Decent Work as a productive factor

1
Decent Work as a productive factor

• Philippines Decent Work Pilot Programme

2
Philippines National Policy framework for
promoting Decent Work

• The Philippines constituents have embraced the
  concept of Decent Work.
• The Governments Medium-Term Philippine
  Development Plan (2001-2004) provides the overall
  development framework. It says that ..the
  employment policy challenge is to formulate
  strategies under a unified policy framework to
  promote full, decent and productive employment as
  a means in alleviating poverty.
• To this end, the government implements a range of
  employment generation, preservation, enhancement
  and facilitation strategies.

3
Decent Work as a shared objective

• The Philippines DW country programme was
  launched in 2002.
• It was developed after extensive consultation (9
  months) and participation with the constituents
  in areas such as
• Deficits analysis
• Prioritization of opportunity/need
• Develop of strategic responses - both sectoral
  and integrated.
• Monitoring and management mechanisms.
• The purpose of the DWCP was to programme the
  joint efforts to assist constituents to make
  Decent Work a growing reality for all women and
  men.
• It is an evolving shrinking document.

4
Perceptions Decent Work as a Productive Factor

• In the Philippines as elsewhere, employment
  development if often perceived as a worthwhile
  socially objective, but an objective which at
  times is a burden or a constraint on economic
  growth and development.
• I get comments such as such as
• give us employment first and we will later worry
  about the quality of that employment
• how much is this .. going to cost.
• I must reduce my labour costs as there is too
  much competition
• minimum wage is are too high
• All the bosses are concern with is production
  targets and cutting costs.

• To deal with these real concerns we try to show
  that Decent Work is a productive factor, and that
  it has a positive economic impact.

5
How to increase productivity

• High
• Skills
• Motivation
• Worker organization
• Technology

High road or the Decent Work Road
Low road

• Lower cost
• Wages
• Raw materials
• Marketing
• Distribution
• Electricity, etc.

6
ILO support to national processes to promote DW
as a productive factor

• Extending knowledge and understanding about the
  DW Agenda
• Deeper within constituencies
• With government departments other that ministries
  of labour
• Within other development partners, Asian
  Development Bank, Bi-lateral donors
• Building new skills and knowledge e.g.
• Action research for policy advocacy on employment
  implication of macro economic changes policies.
  E.g. trade changes and services
• Industry analysis Value Chain analysis
• Recent conducted a survey of 1000 SMEs
  information to being used by ECOP for policy
  advocacy and programme design purposes
• Development of the Decent Work Indicators, Decent
  Work Labour index and the Decent Work status
  report through and with tripartite constituents
• .

Gender
7

• Get employment/decent work concerns integrated
  into other initiative to productivity and
  competitiveness initiatives. E.g.
• City Competitiveness survey,
• Asian Development Bank inter-country survey of
  competitiveness
• Department of Trade and Industries Industry
  Development plan
• National Productivity Organizations programmes
• Develop new approaches
• Industry sector development Socially
  responsible Industry development or restructuring
• Local area development LESD toolkit and
  piloting

Gender
8
Decent work can only exist in competitive,
productive, and economically viable firms

• If work is decent then workers are more likely to
  be more productive.
• If the work is not decent then firms/industries
  may loose access to markets international and
  local.
• Decent Work is a productive factor!
• However it is naive of me to suggest that
  promoting decent work alone will lead to higher
  productivity and competitiveness in all
  industries.
• Its relative importance varies between
  industries.
• Take for example the agriculture sector in the
  Philippines. Here there is a 30-40 loss in rice
  from padi to mouth. If we can improve
  productivity in this sector through improved
  transport, handling, storage etc. This could
  lead to less poverty, increase incomes, more
  rural enterprises ?contribute to the attainment
  of the DW goal.
• Therefore if we are going to achieve the goal of
  decent work then we need to look at all of the
  productivity factors and their interrelatedness.

9
Challenges

• Building an national and international employment
  agenda
• There continues to be a need to extend
  understanding of the Decent Work agenda to a
  wider range actors so that social and economic
  polices are considered together and harmonized.
• I need new information/research for advocacy,
  policy programme design.
• Building new expertise
• Much of the work involved in building a national
  and international Decent Work agenda requires a
  change in the way we all work and accompanying
  new skills. Constituents as well as ourselves.
• Building new strategies
• Integrating what we already have E.g. LESD
• Develop new approaches, E.g. Socially
  responsibility industry restructuring/development
  strategies
• Building mechanism for resource mobilization
• Build mechanisms for monitoring and assessing
  impact