded contextual characteristics of work in the informal economy, along with the psychological nuance behind key tenets of economic ideas around decency and choice in Decent Work. These experiences reveal core facets of well-being in the world of work in the informal economy, and an operational definition of psychologically sustainable work that is aligned with local values, aspirations and capabilities. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for incorporating psychology and the study’s evidence-based findings into the International Labour Organization's Decent Work agenda.

Job Crafting: A Challenge to Promote Decent Work for Vulnerable Workers.

In recent years, the decent work agenda has called upon vocational psychologists to advance psychological research and intervention to promote work as a human right. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic is having disproportionate consequences on vulnerable workers, such as unemployment and underemployment, highlighting the need to enhance access to decent work for these workers. As a response, the present perspective article advances job crafting as a promising way to shape decent work for marginalized workers. To this end, the article deals with decent work and job crafting, starting with the definition of decent work according to the psychology of working theory (PWT) and examining the evolution of the construct of job crafting. Subsequently, the literature on job crafting is discussed, focusing on variables related to the PWT model of decent work and their effect on vulnerable workers. Finally, possibilities for further research and intervention aimed at promoting decent work through job crafting are discussed.

The International Labour Organisation in pursuit of decent work in Southern Africa: An appraisal

This article examines the role of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), regional standards, and the “decent work agenda” in addressing challenges facing non-standard workers in southern Africa. Employees in traditional full-time employment are well protected in some southern African states, but the regulation currently available is largely unable to protect non-standard workers, and in numerous instances workers are regarded as “non-standard”, on the basis of a narrow interpretation of the term “employee”. Casualisation and externalisation have resulted in the exclusion of numerous workers from the protection provided by labour legislation, and union cover for non-standard workers is very low. The article further discusses the relationship between non-standard employment and labour migration in southern Africa. Light is also shed on regional standards, the challenges of unemployment, poverty, and income inequality, and labour-market transitions in southern Africa.

Research Update: How Decent Wages Transform Qualities of Living—By Affording Escape from Working Poverty Trap

Research in this journal has suggested that job satisfaction and other job attitudes in New Zealand undergo a quantitative shift upwards once wages cross a pivotal wage range. However, the focus did not extend to actual changes in qualities of living beyond work. A fresh analysis of additional qualitative responses to the question, “How well does your wage work for you?”, from the same survey of N = 1011 low-income workers across New Zealand, content-analysed diverse qualities of living along a wage spectrum from Minimum to Living Wage, crossed with household income net of own pay (using median wage as a splitting factor). Converging with the quantitative research reported earlier, there was a reliable pivot range upwards in qualities of living as wages first rose from Minimum Wage, to become transformational after crossing the Living Wage value. This transformational effect of a Living Wage was most clearly pivotal when there was no buffer from any other incomes in the same household. A further, more idiographic analysis of case “outliers” from the wage-wellbeing curve (lower wage-higher satisfaction, plus higher wage-lower satisfaction) revealed additional contextual factors that moderated and mediated qualities of living. Examples included acute sense of a workplace injustice and reduced mental wellbeing. Such factors further inform the ILO’s and UN’s 2016–30 Decent Work Agenda, which includes justice and wellbeing at work.

Understanding the Working Conditions of Gig Workers and Decent Work: Evidence from Indonesia’s online Ojek Riders

This article aims to evaluate the working conditions of gig economy workers in Indonesia in order to understand the implications of such work for the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda. The article draws on evidence from focus groups and in-terviews with 38 ojek riders, Indonesian motorcycle taxi drivers from Jakarta, Bogor and Depok. Initial findings suggest that the interviewees chose to be ojek riders due to limited employment opportunities; they perceived that this kind of work is better than contract-based employment massively practiced by many companies in Indonesia. The findings further suggest that the Decent Work Agenda faces considerable challenges from new forms of non-employee work in the absence of a pro-active state agenda to regulate and promote the growth of waged employment.

Decent Work for All: Rethinking Decent Work in the Context of South Africa

The authors argue that there is a need to rethink what a commitment to decent work would mean in the context of South Africa, a country with a large number of long term unemployed. Drawing on their experience of researching work in South Africa, they highlight the relevance of the agency of workers for the progressive realisation of a decent work agenda. The lukewarm response of the government to the diagnostic tool designed to measure decent work led the authors to reframe decent work in a positive way as an organising tool to recruit vulnerable workers into a broader, more inclusive movement of working people.

Economic Vulnerabilities and Livelihoods: Impact of COVID‐19 in Fiji and Vanuatu

Economic Vulnerabilities and Livelihoods: Impact of <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 in Fiji and Vanuatu

Covid‐19: Where We Are, What Got Us Here, and Where We Are Likely to Be Going—A Review Essay*

Covid‐19: Where We Are, What Got Us Here, and Where We Are Likely to Be Going—A Review Essay*

Decent work for sustainable development inpost‐crisisNepal: Social policy challenges and a way forward

AbstractAlthough the Decent Work agenda has received significant attention in the context of sustainable development, the formulation and implementation of appropriate social policies in developing countries remain an underexplored subject. This article responds to this gap and traces country‐specific Decent Work related policies and programs in Nepal—which is recovering from two major crises: a decade‐long armed conflict that ended in 2006 as well as the 2015 earthquake. Drawing on Critical Policy Analysis framework, this article examines how key tenets of the International Labour Organisation's Decent Work platform, namely creation and provision of employment, social protection, social dialogue and rights at work have manifested in Nepal. The findings indicate that while attempts have been made to embrace the Decent Work agenda into social policies and programs, structural instability of political processes means that there is a lack of strategic directions to address a capacity deficit specific to the informal sector and outbound labour migrants. The article makes broader analytical contributions towards evaluating the implementation of social policies driven by the global priority in the context of developing nations with weak governance settings. In countries like Nepal, where the majority of workers are located within the informal sector and as such the administrative reach and effectiveness of Decent Work related social policies designed for the formal sector are limited.

L’OIT, les normes et l’histoire

Cette contribution retrace l’histoire de l’Organisation internationale du Travail (OIT), aujourd’hui une agence spécialisée de l’ONU, à travers son activité principale : l’élaboration, l’adoption et l’application des normes internationales du travail. L’OIT est une organisation tripartite où les normes internationales du travail sont négociées entre les représentants des gouvernements, des travailleurs et des employeurs. L’article analyse les débuts d’une législation internationale du travail au XIX e siècle, le contexte spécifique de la création de l’OIT comme institution tripartite en 1919 et l’impact qu’ont eu sur son action normative le paradigme des droits de l’homme, la guerre froide, la décolonisation et, finalement, la mondialisation sous les auspices du néo-libéralisme. Les conséquences sociales, économiques et politiques de cette dernière ont contribué à déclencher une crise profonde de l’action normative qui se traduit notamment par une difficulté croissante des constituants de l’OIT à négocier des compromis.

Decent Work, ILO's Response to the Globalization of Working Life: Basic Concepts and Global Implementation with Special Reference to Occupational Health.

Twenty years ago, the International Labour Organization (ILO) launched a new strategy, the Decent Work Agenda, to ensure human-oriented development in the globalization of working life and to provide an effective response to the challenges of globalization. We searched for and analysed the origin of the Decent Work concept and identified the key principles in ILO policy documents, survey reports, and relevant United Nations’ (UN) documents. We also analysed the implementation of the Decent Work Country Programmes (DWCPs) and examined the available external evaluation reports. Finally, we examined the objectives of the ILO Decent Work Agenda and the Decent Work targets in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in view of occupational health. In two thirds of the ILO’s Member States, the Decent Work Agenda has been successfully introduced and so far fully or partly implemented in their DWCPs. The sustainability of the Decent Work approach was ensured through the UN 2030 Agenda, the ILO Global Commission Report on the Future of Work, and the ILO Centenary Declaration. However, objectives in line with the ILO Convention No. 161 on Occupational Health Services were not found in the DWCPs. Although successful in numerous aspects in terms of the achievement of the Decent Work objectives and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Decent Work Agenda and the Decent Work Country Programmes need further development and inclusion of the necessary strategies, objectives, and actions for occupational health services, particularly in view of the high burden of work-related diseases and, for example, the present global pandemic. In many countries, national capabilities for participation and implementation of Decent Work Country Programmes need strengthening.

Career counselling and sustainable decent work: Relationships and tensions

The concept of decent work is intuitively desirable, an ideal to strive for, and a human right. Awareness of the decent work agenda has been raised in career counselling and is posing challenges about what role, if any, career counselling can play towards the achievement of sustainable decent work for all. Feeding into the social justice values of career counselling, the decent work agenda has drawn considerable attention. To date, however, limited suggestions have been provided about career counselling's potential contribution toward the achievement of decent work for all, the focus of this special issue. In this article we consider the contexts of decent work, career counselling, and social justice and the relationships and tensions between them. In particular, we raise questions about what exactly is being asked of career counselling in the promotion of decent work. In view of proponents of the decent work agenda in career development questioning whether decent work is achievable for many people, especially in developing countries, the purpose of this article is to consider the potential role of career counselling in the contemporary and emerging labour market.

Rethinking Global Labour by Ronaldo Munck

Reviewed by: Rethinking Global Labour by Ronaldo Munck Susan Hayter (bio) Ronaldo Munck (2018) Rethinking Global Labour. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda Publishing According to the ILO, one in every ten persons in employment (including self-employment) and one in every six persons that are in a formal employment relationship is a member of a trade union.1 This in a context in which the organisational power of unions in advanced economies fell from an average of 30 per cent in 1985 to an average 17 per cent in 2017.2 As a result, the voice of unions and their institutional power, for example to regulate conditions of work through collective agreements, has declined. The erosion of this countervailing force in the polity and in labour markets is closely associated with the dramatic rise in income inequality. These imbalances and inequalities are mirrored in the working arrangements of the new 'gig economy'. Is this the end of organised labour as we know it? How will labour respond to its commodification in the digitally mediated work in the platform-based economy? Where will the 'second movement' come from? What contribution can global labour studies make to understanding the contested nature of the making (and taking) of value and the shaping of the future of work? These are among the questions that Ronaldo Munck seeks to answer in Rethinking Global Labour, a thought provoking book that challenges labour scholars and labour activists alike to reclaim historical principles of solidarity and reconceptualise and revitalise a truly global labour movement. Rethinking Global Labour gives us a long-view account of labour agency and the development of capitalism as a contested path. The volume is informed by Karl Polanyi's thesis that history moves in a series of [End Page 139] double movements, with the initial expansion of markets and commodification of labour, followed by the re-embedding of markets in society and the regulation and de-commodification of labour. The author begins with a historical account of the transformation of labour as a working class under a new capitalist mode of production – from the Industrial Revolution onwards – and its organisation and emergence as a powerful social actor. The author shows the role that labour agency has played in repeatedly shaping the economic system, including the compromise between Fordist production methods and a welfare state in the advanced economies of 'the West' that ushered in a 'golden era' following the Second World War. In spite of the clawing and uneven incorporation of workers in the developing world during this period, the volume provides a persuasive argument for the emergence of a global working class and similar processes of contestation in shaping an 'era of globalization', beginning in the mid-twentieth century onwards. The author sees the resurgence of grass-roots labour movements worldwide, the growing interest in global unions, the incorporation of workers' organisations such as SEWA and alliances between the ICFTU (now ITUC) and NGOs as providing the seeds of a truly inclusive international labour movement capable of provoking a Polanyi counter-movement. To this might be added that despite declines in their membership, trade unions remain the largest membership-based organisations, many times higher than membership in political parties in countries where such comparisons make sense. Throughout the volume, the author provides a welcomed feminist critique of developments in labour markets and labour movements. It also shows the important contribution that global labour studies have made to understanding the nature of work under late capitalism and the growing exclusion and marginalisation of certain workers from the core of labour markets. The volume cautions against a binary conceptualisation of a new 'precariat' class. Instead, it provides an appreciation of a global working class labouring in conditions of increasing vulnerability, insecurity and precarity no matter where they are located. As history-making agents engaged in repeated periods of contestation and struggle, the emerging global labour movement needs to be nurtured through the integration of migrant workers and forging of alliances with other social movements (such as the environmental movement) if the deeply divisive and unequal path of capitalism is to be diverted. [End Page 140] While characterising the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization...

"Decent working conditions for improved construction workers’ productivity on Zimbabwean building projects "

Construction labour productivity is declining, due to shortcomings in the Decent Work Agenda. This research seeks to determine decent working conditions that could improve the productivity of skilled and semi-skilled workers on construction sites in Zimbabwe. A quantitative research approach enabled a self-administered questionnaire survey among site management and workers from selectedtrades. The randomly selected respondents work for construction companies affiliated with the Construction Industry Federation of Zimbabwe database. The companies are based in Harare, Bulawayo, and Shurugwi. In addition, thirteen building project sites in the study area were purposively selected through the National Social Security Authority register. The results indicate that adequate work-related health and safety conditions and facilities were identified through ranking as the most significant decent work conditions under which improved labour productivity can be achieved. It is also notable that all the decent working conditions assessed were deemed significant in terms of improving labour productivity. A Kruskal-Wallis test ascertained that there were no statistically significant differences due to the age, gender and experience of respondents. However, statistically significant differences were found due to the designation and educational levels of the respondents. The research study recommends that training on decent working conditions be undertaken and that accentuation of adequate decent working conditions on sites be encouraged. Adequate planning and financing for decent work conditions are also proffered. Keywords: Construction, decent work, labour productivity, sustainable development, working conditions, Zimbabwe

Disclosure Pattern of Labour Practices and Decent Work and Its Impact on Corporate Financial Performance: Evidence from Asia

Productive employment and decent work are the key elements for achieving fair globalization and poverty reduction as indicated in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Decent work agenda. The ILO adopted core labour standards to examine the labour practices all over the world, with the aim of making a balance between procedural justice and social rights. Further, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework provides guidelines for reporting labour practices and decent work (LA) performance in the sustainability reporting framework. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the empirical literature by providing information about quantity and quality of disclosure on LA of four Asian countries, namely Japan, South Korea, India and Indonesia, during the period 2009–2017. Using content analysis based on GRI framework, this study finds that Japanese firms disclose more information relating to quantity and quality of LA. On the other hand, firms from Indonesia disclose least information on LA in the annual reports as compared to others. Further, the gap between quantity and quality of LA disclosure is found to be the highest in Indonesia followed by India and South Korea. Regarding the components, our results indicate that firms from Indonesia and India provide less information about the quality aspects of ‘equal remuneration for women and men’ and ‘training and education’. On the other hand, the average quality disclosure on ‘diversity and equal opportunity’ is relatively less for all the four countries. However, our results of quantile regression reveal that the positive impact of LA performance increases as we move from the lower quantile to the upper quantile of corporate financial performance. However, we find insignificant impact of LA on financial performance of firms from Indonesia.