skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 |
| Grant Belchamber |
 |
| Sylvain Schetagne |
A few months back, we raised issues regarding the revision by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) - organised by the ILO - on what counts as a job and the re-consideration and reset of guidelines to measure work and the labour force[1]. This debate came about because of the need to better provide policy makers with accurate information on the state of work and the labour markets. This debate was further fueled by the stagnant key labour market indicators.
Thirty years ago, the main objective of employment statistics was to measure labour inputs in production, to calculate GDP and measure economic growth. The lens for measuring employment and unemployment was constructed to meet the needs of producing the National Accounts. Today, policy makers want to know about labour market trends, the effectiveness of labour market programs, labour underutilization, the participation of different sub-groups of the population and the engagement with the market economy.
 |
| Dennis Arnold |
The global apparel industry is characterised by low wages, poor occupational health and safety, and restrictions on freedom of association. These problems persist in spite of numerous corporate social responsibility initiatives, consumer campaigning for improved labour rights, and trade union organising in industrialising countries. In the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh on April 24, debates over the ‘race to the bottom’ for cheap and flexible labour have re-emerged. For example, Disney corporate representatives, who terminated sourcing to Bangladesh in late 2012 in response to a spate of factory fires, were quoted in a recent article saying the company would consider allowing its licensees to produce in Bangladesh if the country implemented the ILO’s Better Work programme, which uses ILO monitoring of factories in Cambodia as its model (Greenhouse 2013). Dan Rees, director of Better Work, is quoted in the same article saying before his organisation would get involved in Bangladesh, the country needed to enact stronger labour protection and stop suppressing trade unions.
