Global Jobs Pact will require political will–ILO chief

GENEVA – After all is said and done, now comes the hard part.

At the conclusion of the three-day Job Summit organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO), member-states agreed in principle to adopt a Global Jobs Pact, which puts jobs creation and social protection at the core of stimulus packages.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, in an interview with reporters, said the Global Jobs Pact puts into proper perspective the different stimulus packages aimed at reviving the local and global economy.

Somavia said the pact is less a question on financial capability but more on the political will of the stakeholders to make it work.

The pact, Somavia said, “does not depend on how much money is going to be behind it but more on the political will to orient national policies in this direction and reorient the budget in order to produce these effects.”

“This is a policy alternative for which you have to take a political decision if you decide to go in this direction,” he added.

Around 4,000 delegates from government, employers’ and workers’ organizations met here last week to find and forge a common agenda in tackling the global economic rut.

It featured around 10 heads of state and government, a panel of vice-presidents and labor ministers, and employers and trade union leaders from the 183 ILO member-states.

The ILO has warned of a possible six- to eight-year employment and social protection crisis due to the global crunch.

The global economy would need to create at least 300 million new jobs up to 2015 to keep up with the increase in the labor force or face mounting social tension and instability.

International agreement

Unlike other labor conventions like the Freedom of Association that are international legal obligations of ratifying countries, the Global Jobs Pact is only an agreement on common policy approaches.

Yet, Somavia said this does not diminish its impact.

“The salient feature is the fact that you have an international agreement by employer, workers, and government who are the actors of the real economy. You don’t have that level of international standing behind any other policy being applied,” Somavia replied, when asked how the Global Jobs Pact figures in the overall scheme of things.

“This has something to do with national decision-making. Some countries may want to do it, others will take time, some will do it with social dialogue and others may not, but that does not change that you have an agreement,” he added.

In the Philippines, the government has allocated around P300 billion for a stimulus package to cushion the impact of the financial crisis.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque, in his report to the ILO, said the government has engaged employers and workers in tripartite dialogues to address the crisis.

Bargaining chip

Somavia also said the Global Jobs Pact, as adopted internationally, also provides an additional bargaining chip for poor countries when negotiating for loans with the international lending institutions.

“If you have decided to move forward, then you can say that the dialogue with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, with the regional banks, with the bilateral donors [was]: Look, we want to do this, and the legitimacy of what we want to do is that this has been approved globally by the actors of the real economy because they believe that this is the way to get economy going. So, put your resources behind this combination of policies because they are my policies in order for us to move forward,” he explained.

International lending institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), have been criticized for intervening in the economic programs of countries through conditions for loans.

Somavia said the economic crisis has shown that this interventionist approach does not work.

He noted that “the legitimacy of the IMF has been strongly hit,” and that its “business model has gone broke.”

Somavia observed the IMF’s “centralized conditionality of its funds was not working,” and governments should assert their right how best to implement the loans based on unique situations.

“We cannot continue thinking that the IMF is a powerful institution as it was in the past. When you sit down with the IMF, you (now) have the self-assurance because of the Pact,” Somavia said.

Somavia expressed hope that the Global Jobs Pact will not be a treated as a band-aid solution but as an essential national policy to address the crisis.

“If we are to learn the lessons of the past and put job creation and social protection at the heart of policies not only to get out of crisis but as a normal policy, then we are beginning to address all the injustices, inequalities and imbalances that this globalization process has produced,” he said. –ABS-CBN – Wednesday