In many developing countries, pay and conditions in the public services have deteriorated badly over the long years of austerity associated with structural adjustment and the debt crises. This has seriously damaged morale and performance, led to the loss of some of the most talented public servants to the private sector, increased the risk of public servants resorting to “charging”
citizens for services by demanding under-the-counter payments, and weakened confidence in the function of government. The pendulum of opinion is slowly swinging back to a concern about improving public services after many years of a mantra of “private good, public bad”. Whatever balance between the role of the public and private sector a country chooses, it is essential that employment relations for public servants are well organized.
Public service unions, grouped globally in Public Services International (PSI), have launched a major new campaign to improve the quality of the services provided by governments and public agencies and the quality of employment of workers in these vital sectors.
The broad objectives of the campaign are to:
● ensure that public services are adequately funded so that well-trained and properly resourced workers can deliver quality services to all people who need them; ● develop the ability of public services to meet social objectives, especially poverty eradication and people’s empowerment; ● ensure that public services meet quality objectives, including high standards of ethical behaviour, which enable national and global economies to operate effectively and equitably; and ● ensure that all public sector workers enjoy all fundamental workers’
rights and can achieve quality working conditions.
Although a high proportion of most government budgets is devoted to salaries, addressing the backlog of problems in the public services will likely require increased resources. Managing a steady year-by-year progress through negotiation and consultation with public service unions is therefore essential and will require coordination with the budget-making process. Dialogue about proposals to privatize essential public services is particularly important, given their importance to poverty-reduction strategies. A stable, honest and efficient public service is a major national asset made up of people who rightly expect fair treatment.
In the context of strategies for poverty reduction, more and better education and health services are a high priority in most countries. Yet the unions representing teachers and health-care workers who deliver services to poor communities are rarely consulted about the plans for their sectors.
Given that poor working conditions and often persistent delays in the payment of wages due are endemic in many countries, it is vital that such problems are addressed if policies are to be effective. In many cases, training of staff is the key to reforms aimed at raising the quality of public services.
Improving the performance of state-owned enterprises, privatization and the preparation of previously protected industries for competition on global markets have major implications for workers. Preparing for these changes through early consultations and negotiations helps to identify both problems and opportunities posed by restructuring in time for solutions to be agreed. Often units of such larger enterprises are the heart of local economies, and restructuring plans should take account of the social impact on the surrounding communities. Enterprises, unions, local authorities and community organizations, if appropriate in concert with central government, should jointly develop plans to address the issues posed by either expansion or contraction of employment.
For governments, social dialogue is a valuable vehicle for constructing a broad measure of agreement over the modernization of labour laws and the policies needed to improve the performance of the public sector and formal private enterprises. A recurring theme in discussions about reform is the balance between the issues covered in statutory labour codes and those most appropriately dealt with by collective agreements. The larger the numbers of workers covered by collective agreements, the greater the scope for more detailed aspects of rule-making to be devolved to the social partners. Collective bargaining is a valuable mechanism in the adaptation of working arrangements to changes needed to maintain competitiveness in a fast-moving global market.
Investing in the foundations of a sound industrial relations system is an important part of designing labour market institutions that favour broadbased employment growth and the reduction of poverty. As argued in Chapter 5, developing countries need to move up the value chain out of dependence on unprocessed commodities into manufacturing and services.
Collective bargaining and social dialogue are a means of encouraging change through discussion and negotiation so that the benefits of dynamic efficiency are realized and fairly shared. Where employers are operating in a competitive environment, improved conditions achieved through collective bargaining must be matched by enhanced productivity or the firm risks losing market share and the workers their jobs.
Furthermore, as Professor Stiglitz has argued, information and power asymmetries bedevil the efficient allocation of resources in most markets, and especially labour markets. Collective bargaining and indeed the whole process of social dialogue, where they function well, help to resolve market failures by promoting the sharing of information and collective action for common objectives.
As well as being a flexible mechanism for making the rules workers and employers need to manage their relations fairly and efficiently, collective bargaining fulfils an important balancing role in society. For many groups of low-paid workers it represents the most effective and readily available method of improving working conditions. In many developing countries, years of frustration over slow or stagnant social and economic development have fuelled social tensions. Collective bargaining underpins progress in building democracy by resolving disputes that, if allowed to broaden and escalate, can undermine national stability.
Labour laws that protect the right to organize and promote the practice of collective bargaining are essential to the functioning of sound industrial relations systems. In many countries, tripartite institutions offering advisory, conciliation and mediation services to employers and unions can play an important role in shaping the collective bargaining system. The efficiency of systems of labour administration and labour courts is also important for the application of labour laws. For both workers and employers, speedy and lowcost legal remedies are vital. While recourse to the mainstream court system is sometimes necessary, in many cases more informal and quick methods of resolving conflicting interpretations of laws are acceptable to the parties.
The ILO, drawing on the principles in its Conventions and Recommendations, has in many cases assisted its constituents in preparing laws and designing institutions to support the development of industrial relations systems that promote labour/management cooperation and ease the resolution of conflicts.
To learn more about this author, visit International Labour Organization's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
