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Business, human rights & development
by Surya Deva
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development
 
Jan. 2024
 
Building economies that advance human rights for all. (OHCHR)
 
“It is time for a profound shift in our approach to economic policies. It is time to integrate human rights into the heart of the international financial architecture.” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk was speaking during the Sixth Intersessional Meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda.
 
The meeting was an opportunity for member States, experts, UN partners and civil society groups to come up with concrete recommendations to integrate human rights into the overhaul of the international financial architecture and move towards a “human rights economy” that protects human rights and promotes equality and social justice.
 
Compounded by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising cost of living and the climate emergency, many developing countries are struggling to raise sufficient financial resources to invest in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the realization of human rights.
 
Record levels of debt and high interest rates mean that many governments in developing countries are spending more on servicing foreign public debt than on health, education and poverty eradication, creating a human rights crisis. Economic reforms and austerity measures, encouraged by the international financial institutions, prioritize debt repayment obligations over human rights obligations.
 
Marcella Favretto, Chief of Sustainable Development at UN Human Rights, said there is a growing consensus to place human rights at the heart of reforms of the international financial institutions, as an indispensable condition to implement the 2030 Agenda and to secure the funding for social spending programs that advance human rights.
 
“For too long there has been a notion that the economy is a human rights free zone,” said Favretto, adding that budgets and other aspects of economic policy-making should be guided by human rights.
 
“The argument is that international financial institutions are not bound by human rights and don’t have a mandate. The reality is that the States they support have obligations, so human rights have to be part of the equation,” Favretto said. International financial institutions should refrain from prescribing austerity measures that limit the fiscal space for investing in human rights.
 
“ Half of humanity – 3.3 billion people – live in countries where governments are compelled to spend more on servicing their debts than on education or health".
 
Paula Narvaez, president of the UN Economic and Social Council, spoke of the need to bridge the “great finance divide” and get the SDGs back on track. This can be done by unlocking more concessional financing or loans with lower interest rates and longer.
 
“The current international financial architecture still operates in a way that is at odds with our collective commitment to universal human rights,” said Narváez, adding the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created 80 years ago, but needed to be fit for purpose in today’s global economy.
 
A number of States emphasized the urgency of tackling debt distress.
 
Maryann Lwandamina, from Zambia’s Finance Ministry, said that more than 90 percent of Zambia’s revenues were committed to debt repayment and salaries of public servants in 2020, when the African country defaulted. Since then, delays in its debt restructuring are having a heavy social cost, she said.
 
“The debt problem in low-income and some middle-income economies continues to deepen after the pandemic. The prevailing situation has brought into question countries’ abilities to attain the SDGs and as well as uphold human rights.”
 
Many recommendations focused on the need to strike a better balance between debt management and maximizing resources for the realization of rights, including creating a multilateral legal framework for restructuring sovereign debt that stimulates economic recovery, but not at the expense of human rights.
 
Human rights impact assessments
 
Sarah Saadoun, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said international financial institutions should ensure that major economic policy reforms be assessed for their impact on poverty and human rights.
 
A recent Human Rights Watch report into IMF loans to 38 countries from the start of the pandemic in March 2020 until March 2023 showed the majority of loans were conditioned on austerity policies, which cut government spending or increased regressive taxes in ways likely to harm rights for the most vulnerable.
 
This is the case for Alfredo Akeyo, who fixes electronics for a living in Mathare, Kenya. A steep increase in fuel and electricity prices as part of an IMF program meant he can barely provide for the family, Saadoun said. Alfredo’s family now goes five or six days per month without power and his children sometimes stay home from school because the cost of taking the public bus has doubled.
 
“Human rights is about the right to health, to education, to adequate standard of living, to social security, so whenever governments and financial institutions consider economic policy reforms, the question they should be asking is: Does this improve people’s human rights?,” Saadoun said.
 
Global tax framework
 
A number of States and experts also agreed on the need to redesign the global tax architecture. Countries around the world are losing US$ 480 billion per year to global tax abuse by large multinational corporations and the superrich, according to the 2023 Tax Justice Network report. This drains resources that could be used to invest in the SDGs and human rights, with developing countries losing a greater proportion of their public budgets.
 
“The Global South is hugely affected by the unjust, outdated and unfair international financial system,” said Solomon Ayele Dersso, Commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
 
Dersso said the African group brought forth the resolution for a UN Framework on international tax cooperation with the goal of creating a fairer, more inclusive and effective global tax architecture that will better tackle tax avoidance and evasion, so that multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
 
“ The global financial system is broken. Many countries are simply unable to sustainably invest in human rights and the SDGs" - UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk
 
Attiya Waris, Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, said climate-vulnerable countries are particularly affected by debt. Waris said that high debt also had an impact on child nutrition and mental health.
 
Fernanda Cimbra Santiago, special advisor to Brazil’s Minister of Finance, said that a global economic agenda that protects both human rights and the environment will be a key priority of the South American country’s presidency of the G20.
 
“We need a new model of economic development,” Cimbra Santiago said, calling for a global deal that connects economic growth, the sustainable use of natural resources and human rights.
 
The outcomes of the meeting will feed into the upcoming Summit for the Future in September 2024 and the 2025 UN conference on Financing for Development.
 
http://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2024/01/building-economies-advance-human-rights-all http://taxjustice.net/reports/submission-to-the-un-special-rapporteur-on-extreme-poverty-and-human-rights-call-for-input-eradicating-poverty-in-a-post-growth-context-preparing-for-the-next-development-goals/ http://taxjustice.net/reports/ http://wid.world/news-article/whats-new-about-wealth-inequality-in-the-world/ http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/1-trillion-shade http://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/will-growth-be-enough-end-poverty
 
Business, human rights & development, by Surya Deva - UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development
 
As part of my new UN mandate on the right to development, I participated in several major events in 2023: the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the Africa Wide High Level Consultation on the Right to Development, the 12th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, the COP28 and the Human Rights 75 High Level Event.
 
It was quite telling that discussions at these events were mostly siloed with little overlap in terms of participating people, themes and standards. Even key terminologies at these events were different.
 
For example, human rights due diligence (HRDD) – the lingua franca in the business and human rights (BHR) field – is hardly part of discourses on sustainable development or climate change. Conversely, principles such as “polluter pays” and “common but differentiated responsibility”, while relevant, are rarely discussed in the BHR space.
 
More critically, only a few speakers or participants at these events focused on addressing the root causes of the ongoing challenges – from entrenched poverty to growing inequalities, worsening triple planetary crisis, increasing conflicts, looming risks of new technologies, democratic backsliding and shrinking civic space. There was a clear divide between those genuinely celebrating the progress made over the years and those feeling frustrated by its slow speed.
 
It is increasingly becoming clear to me that a transformative shift is needed to address systemic problems: a shift in our lifestyle, business models, development narrative, economic order, role of states, and governance structures.
 
A shift is required because there is limited empirical evidence to suggest existing BHR standards have been able to prevent and remediate corporate human rights abuses (for evidence, see the findings of the 2023 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark). Moreover, we are seriously off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
 
Let me outline three components of this shift that decisions makers at the United Nations, states, companies and civil society should pay greater attention in 2024 and beyond:
 
First, the world needs a new vision of development because the current vision sacrifices human rights and the environment as a legitimate cost of cumulative economic growth. The current vision of development is linked to most business-related human rights abuses, creating inequalities and disregarding planetary boundaries.
 
The Beyond Gross Domestic Product policy brief, developed by the UN Secretary General as part of the Summit of the Future, seeks to provide a new pathway.
 
In my vision report presented to the Human Rights Council in September 2023, I proposed a model of “planet-centred participatory development” as an alternative. Putting the planet at the centre will ensure the negative consequences of adopting an anthropocentric approach are minimised.
 
The principle of leaving no one behind should include not merely human beings, but the entire ecosystem of biodiversity.
 
Moreover, all development policies, programmes and projects should be developed through active, free and meaningful participation of people in an inclusive manner. Participation is not the same thing as consultation: the former requires sharing of power and recognising the agency of people to determine their development priorities in an informed way.
 
Second, we need a shift towards business models designed to promote human rights and sustainability. The “do no harm” approach, as well as HRDD as the primary tool to discharge the responsibility to respect human rights, provides a critical starting point. The recent EU deal on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is a welcome development too.
 
However, these steps are unlikely to address the root causes of corporate human rights abuses. Nor are these initiatives likely to challenge companies promoting unsustainable consumption, offering unhealthy products, converting employees into gig workers, exporting hazards to developing countries, evading tax payment, grabbing the land or profiting from exploiting a common resource like water.
 
The role and purpose of business in society must be reimagined. Moreover, the legal architecture of business irresponsibility (comprising, for example, corporate laws and international investment law), which enables human rights abuses and facilitates evasion of responsibility, should be redesigned.
 
Third, we should recover the state as the guardian of human rights. Realising all human rights for everyone is a no-delegable obligation of states and this remains the case even in a free market economy. Non-state actors such as businesses have an independent role in realising human rights.
 
At the same time, states should not be allowed to outsource their human rights obligation, abandon their obligations at borders or weaponise human rights selectively for political convenience or economic opportunities. Nor should states adopt policies aimed at facilitating the commodification and financialisaton of human rights.
 
As we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the human rights project – and the role of states in it – requires serious introspection to remain relevant.
 
At a minimum, “We, the people” should be able to demand that states take effective steps to dismantle the current neocolonial and neoliberal economic order and embrace the vision of a human rights economy.
 
* Surya Deva is Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Environmental Law at Macquarie University and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development
 
http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/blog/business-human-rights-development-a-case-for-course-correction-in-2024-beyond/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-development
 
Nov. 2023
 
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, this afternoon told the UN Human Rights Council that instead of learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic, social and cultural rights were still seen as optional extras, not binding obligations.
 
Volker Turk: "57 years ago, when the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was adopted, Member States expressed their firm conviction that the basic necessities of life – education, health, decent work, social security, an adequate standard of living, freedom from hunger, and enjoyment of science and culture – were not services or commodities, but human rights to be enjoyed by all.
 
Last year, the United Nations General Assembly finally recognised a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. Countries had agreed that without economic, social and cultural rights, people could not fully participate in civil and political life.
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep inequalities within and between countries, as well as decades of underinvestment in systems and services essential to upholding economic, social and cultural rights.
 
It had also shown what was possible when States invest in these systems. Many Governments around the world offered support through social security schemes, including universal basic income, ensuring a lifeline for people who lost their jobs or could not work. It should not take a global public health emergency to realise the importance of economic, social and cultural rights.
 
Yet instead of learning lessons from the pandemic, these rights were still seen as optional extras, not binding obligations. The promise of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights remains illusory for billions of people. Globally, public spending on economic and social rights is insufficient.
 
Food insecurity and a cost-of-living crisis are leaving millions of people behind. Today, 828 million people are undernourished - this has risen by a 150 million over the last three years - and the climate emergency continues to rage on.
 
60% of low-income countries and 30% of emerging market economies are in or near debt distress, amidst a looming global recession.
 
Many governments are not providing adequate health, education, social protection, and other human rights to their citizens, with negative impacts weighing heavily on women and girls and other vulnerable and marginalised communities.
 
The reasons for this include global, regional, and national economic and political systems that do not adequately integrate human rights obligations and standards into budgetary and investment decisions. We need to infuse our economies with human rights.
 
A human rights economy placing people and the planet at the heart of economic policies, investment decisions, consumer choices, and business models, with the goal of measurably enhancing the enjoyment of human rights for all.
 
Deepening inequality remains a key obstacle to achieving globally agreed ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the promise to leave no one behind.
 
A human rights economy seeks to “redress root causes and structural barriers to equality, justice, and sustainability, by prioritizing investment in economic and social rights.
 
Today, two billion workers are in precarious informal employment, with no social security, while another two billion face impoverishing health spending. Two billion people currently live without access to clean and safe drinking water.
 
Over 600 million people are projected to still face extreme hunger by 2030 and 300 million children will not have completed primary school.
 
Without greater efforts to realise economic, social, and cultural rights by individual States and through international cooperation, there was little chance of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals laid out in the 2030 Agenda.
 
Human rights economies measure success, not by the size of the gross domestic product, but by the wellbeing of all people. Putting people and the planet first is fundamental to broader social and economic wellbeing.
 
http://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/regular-sessions/session54/regular-session http://tinyurl.com/nhk5bwas http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2023/02/turk-calls-human-rights-economy http://www.ohchr.org/en/sdgs/seeding-change-economy-enhances-human-rights-surge-initiative http://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/economics-reimagined-a-discussion-on-building-a-human-rights-economy/ http://www.srpoverty.org/ http://gi-escr.org/en/ http://giescr.org/en/resources/publications/the-commons-and-public-services http://www.cesr.org/ http://www.icij.org/ http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/16/submission-office-united-nations-high-commissioner-human-rights-good-practices-and http://www.hrw.org/topic/economic-justice-and-rights http://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/economic-social-and-cultural-rights/ http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/resources/ http://gcap.global/


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A new social contract must be anchored in decent work and social justice
by International Labour Organization (ILO), agencies
 
Jan. 2024
 
AI to cut jobs, deepen inequality and lower wages. (News agencies)
 
Artificial intelligence (AI) will impact 40% of jobs around the world according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund. AI, the term for computer systems that can perform tasks usually associated with human levels of intelligence, is poised to profoundly change the global economy.
 
AI will have the ability to perform key tasks that are currently executed by humans. This will lower demand for labour, heighten job losses, lower wages and permanently eradicate jobs.
 
IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva said "in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality". “Countries’ choices regarding the definition of AI property rights, as well as redistributive and other fiscal policies, will ultimately shape its impact on income and wealth distribution”.
 
The IMF analysis reports 60% of jobs in advanced economies such as the US and UK are exposed to AI and half of these jobs will be negatively affected. AI jobs exposure is 40% in emerging market economies and 26% for low-income countries, according to the IMF. The report echoes earlier reports estimating AI would replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs.
 
In a recent survey, a quarter of global chief executives expect the deployment of generative artificial intelligence to lead to job losses of at least 5 per cent this year alone. The findings, based on interviews with 4,702 company chiefs spread across 105 countries, point to the far-reaching impacts that AI models are expected to have on economies and societies.
 
It is crucial for countries to establish comprehensive social safety nets to support displaced workers.
 
* Company boards and senior management consistently preference shareholder profits over working people's interests. Displaying their ongoing contempt for any notion of the social contract. Too many governments are wholely captured by elite economic interests.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/10/ai-driven-misinformation-biggest-short-term-threat-to-global-economy http://wid.world/news-article/whats-new-about-wealth-inequality-in-the-world/ http://www.ituc-csi.org/a-new-social-contract http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2023/12/world-bank-and-imf-promoting-private-finance-and-fiscal-consolidation-despite-mounting-evidence-of-harmful-impacts/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/01/ppps-private-gain-public-expense/ http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/2023/12/the-gcspf-written-contribution-to-the-summit-of-the-future/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2021/10/joint-statement-independent-united-nations-human-rights-experts-warning-threat
 
Dec. 2023
 
A new social contract must be anchored in decent work and social justice, with special attention given to the promotion and implementation of International labour standards, according to the latest edition of the International Journal of Labour Research.
 
“A new social contract: achieving social justice in an era of accelerating change”, outlines the urgency and growing consensus from multiple actors, to reinvigorate a new social contract to respond effectively to multiple transformations in the world work and growing decent work deficits and inequalities around the world. The journal is published by the Bureau for Workers Activities (ACTRAV) at the International Labour Organization (ILO).
 
“The debate on the new social contract is not new. In addition to multiple factors, such as climate and technological changes, the growth of inequalities and decent work deficits has accelerated the deterioration of social cohesion, with consequences including geopolitical tensions and the decline of democracy in many parts of the world,” said Maria Helena Andre, Director of ACTRAV.
 
“Therefore, there is a growing consensus and urgency for the reinvigoration of the social contract at national and global levels.”
 
“The new social contract has to be reflective of the foundations of existing labour institutions and how they may be adapted to new and emerging realities we are facing today. As the largest membership-based organization in the world and a crucial constituent of the International Labour Organization, workers ’organizations need to continue their advocacy to develop an effective and sustainable social contract which reflects the changing realities in the world of work” she added.
 
This year’s International Journal of Labour Research aims to stimulate reflection on what a new social contract might address and more specifically the role of workers’ organizations in engaging in this debate within the multilateral system and at national level.
 
The journal calls for the promotion and implementation of international labour standards as a centrepiece of the new social contract, with a key role to be played by workers’ organizations.
 
It recommends strengthening social dialogue, ensuring global solidarity and the creation of decent jobs for all through coordinated and coherent pro-employment, macroeconomic, sectoral, industrial, skills, social protection policies. The new social contract should be underscored by a vision that places the reduction of inequalities at the heart of both economic and social progress and is based on the ILO’s fundamental principles and rights at work.
 
http://www.ilo.org/actrav/media-center/pr/WCMS_906750/lang--en/index.htm
 
Jan. 2024
 
Global Unions have submitted a joint statement to the UN Committee on the Status of Women 68th session to be held in March 2024 calling for action to improve the state of poverty and inequality faced by women in the global workforce.
 
The world today has never been so rich (three times more wealth than thirty years ago), yet over 700 million people live in extreme poverty and hundreds of millions of people work in precarious and informal jobs, the majority of whom are women.
 
Inequality has reached record levels: the top 1 per cent has taken 38 per cent of all wealth whereas the bottom 50 per cent has gained only 2 per cent. In 2022, shareholders received record-high dividends, while billions of people around the world struggle to survive a cost-of-living crisis since workers’ wages are too low and more than half of the world lacks access to social protection.
 
A decades-long erosion of workers’ rights is driving poverty, inequality, inequity, exclusion and insecurity, further exacerbated by multiple crises including the global care crisis; the climate and biodiversity crisis; erosion of democracy; freedom of expression; and the rise of the far right.
 
Changes in work patterns, including through new technology and digitalisation, and the abusive use of temporary and short-term contracts have resulted in massive job insecurity and have undermined freedom of association, collective bargaining and access to labour protection.
 
This hits women the hardest. They are over-represented in poor and low-paying jobs, deeply affected by persistent forms of discrimination, exclusion, gender-based violence and intersecting systems of oppression based on class, ethnicity, race, migration status, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity and other grounds.
 
The gender gap in labour force participation remains stuck at 27%. On average, women continue to be paid 20 per cent less than men. At the current rate of change, it will take 257 years to close the global gender pay gap. Girls from the poorest households continue to be excluded from education.
 
At current rates of progress, it will take another 54 years to reach universal primary school completion for girls. 53.1 per cent of the global population – 4.1 billion people – have no social protection. Only 30.6 per cent of the working-age population are legally covered by comprehensive social security systems that include a full range of benefits.
 
When women do access social protection they experience a lower social protection coverage range and substantially lower benefit levels as contributory systems penalize women who are often responsible for a disproportionate share of unpaid care work. This burden increases when public services are absent, inadequate or privatized.
 
A large proportion of women experience profound impacts to access and maintain a paid job because of gender-based violence and harassment in their world of work.
 
One of the key factors for the persistent gender gaps in the world of work is the unfair distribution of unpaid care work, the inadequate social organization of care and decades of weakening the State responsibility in care policies and under investments in the care economy including public health, care and education services, deregulation, underfunding, and privatisation including corporate capture of health and care.
 
During the COVID-19 pandemic, 90% of women who lost their jobs in the first 18 months exited the labour force while women have lost around US$800 billion in income. This loss is comparable to the combined GDP of some 98 countries.
 
The pandemic revealed a 8 per cent gender-gap in social protection. While women already performed three times as much unpaid care work as men, these responsibilities increased during the pandemic. The pandemic showed as well the importance of public services, including front-line services.
 
The pandemic has further deepened inequalities in education for girls and young women, leading to increased drop -out rates, adolescent pregnancies, and girl marriages. Women saw a steep surge in domestic violence and gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work. Migrant women and refugees, young and older women, Indigenous women, racialized women, women with disabilities and LGBTI+ persons were particularly affected.
 
Breaking the cycle of poverty requires full employment and decent work for all, including the creation of millions of decent jobs, worker-led formalization of informal jobs, universal access to social protection systems and floors and equitable access to public quality services and free, quality, inclusive education and training opportunities.
 
Whether at a local, national, sectoral or global level, trade unions are at the forefront of the fight against poverty, including in-work poverty, and the effort to create a fairer society.
 
This can only be achieved when workers can effectively organise, campaign and engage in social dialogue and collective bargaining, with representation in all their diversity throughout negotiations and decision-making, around important economic and social issues for them and their families.
 
Against this backdrop, trade unions have achieved the adoption of ground- breaking laws and policies which have the potential to elevate women out of poverty by improving their opportunities to access and remain in paid, secure and decent work, free from gender-based violence, harassment and discrimination.
 
Trade unions engage in social dialogue and lobby and advocacy to ensure women’s access to adequate and universal social protection and quality public services to shifting the sole responsibility for unpaid care work from the shoulders of women and girls and ensuring a gender-transformative just transition.
 
Trade unions are fighting for wage justice and equal pay for work of equal value, especially in feminised sectors where jobs are undervalued, such as education, health and care sectors.
 
Social dialogue is essential in translating economic development into social progress. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the crucial role of social dialogue – based on the respect for freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining – in saving jobs, incomes and the lives of millions of workers.
 
However, fundamental workers’ rights, including the right to form and join a union, and trade unions themselves are under attack. The result is an erosion of collective bargaining, a decline in wages, weakening of labour rights and protections, reducing social protection, a backlash against equality laws, policies and measures, and rising inequality.
 
A strong and effective International Labour Organisation (ILO), driving the multilateral agenda, is essential. The ILO, the only UN entity with a tripartite constituency, has a principal role in labour standard setting which is essential for strengthening national law and policies and improving working lives, dignity and respect for fundamental rights.
 
The ILO’s transformative agenda elevates women out of poverty by advancing gender equality, equality of treatment and opportunity for all, non-discrimination and inclusion. This includes closing the gender pay gap, promoting decent work including in care and through care leave policies, and ending gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.
 
Reform of the international financial institutions, in order to secure the conditions for both gender-transformative job creation and worker-led formalisation, is crucial. So too are the creation of a worker-friendly trade system and the design and delivery of industrial policy including international support for domestic industrial policy initiatives.
 
Global Unions call on governments to take concerted actions that will lift millions of women out of poverty, towards a life of dignity and equality with income security and equal opportunities to access paid, decent and formal work – free from violence and harassment – and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, accelerate the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action and implement the UN Global Accelerator for jobs, social protection and just transitions with its ambitious targets on decent jobs creation in the care economy and on realising social protection floors for all by 2030.
 
More specifically, we call on governments to engage with unions in social dialogue to:
 
Develop national jobs plans and invest in the creation of 575 million new decent jobs by 2030, including in the care economy and climate-friendly jobs, with a gender-responsive focus. Just Transition towards environmentally sustainable economies for all, as well as the worker-led formalisation of one billion informal workers.
 
Ensure long-term and adequate public investments for the creation of 300 million new decent jobs in education, health, care and social services. Guarantee equitable access to quality, gender-transformative public health, child- and long term care and education services as well quality public Guarantee decent work for all care workers.
 
To end public sector wage bill constraints including those imposed by the International Monetary Fund. To adopt inclusive labour market policies, family-friendly workplace polices and gender responsive social protection which grant an equitable sharing of care responsibilities and care jobs.
 
Secure fair wages for all, including through the establishment of minimum living wages, the realisation of equal pay for work of equal value, improving pay and working conditions including in feminised sectors, addressing intersecting discrimination based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and migrant, indigenous, disability status and other grounds, and ending the occupational segregation of women and other marginalised groups; Guarantee women’s fundamental right to work;
 
Reform the world’s financial and trade systems that deny prosperity to billions of people and build a peaceful world and a just, rights-based development model realised through the promise of the SDGs and multilateral reform;
 
Strengthen public services which binds communities and provides dignity, a safety net and public protection floors. Gender-transformative public quality services are the greatest equalizer and leveller of equality in society – giving everyone equal and universal access to services across their life course from early childhood education to latter life.
 
Ensure gender-transformative universal social protection systems and floors and a global social protection fund in order to support low income countries develop and extend social protection systems, in line with ILO To redesign social protection schemes so that periods of care are credited fairly and to ensure that contributions continue to be paid during periods of care leave and to ensure adequate public non-contributory social protection schemes including basic pensions and guaranteed minimum unemployment benefits.
 
Ensure equitable access to free, quality, inclusive education and training opportunities, including skills development, training, and life-long learning, supported by education and training strategies with active labour market policies, for skilling, reskilling and This is essential to guarantee gender-transformative just transition plans in response to climate change and technological shifts.
 
Bridge the global digital divide, in countries and between the North and the South, to bring internet connectivity to all the world’s people as a human right and to ensure meaningful equitable access to technology for all; ensure gender transformative proactive digitalisation policies and Ensure that new and green technology guarantees decent work for all and gender equality and equity in the world of work.
 
Fully support the ILO with its normative mandate and tripartite structure and decent work agenda, and ensure the respect and the effective implementation of ILO’s fundamental principles and rights at work, including freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining (ILO Conventions 87 and 98), the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation (ILO Conventions No. 100 and 111); and a safe and healthy working environment (ILO Conventions No. 155 and 187).
 
And to further accelerate equality and equity in the world of work, to ratify and effectively implement the ILO Conventions on social protection (No. 102), family responsibilities (No. 156), Indigenous Peoples (No. 169), maternity protection (No. 183), Domestic Workers (No. 189) and Violence and Harassment (no.190 and Recommendation 206).
 
(Statement submitted by Education International, International Federation of Journalists, International Trade Union Confederation, International Transport Workers’ Federation, International Union of Food Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations, and Public Services International, non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council).
 
http://publicservices.international/resources/news/trade-unions-fight-poverty-for-a-gender-transformative-world-of-work?id=14380&lang=en


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