4 June, 2010Responding to submissions made to him by IMF and IUF, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights asks for the assistance of the ILO to better understand the impact of precarious work on human rights.
GENEVA: At a side event of the International Labour Conference in Geneva on June 3, organized by the ILO Multinational Enterprises Subcommittee, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, discussed the implications for the ILO of his 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework for reducing human rights violations by transnational corporations. Addressing more than 200 representatives of governments, employers and workers as well as ILO staff, Ruggie said that the issue of precarious work had been raised in his consultations with stakeholders and also in submissions by worker organizations, referring to the submissions made by IMF and IUF. However he said that he lacked the expertise to address the issue and called on the ILO to provide him with advice on how to go about this.
Responding to Ruggie's remarks, the employer spokesperson declared that precarious work is not a human rights issue and that Ruggie should not give it consideration in his work. Speaking on behalf of the workers, Sam Gurney of the UK TUC stressed how important it is for Ruggie to include consideration of the negative effect of precarious work on human rights and told him that trade unions stand ready to assist him in this work. He also explained how increasingly complex and opaque supply chains effectively prevent workers achieving remedies as it is difficult to identify who to seek the remedy from.
IMF, together with the other global union federations, has been urging the ILO for some time to take concrete action to address the many circumstances under which precarious workers are denied the effective right to organize and bargain collectively. The commitment that John Ruggie has made to examine precarious work in the context of the responsibility of transnational corporations to respect human rights is a positive step. It also strengthens the call for the ILO to devote more attention and resources to protecting the rights of precarious workers.