Although fundamental principles and rights at work are an essential foundation for the governance of labour markets, they do not address all the issues of regulation needed to promote decent work. The governance of the labour market requires rules of various types to encourage working arrangements that are both efficient and fair. In many work situations these rules are informal, having evolved by custom and practice over time. However, precisely because those involved accept them as a standard, they are powerful influences on the production process. Many more formal rules have their origin in such organic community norms. The need to have written rules in some form for the labour market, not least to avoid disputes about what custom and practice is or should be, is a feature of the overall development process.
As economies become more complex, rules to cover a wide variety of work situations are needed.In particular, with production organized through firms of various types, the relationship between the employer and the individual worker, and employers and workers in general, becomes a key influence on output, earnings, working conditions and the economic performance of the country. The quality of this relationship is, of course, a matter of direct importance to the two parties, but is also of interest to society as a whole. All States therefore have some form of legislation governing the way employment issues are handled. However, the practical necessity of having rules specific to the workplace, or similar workplaces in the same industry, and being able to change them if the work process is changed, means that legislation can never cover all aspects of the work process and working relations.
Governance of the labour market is thus a shared responsibility of governments, and employers’ and workers’ own freely organized institutions.
The term “social dialogue” describes the process by which these three parties set, change and apply rules concerning work and work-related issues. In most countries, social dialogue is institutionalized to some degree with the representative employers’ and workers’ organizations, often described as the “social partners”, joining government in tripartite institutions of various types to facilitate discussion and negotiation. In many countries, the topics discussed through social dialogue mechanisms have expanded to include economic and social policy in general. Given the central importance of work to the well-being of all members of society, the quality of this tripartite relationship is of considerable significance.
The form of the legal provisions for sharing responsibility for labour market governance between the State and employers’ organizations and unions continues to feature in political debates in many countries, with ILO standards on freedom of association frequently used as reference points.
Over many years, dialogue between many countries and the ILO on the application of standards concerning freedom of association has helped shape the basic legal framework for social dialogue.
Investing in social dialogue is a key element in promoting a process of institutional change to improve the performance of labour markets and thus the poverty-reducing quality of growth. As discussed in Chapter 5, the ILO is pledged to collaborating with its constituents to work out, through social dialogue, country strategies for decent work that link into comprehensive frameworks for development and poverty reduction.
This must mean more than the establishment of tripartite committees and the holding of regular meetings with ministers to review policies and their implementation, important as these are. Trade unions and employers’
organizations still face many legal and practical obstacles to organizing. In many countries, laws on the right to form unions only apply to employees.
This has hampered union efforts to organize informal workers in urban trades and agricultural labourers because they do not have a regular or recognized employer. Registration requirements for unions are also often restrictive and open to political manipulation. Similar problems also arise for micro and small enterprises in the informal economy. Such legal obstacles, coupled with the intrinsic difficulty of collecting even modest membership contributions from workers and businesses with low incomes to finance the services they need, mean that the collective voice of the poor is weak.
Nevertheless, in many countries workers and small businesses are managing to form and join various types of organization for mutual support such as credit unions, producer or seller cooperatives and other local community organizations. Building bridges between such organizations and the established social partners is in their joint interest and can lead to alliances and campaigns for shared objectives. In some countries, the social partners have agreed to extend the membership of economic and social consultative councils to other representative organizations of civil society. Helping to organize and give voice to workers and employers living in poverty, according to their own circumstances, is a key ILO responsibility for the future.
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