Major Group: Workers & Trade
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC)
Industrial Development ? Lucien Royer ITUC Trade Union Intervention
UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD15-IPM) 2007
Tuesday 27 February ? Afternoon session,
Lucien Royer
Chair, my comments relate to those of others about industrial development, energy access and to
those by G77 about MDG goals and addressing poverty.
Those comments all relate to the issue of incomes, which Pakistan has raised in their earlier
comments, and therefore to jobs. The fact is, that someone who does not have a job or does not
earn enough from the one they have, its logical to assume that they will not have proper access to
energy, energy services or, for that matter, many services or resources, like food and health care.
It?s clear that getting a job is the best means of addressing poverty. And it must be more than just a
meager job; it must be ?Decent Employment? - employment that goes beyond the meeting of
meager needs and actually provides a minimum livelihood, one that support the full recognition of
the fundamental rights of the human being and the human soul, and as a full and enlightened
participant in decision-making at work and in the community.
Promoting Decent Employment must be part of the CSD solutions for Industrial Development and
for the MDG.
Chair, in your opening comment, you asked for policy options that would work.
The ILO ?Global Employment Plan? is specifically designed to promote Decent work, for the
purposes of meeting sustainable development, as well as MDG and social goals - all this, through
technical assistance.
The ILO Global Employment Plan must therefore fit into the CSD mix of solutions because many
examples show that embodying its principles have already yielded successful applications.
We have the example of Belgium that has placed employment as a criterion in the tendering of its
CDM contracts for climate change. At the other end of the spectrum there is the example in
Germany of a multi-million dollar energy conservation programme within the domestic sector,
which shows how employment can be made to yield huge social, economic and environmental spin
offs. Many of these examples exist in the CSD matrix.
Therefore Employment planning must be part of your recommendations, Chair, for Industrial
Development.
Also inviting the ILO to become involved in this way can only foster better participation of workers
with employers to implement sustainable development, at the workplace level, through Dialogue.
The ILO is not only the best suited to promote such dialogue, it has a mandate to do it and to
organize tripartite processes, to include governments.
We agree with the EU and Norway that it makes sense to include the ILO and the ILO instruments
to deal with Fundamental rights at work and Core Labour Standards, which must be a cornerstone
of the CSD proposals for industrial development. We also agree that the OECD Guidelines for
multinational enterprises should be incorporated.
Thank you chair
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC)
Industrial Development ? Lucien Royer ITUC Trade Union Intervention
UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD15-IPM) 2007
Tuesday 27 February ? Afternoon session,
Lucien Royer
Chair, my comments relate to those of others about industrial development, energy access and to
those by G77 about MDG goals and addressing poverty.
Those comments all relate to the issue of incomes, which Pakistan has raised in their earlier
comments, and therefore to jobs. The fact is, that someone who does not have a job or does not
earn enough from the one they have, its logical to assume that they will not have proper access to
energy, energy services or, for that matter, many services or resources, like food and health care.
It?s clear that getting a job is the best means of addressing poverty. And it must be more than just a
meager job; it must be ?Decent Employment? - employment that goes beyond the meeting of
meager needs and actually provides a minimum livelihood, one that support the full recognition of
the fundamental rights of the human being and the human soul, and as a full and enlightened
participant in decision-making at work and in the community.
Promoting Decent Employment must be part of the CSD solutions for Industrial Development and
for the MDG.
Chair, in your opening comment, you asked for policy options that would work.
The ILO ?Global Employment Plan? is specifically designed to promote Decent work, for the
purposes of meeting sustainable development, as well as MDG and social goals - all this, through
technical assistance.
The ILO Global Employment Plan must therefore fit into the CSD mix of solutions because many
examples show that embodying its principles have already yielded successful applications.
We have the example of Belgium that has placed employment as a criterion in the tendering of its
CDM contracts for climate change. At the other end of the spectrum there is the example in
Germany of a multi-million dollar energy conservation programme within the domestic sector,
which shows how employment can be made to yield huge social, economic and environmental spin
offs. Many of these examples exist in the CSD matrix.
Therefore Employment planning must be part of your recommendations, Chair, for Industrial
Development.
Also inviting the ILO to become involved in this way can only foster better participation of workers
with employers to implement sustainable development, at the workplace level, through Dialogue.
The ILO is not only the best suited to promote such dialogue, it has a mandate to do it and to
organize tripartite processes, to include governments.
We agree with the EU and Norway that it makes sense to include the ILO and the ILO instruments
to deal with Fundamental rights at work and Core Labour Standards, which must be a cornerstone
of the CSD proposals for industrial development. We also agree that the OECD Guidelines for
multinational enterprises should be incorporated.
Thank you chair