International Labour Organisation Says Workers’ Union Must Develop Effective Social Contracts

The International Labour Organisation, ILO has stated that workers’ organisations must play a key role in developing effective, sustainable social contracts.

The ILO declared this in the 2023 edition of the International Journal of Labour Research, which was aimed at stimulating reflection on what a new social contract might address.

The Bureau for Workers’ Activities at the ILO published a journal on the theme “Achieving Social Justice in an Era of Accelerating Change: A New Social Contract”.

The project was to determine the role of workers’ organisations in engaging in the debate within the multilateral system and at the national level.

It noted that a new social contract must be anchored in decent work and social justice, with special attention given to promoting and implementing international labour standards.

It also outlined the urgency and growing consensus from multiple actors to reinvigorate a new social contract and respond effectively to multiple transformations in the world work.

The journal also mentioned the growing decent work deficits and inequalities around the world.

The Director of ACTRAV, Maria Andre, said the new social contract must be reflective of the foundations of existing labour institutions and how they would be adapted to new and emerging realities.

Meanwhile, she acknowledged that the journal called 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’ organisations.

It recommended strengthening social dialogue, ensuring global solidarity and the creation of decent jobs for all through coordinated and coherent pro-employment, macroeconomic, sectoral, industrial, skills, and social protection policies.