ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY AND THE SOCIAL PARTNERS

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY AND THE SOCIAL
PARTNERS
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Operational objectives

• The work of the Social Dialogue Sector during
  this biennium has been guided by the Operational
  Objectives. These are
• To promote social dialogue so that its
  fundamental role as an instrument of democracy
  and rights at work, and negotiations for
  consensus building and economic and social
  development is better understood and more widely
  use

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• Strengthen institutions, machinery and processes
  of social dialogue in ILO member states, and
• Strengthen the representation, capacity and
  services of the social partners.

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• All the 5 units in the Sector have been guided by
  these objectives.
• The Employers Bureau, the Workers Bureau and the
  Sectoral Activities department extends their work
  and services beyond the confines of the Social
  Dialogue Sector

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The InFocus Programme on Strengthening Social
Dialogue

• The functions of the InFocus Programme are to
• promote social dialogue as a concept of democracy
  and rights at work.
• strengthen institutions, machinery and processes
  of social dialogue.
• demonstrate the value of social dialogue in other
  strategic objectives of decent work.

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Means

• Research
• Advocacy
• Technical co-operation
• Advisory Services

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Research

• Research in 10 countries
• Barbados, Indonesia, Kenya, Czech Republic,
  Kazakhstan, Zambia, Panama, Philippines, Poland
  and Morocco
• Goal is to identify and analyze the institutions,
  machinery and process of social dialogue.

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• Our research, advocacy and technical assistance
  work have given us a clearer understanding of the
• extent of use of social dialogue
• issues in social dialogue
• role of the social partners
• extent of effectiveness of social dialogue

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Social dialogue defined

• All types of joint and collaborative
  relationships, that is negotiations,
  consultations and exchanges of information, most
  often between or among the tripartite and
  bipartite partners, either by formal or informal
  means, and through ad hoc or institutionalized
  frameworks on issues of common interest relating
  to economic and social policy.

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Types

• Institutionalized Social Dialogue
• Ad Hoc
• Informal

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Ad Hoc/Informal Social Dialogue

• Inevitable part of relations
• Often to deal with emergency
• e.g. threatened strike
• Extremely useful where institutionalized social
  dialogue is weak or absent

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Institutionalized Social Dialogue

• National Economic Development and Labour Council
  (South Africa)
• National Wages and Productivity Commission
  (Philippines)
• Tripartite Consultative and Labour Council
  (Zambia)

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• National Industrial and Commercial Consultative
  Committee (Kenya)
• The Committee of Social Partnership (Barbados)

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• In all cases, membership extends to
• key government departments or ministries
• the social partners (employers and workers
  organizations)
• other relevant stakeholders.
• In most cases, formal institutions are for
  decision-making, negotiation, consultation and
  information sharing.

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Bipartite Social Dialogue

• Collective bargaining is the foremost example of
  social dialogue. It includes
• negotiations and consultation
• dispute resolution
• labour-management co-operation
• worker participation
• productivity improvement
• safety and health in the workplace

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• Depending on the circumstance, negotiation and
  consultation on these and other issues takes
  place at
• enterprise level
• sectoral/industrial level
• in few cases at the national level.

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Tripartite (plus) Social Dialogue

• Takes place at sectoral, national, sub-regional
  and regional levels.

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National Level Social Dialogue

• Used most often on issues of the labour market,
  e.g.
• labour legislation
• vocational training
• social security
• productivity
• minimum wage

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Broader-issue Social Dialogue

• There is growing interest in using social
  dialogue to address broader economic issues, such
  as
• privatization
• investment
• national budget

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Observation

• Social dialogue on issues outside the domain of
  the Labour Ministry is less common and probably
  used mainly for
• information sharing
• consultation

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Policy Direction

• Promotion of the value of social dialogue
• Promotion of non-adversarial labour relations
• Demonstration and promotion of social dialogue in
  substantive issues of decent work, e.g.
• Labour labour standards, employment,
  productivity, safety and health, social security,
  etc.

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Institutional Development

• Promotion of broad participation among relevant
  actors
• Enlargement of participation on government side
  (Ministries of Labour, Finance, Economic
  Planning, Industry, etc)
• Broadening the scope of dialogue to include
  economic and social policy.

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Strengthening the Social Partners

• Representation through
• Membership recruitment
• Alliances
• Co-operation
• Training and Capacity building