Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the APYouthnet online discussion forum!

My name is Arun Kumar and together with the APYouthNet team, we hope to stimulate a discussion and share experiences on the rights and conditions of young workers in Asia-Pacific (click on the following link for background information: http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/discussion-lists/right-and-conditions). It is an opportunity for everyone to increase their knowledge base on youth employment issues and generate new ideas to promote decent work for young workers.

Youth unemployment is fast emerging as a major socio-economic and political crisis in many countries due to inabilities of economies and educational systems to accommodate young people. The global economic crisis has further dimmed the hopes on an already gloomy situation. In the starter piece, some questions have been raised under two broad themes:

Impact of crisis on young workers rights & employment:

• What experiences can APYouthNet members share which show that young people’s rights at work have been negatively or positively impacted by the crisis?
• Are young workers any more vulnerable to labour rights’ abuses than adults?

 Labour market flexibility

• How can labour market flexibility be made compatible with the need for decent work for young people?
• Is labour market flexibility essential to promote employment of young people?
• What are some examples of effective government policies/structural changes to promote decent work for young people whilst still protecting enterprise?

Please share your comments, experiences and raise any related issues. And yes, please do not forget to introduce yourself – do briefly tell us (and each other) about yourself and your work.

We are looking forward to a lively discussion!

Best wishes,

Arun

 

I`am much appreciating this initiative.

My name is Erdenebileg Tudev, Now I`am a National Consultant for the Career counselling project of the Employment Service capacity Building project of the ILO, IPEC Mongolia.

Yes, the APYouthNet members can contribute by the  Career guidance  and Employment Promotion Policy well defined  frameworks for the Youth as an globally Nor developed and developing countries.Because when I`am joined APYouthnet, I`am well equipped with the knowledge,experiences and lessons learned of the career guidance` positive approaches.Now in Mongolia the Public, Private and NGOs Employment Service offices can be served by the rights and duties and Labour relationship knowledge and informative services to the job seekers,unemployed and Employees.

As employees of the Youths is weak points in the knowledge and experience and skills for labour market adaptability and employability skills, with consistent with above mentioned bariers they facing much more vulnerable points than adults during the economic crisis and transfering period, school  to work etc ...

The Labour market flexibility is essential to promote Employment and public awareness raising of the employment promotion of the Youth, population, In another side it will be important  signals to the Public and Private Employment Offices transparency.

In the July 2009 the Government of Mongolia initiated the "In-work place based internship scheme within Cooperation of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labour and Ministry of Road, Transport and Urban development.

 

Thanking You.

Hi Arun!

 

It's nice to talk to you oceans' apart! These questions, about labour market flexibility, are interesting and difficult ones. Interesting because they touch at the very dilemmas that policy makers have to face, and difficult because although there can be many rhetorical answers, it is the "practicals" that will be most interesting to hear of.

Flexibility, per se, is not a problem, and is certainly compatible with decent work. But it needs to be done with care.

Some successful examples can be found in Northern European countries, such as Denmark, the Netherland or Austria, which have managed to reform their labour markets and get rid of the unemployment that was plaguing them. Broadly speaking, they did so by ensuring that flexibility (usually in the ease of hiring or laying off workers) was accompanied by security measures, such as meaningful unemployment benefits and extensive (re)training opportunities.

In 2005, France also tried to flexibilise the youth labour market, but only managed to send young people rioting in the streets and had to retract its legislation proposal. Not accompanied with any substantial “security”-type of measures, and not being based on effective and real social dialogue, the legislation would have resulted in serious fragilisation of young people’s employment.

Closer to the APYnet community, in Asia, flexicurity is making its way into the policy debate.  But the contexts are very different: large informal sector, smaller tax base, rigid labour market laws, problem of employment quality rather than quantity, etc. It is interesting to see that Viet Nam is currently engaging in that direction, but I wonder how much of the national context is truly “owned” in relation to the European concept and whether it has any chance of benefitting those who would probably need it most, such as informal workers. It’s probably still way too early to find out how these reforms are impacting employment in Viet Nam, but it would be interesting to have others’ thoughts on the topic or even feedback on anything currently going on. Anyone from Viet Nam?

So, to answer the question, flexibility can be more than fragility, provided that certain elements are there: (i) an identified objective is set (the reform of the labour market should be a means, not an end objective), such as reduction of unemployment, or formalisation of the economy; (ii) Some meaningful elements of security (meaningful both in terms of features and in terms of coverage), such as benefits, training; and (iii) real and effective social dialogue.

 

Sorry for the long post, I hope it's readable! By the way I forgot to present myself, I am Nicolas Serrière, training officer at the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin.  One of the topics on which I run courses is precisely about tackling youth employment problems.

 

Keep the ball rolling!

 

Nicolas

Dear Tudev (or shall we call you Erden?)

Complements for being the first one to log on and leave some thoughts..I would imagine that career counseling would be playing an important role in a

growing economy and in an economy that is generating jobs - especially in terms filling the gap in knowledge of the youth about possibilities and where to look.

But what would you say is the role where the economy is just not creating jobs in relation to the needs of the growing workforce? How would you characterise the Mongolian economy?

 

Secondly, I was quite interested in knowing why you think <...The Labour market flexibility is essential to promote Employment and public awareness raising of the employment promotion of the Youth...>  Do share your views as to why 'employment flexibility' is essential? 

best wishes

arun

dear Nicolas

yes, of course labour market flexibility is not easy - neither as a policy nor as the condition of the employee - it works or rather has worked in Denmark in

the past because politico-economic system took care of the 'needs' of the unemployed and helped them find new jobs - it worked because economy was

creating jobs - situation has been not so great in recent years. but yes, ensuring Decent Work approach - in letter and spirit - can help - in a market economy nothing comes free. We need to ask the employers, what they are ready to pay for flexibility? Will they contribute towards a viable socials security system? plus will they contribute towards retrainign & redeployment of workers pushed out of jobs due to flexibility?

 

I think this is where the problem lies in many developing countires at least. Employers are demanding flexibility but want the state to foot the bill and

frankly the capacity of the state to bear unemployment and 'training-retraining' bill is severely limited - with the result that 'informal employment' grows and since employment is scarce, people?unemployed dare not insist on their rights. what do the others think?

arun

Rights Violation among Volunteers and Undergraduate Workers

My friends and I are active in volunteering work offered for the students in the undergraduate level. Most work is a kind of the interpersonal of communicational work, such as
being an usher, a field interpreter, or a liaison. It is sometimes a paid work. The problem that we usually run into is the overwork and disrespect, due to the fact that we are young.
 
Most of the time our particular employers over-expect us to be able to have a wide range of skills, as well as be able management perfectly. The youths are likely to be asked for assistance (or technically full work for the person who is in charge for a particular task) in several unrelated works. They would also have to accomplish those task while at the same time be able to get the main task done without mistakes. Some of the employers promised that we would be working in a particular field, let's say, being a field interpreter in the international sport competition. In practice, however, we are asked to go out to work outside the particular setting, and that there would be no one who will be responsible in case of misfortune incidents outside the field. One of my friends refused to do such a risky work. The person who asked for such assistance said that "if you are not willing to cooperate with this, you must not come to work tomorrow". My friend was terrified. She decided to report this back to her employer in charge, and she could remain in her position. However, the working environment has changed. The person who asked for her assistance twist the stories and general fake rumors about her and that she was not able to work with the clear mind until the work has been done (the duration of the work was 10 days). Until now, there is not yet a person who can protect her pride from such rumors that is spread among the coworkers, as well as relieved her mind from such a horrible incident. This is often occured among several of my friends as well since they are young and should not complain about anything in the work they are, without care, assigned to do.
 
The other case is the reversed. The particular employers do not expect anything from the undergraduate workers. They do not put any emphasis on the workers, not only in terms of work but also in terms of existence. That is, they do not care if the workers are not served with meals and even drinks. My friends work as a group of paid liaisons in one international conference in the Asia-Pacific regions. The work is mainly following a particular person around the entire day (from 8.00 to 18.00 without the overtime period). They are not allowed to eat or drink in an appropriate time, while their graduate cowokers are allowed to do so. The similar cases occurs in the non-paid volunteering work in which the undergraduate workers are asked to work in a particular field, with an intention to show that the company already provide an opportunity for the youth (in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility), rather than really practically developing them. In other words, the youth do not have any involvements in the task in which they are assigned to do. The task is practically the fake position in disguise, and that there is no need to work at all (And, of course, the company does not pay them).

dear Weerapak,

thank you for a true to life situation post - what you say happens often and young people are expected to take it all in their stride (sometimes that borders on criminal illegality and not just labour law violation) - there are no easy answers to this situation though - the beginning however lies in - take steps to organize - young workers - employed or unemployed have to start forming their union (often a dirty word - thanks to media, among the youth but frankly, there are limits to what rights you can fight for as NGO - you have to assert your rights as a worker. only an organization gives you strength to fight the rumours, the character assasinations, etc.

so, the starting point is organization and then the path of struggle and campaigning for fundamental rights gets atleast a fighting chance to succeed. The advantage of the youth is - they are educated, articulate, media savvy, know the internet and how to use it unlike the blue collar workers of the yore, todays youth is better placed to struggle for their rights as a collective body - I would like to know from you and others - why is it the young people do not want to fight as a union body?

best wishes and keep writing in - you gave some good examples to point out that it is not just youth inexperience, etc that is the problem - it is the terms of which employment is offered today (despite the so called rigid labour laws that many consultants and experts decry in the meetings and seminars).

best wishes

arun

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND NATIONAL COMMITTMENTS

My name is Md. Kabir Mia, Programme Officer (Education and Employment) under the project named ‘Urban Informal Economy’ ILO in Bangladesh. I am responsible for the child Labour education and preparation for employment of youth. I am working with ILO Bangladesh since 2007. Earlier, I used to work with Government of Bangladesh as well as Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Education, Bangladesh Open University, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Transparency International and UNDP in Bangladesh.

The impact of crisis on young workers rights and employment builds both sides experience- negative and positive. In Bangladesh I have an experience that is positive.  This will be very good example and may be adaptable for other countries perspective.

Before citing this example I would like to highlight some theoretical aspects on negative and positive consequences.

-          due to economic crisis scope of employment of youths has decreased, their rights to get employment results minimal.

-          ultimately their potentials and enthusiasm will be in stake

-           family level and national level contribution will be less for youth unemployment

-          low wage they will get

-          minimal social security coverage will be ensured

-          possibility to engage into hazardous/ WF labour

-          flexible employment contract

Positive sides will be

-          youths are more adaptable in work than adults

-          youths have lees commitments towards their families and more encouragement

-          less experience normally demands lees wages

-           youths can get opportunities of retrench of  older workers

Labour market flexibility

The flexible labour market will be effective for promoting employment of youths. For employers’ side, it is easy and inexpensive. They can use flexible amount of labour they want to use and flexible working hours. Minimal regulations on wage and Trade Unions are also applicable. It ensures economic efficiency and able to decide the terms of employment without considering market dynamics or market forces.

 

The flexible labour market may be ensured using the strategies of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), providing incentives, supervised apprenticeship, ensuring easy access to employment, make provisions for work and education integration.

Bangladesh experience

To overcome such crisis, the Government of Bangladesh has introduced “national service job scheme” to provide employment to one educated member per family. It will be

introduced from December (2009) in the initial phase in Barguna and Kurigram districts. Applications will be invited from those who have passed HSC or equivalents (12 grade education), and a list will be prepared of the deserving candidates.
Selected youths will be given three months' training after which they will be appointed to different government departments for two years, particularly as assistants to agriculture and education officers.

 

This programme will later be spreaded to other districts.

dear Md. Kabir,

thank you for your interesting post. the last thing you mention about Bangladesh govt initiative for jobs promotion for youth is indeed a pro-active idea on the part of the government - atleast some youth will get the jobs even if it is for limited time. In this regard, it would help everyone if you could give us some more information on this scheme - for instance -

1. How will the youth be slected from out of the thousands that are likely to apply? Is it some government committee or a tripartite committee that will look into the selection process? Is there any criteria listed out for shortlisting 'deserving candidates' ?

2. The programme will obviously cost money - any idea about how much the Govt proposes to set aside for this scheme? What kind of wages/slaries are being contemplated for those employed? would it be only slaries or will there be some social security component too?

I ask these questions because it would help us to understand if the scheme is viable in the long run? and if decent employment will be generated?

Now some observations on your other views regarding flexibility:

Lot of people believe that <The flexible labour market will be effective for promoting employment of youths.> - To some others it is not so clear. In any case, there is lot of employment flexibility already in most economies - lets look at the existing situation in general: what kind of jobs are being created nowadays anyway? in most countries (including in Bangladesh) - most new jobs that are being created are - casual, contract, temporary jobs - most young people are in such contractual jobs - look at modern private banks, private telecom, call centres, EPZs, small and medium units - how many of these jobs would you say - are regular, permanent as one generally understand permanency?  and even of these kinds of jobs, there are not enough going around. One of the major reason why informal economy is growing. So, the point is - even with flexibility, economies are not created enough jobs.  

There is - as yet, no conclusive evidence that employment flexibility has created more jobs: on the other hand, there is enough evidence that employment flexibility and labour market deregulation increases job insecurities, decreases workers and their families living standards, and drastically reduces employees abilities to enforce their rights - In developing countries I find it very interesting that most civil service officers support flexibility idea for industrial and sercvice sector workers but do not seem very keen to apply the same principle to government service.

However, there is a point: any dynamic economy does need flexibility but flexibility creates uncertainty at the job market level that can be sorted out at company level - but has to be addressed at macro level - if employment flexibility has to be accepted as labour market condition then the governments have to put in place a social security system - that is - social security for the non-permanent workforce - this needs to be funded by employers and workers both and state needs to stand gaurantee for this. This kind of economy alos needs to treat as fundamental two other labour standards: workers right to organize and their right to collective bargaining (not over wages and salaries but also workign conditions, development and industrial policies) - any democratic state ought to have this system before it promotes employment flexibility. How many governments we know, especially in ASia, that are ready to put these principles in practice?

best wishes

arun

Weerapak,

 

A lot of the issues you provided still happen even once you've graduated. I've seen even seen a UN organization that kept an admin staff under short term contracts for 7 years depriving them of various benefits. At least UN has ombudsman mechanism to complain to.

 

My suggestion is that you should look for and join professional societies (maybe that's a none-dirty word for a union these days?), where you can not only get good advice from experienced peers, but also be part of an informed network for job opportunities from good employers. While not strictly a union, you will get a lot of the benefits of being part of an organized society. 

 

Arun,

 

At least in Malaysia, the current government has a lot of repressive acts such as the Universities Act, which actively discourage students from being part of any political body, less they get kicked out as a student. So students don't get to learn the importance of organizational bodies giving them more political voice in fighting for their rights.

Hi Arun,

There will be a selection committee comprising of government officials with local level elected representatives (Local Self-Government Representatives) for selecting the deserving candidates. The committee will decide for written test and interview. Based on this, a panel will be prepared. The factors for selecting the deserving candidates will also be ‘household’ consideration and socio-economic condition of the candidates (poverty issue).

The GOB has allocated Tk.13000 crore for this programme. Obviously, job holders will get salaries, but amount, I will check (Tk. 4000pm/ $ 60 probably).  There is a possibility for permanency of these jobs provided future vacant positions are available. The main thrust for this programme is to alleviate poverty from the poverty stricken and disaster prone areas of Bangladesh.

I agree with Arun’s statement. Yes, Government pushes private sectors during the economic crisis to imply labour market flexibility, especially in the poor countries. The Bangladeshi example is exception for that.

The flexible labour market sometimes creates job which are casual, unsecured, as you have mentioned, and these types jobs have a very low ‘future career prospects’. I noticed that informal sectors and rural informal economy has a very little impact on that.

I would like to add one now term for the discussion forum to the honorable participants.

“Curve Employment (CE)” for the youth

The provision for the Curve Employment is possible and also beneficial during the economic crisis. Like flexible labour market, CE, will be very easy and less expensive for the employer’s side. They may get opportunities of the flexibilities remain in the period.

As for example, some service and/or consumer enterprises may not have their direct marketing strategies that is, auto run system. In this context they can hire youths for marketing/pushing the service or products. CE is temporary arrangement but with ‘win win’ situation. Youths will get jobs on the other hand enterprises will get more profit.

 We can further discuss to mainstream the idea into the context of enterprise and business terminology.

Kabir

Dear colleagues,

My name is Gianni Rosas and I am the coordinator of the ILO's Programme on Youth Employment. First, I wanted to congratulate with Arun and the other colleagues for facilitating the interesting discussion on rights and other conditions of work for young workers.

I think it comes with no surprise that, unfortunately, young workers - compared to their adult counterparts - experience decent work deficits in terms of rights and conditions of work. This is, for instance, the case when it comes to precariousness in the form of intermittent/temporary work arrangements in many countries and over-representation in the informal economy in several others.

Taken in the context of the current crisis, young people are reported to be more affected than adult workers by economic contraction. In countries where data are available, this is quite visible. Likewise in many other unfavourable economic cycles in the past, young workers are the first to be laid-off (also because they hold the burden of higher flexible work arrangements, in the form of short-term work arrangements, which termination is much easier - not to mention work in the informal economy that has - by definition - total flexibility, given that employment relationship is uncovered by rights and social protection) but also the last to be recruited when economic expansion starts again.

The above-mentioned context, raises a number of issues for policy-makers and practitioners that need to be addressed. These include the analysis of the impact of past crisis on conditions of work of young people (e.g. what happened during the Asian crisis of the end of the '90s), the vulnerabilities exacerbated by the current crisis and, most importantly, the measures taken by countries to counter the negative impact of the crisis on decent work outcomes for young people. In this respect, it would be interesting to know what countries are doing in order to preserve or improve conditions of work of young people. Are these being addressed by anti-crisis measures or are countries only focusing on unemployment? Information from the participants in this forum would be more than welcome.

For the colleagues who are interested in looking at what countries are doing in terms of youth employment measures to counter the crisis, I am enclosing herewith a summary table that provides info, where available. There are just few countries of the AP that have made info available. If you have more details, please send them to the email address of the Youth Employment Programme of the ILO (youth@ilo.org)

Wishing a good and fruitful discussion to all of you.

Gianni

 

 

dear Kabir,

thanks for the additional information - I guess all governments in South Asia have similar ways of functioning. I don't know how it will unfold in Bangladesh, but if the same process is followed in India - written test, interview (by a committee of govt officials and elected politicians) for youth coming from poor backgrounds, then truly deserving ones will be probably get left out - really poor youth is also usually low on education and is hardly likely to fare well in the written exam - and frankly if the jobs are related to government departments, then I would imagine a minimum educational attainment would also be a criteria which most of the poor people won't have. BUT still, atleast some of the educated unemployed youth will get jobs and I guess thats good.

Perhaps , governments should also think of fiscal and monetary incentives (tax incentives, access to credit, simplifying rules regarding manpower engagement) for businesses/employers/industry to hire young people, rather than promoting policies that encourage investing in energy consuming capital intensive path of industrial development.

whats also needed is a minimum social floor in the economy - a minimum living wage and a social security contribution - no one should be employed with out this (and social security contribution should go into the national social security fund - this fund then also becomes an investment capital in a capital scarce developing country which can be used for developing infrastructure and creating enabling conditions for employment growth).

As regards your idea of 'curve employment' - I am not very clear about this. It didn't seem any different than what we already see happening - commission  based or some low wage employment for selling goods and services of companies like pharmaceuticals, insurance products, selling sim cards, and so on. as employment opportunity (down the product chain), anything should be welcomed in todays' environment - what we should try and ensure is how to set some minimum standards - terms of employment or contract for such workers.

any ideas on how we can set and ensure minimum standards at work for working people ?

best wishes

arun

Welcome aboard Gianni and thanks for attaching the summary table on what governments (mostly non Asian) are doing to promote youth employment in these times of economic crisis. One thing is certain - severity of the crisis has forced some governments to devote additional resources towards youth training & employment schemes. But some how scepticism remains about the measures taken. However those thoughts I will post in a separate post on this forum.

Updated Post: Ideas on improving types of jobs for workers, while allowing flexibility for employers:
http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/discussion-lists/rights-and-conditions/rights-and-conditions/810483847#946520126

 

Do chip in from time to time, sharing your thoughts

best wishes
arun

Dear Arun,

I am happy to see that another dicussion is underway at APyouth net which is very relevant and timely in the current scenerio. The current financial crisis has made many countries to bring innovative programs to deal with the youth employment. In Pakistan, many programs are initiated by the government with focus on employment generation and mitigating the imapct of crisis. The most important is the Internship program for educated youth which so far has provided fixed term of one year jobs to more than 30, 000 youth. The other most celebrated program to help poor families is the Benezir Income Support Program under which 7 million poor families are provides PRs 1000 per month. This program has a number of other components which include the training of one person of the family geting support. Another component is the youth self employment scheme under which loan is being given to youth at concessional rates. Besides, government is going to initate mega construction projects to stimulate economy and generate jobs.

As far as rights and conditions of work are concerned, of course in a crisis, governmnet can hardly implement rules and regulations in letter and spirit. The labor market flexibility demand to be easy on the employment conditions so that more jobs can be created. exactly this is prevelant in the Pakistani labor market. There are complaints of violations of rights of workers, inspection of factories is reduced and a number of incidences are reported of fire at the palce of work. The trade unions are actively moniring the conditions of work and highlighting the violations in their own way. It is expected that the conditions of work will imporve sooner with the recovery of the economy.

Regards,

Zafar Mueen Nasir

PIDE, Islamabad         

thanks for your views  Zafar  and the info on what Pak govt is doing to promote employment. I guess in addition to the economic crisis, Pakistan is facing several other challenges and that makes focusing on economic growth that much more difficult - AS far as I know, investment is down in Pakistan as are govt revenues (due to years of strife) - obviously indebtedness of Pakistan govt to WB-IMF is quite significant - that also implies that Pak is being made to follow 'neo-liberal' economic policies (privatisation of public sector, public services & utilities, deregulating labour market, raising taxes, interest rates, etc and opening its economy to all kinds of imports) - Is it true? Is it true that mainly imports have gone up while domestic industry & employment has not gone up? 

It is indeed good that Pak Govt is spending money on employment for youth but do you know what is the source of funding of Benazir Income Support Programme and other youth employment schemes? 

best wishes

arun

 

On the limited involvement of young people into unions’ activities, I would like to quote Indah Budiarti, PSI Asia and the Pacific, when she says that: ‘Trade unions are often perceived by them [young workers] in a negative light: too old-fashioned and bureaucratic, focused only on the traditional struggle for wages and working conditions.’  

 

What can unions do change the way they are perceived by young people, then? I would also be interested in hearing views on one point that hasn’t been addressed in this discussion yet: do young people face any difficulties in making their voice heard within the trade unions themselves? We see good cases of ‘youth wings’ being created within workers’ organizations in the region – what are the best ways to ensure that youth wings have actual power and influence in national committees, for instance? Or that they have availability of resources as well as the power to use them?

 

Best,

Valentina

 

Previously arun kumar wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the APYouthnet online discussion forum!

My name is Arun Kumar and together with the APYouthNet team, we hope to stimulate a discussion and share experiences on the rights and conditions of young workers in Asia-Pacific (click on the following link for background information: http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/discussion-lists/right-and-conditions). It is an opportunity for everyone to increase their knowledge base on youth employment issues and generate new ideas to promote decent work for young workers.

Youth unemployment is fast emerging as a major socio-economic and political crisis in many countries due to inabilities of economies and educational systems to accommodate young people. The global economic crisis has further dimmed the hopes on an already gloomy situation. In the starter piece, some questions have been raised under two broad themes:

Impact of crisis on young workers rights & employment:

• What experiences can APYouthNet members share which show that young people’s rights at work have been negatively or positively impacted by the crisis?
• Are young workers any more vulnerable to labour rights’ abuses than adults?

 Labour market flexibility

• How can labour market flexibility be made compatible with the need for decent work for young people?
• Is labour market flexibility essential to promote employment of young people?
• What are some examples of effective government policies/structural changes to promote decent work for young people whilst still protecting enterprise?

 

Please share your comments, experiences and raise any related issues. And yes, please do not forget to introduce yourself – do briefly tell us (and each other) about yourself and your work.

We are looking forward to a lively discussion!

Best wishes,

Arun

 

 

Dear Colleagues,

It is nice to join this forum and participate in the discussion. I am working with ILO Subregional Office in New Delhi as HIV/AIDS Specialist. I wish to raise the issue of vulnerability of young workers to HIV/AIDS, and their right to receive HIV/AIDS education at workplaces.   While I invite experiences of all members on this, I share my views/experience as below:

1. Young workers are in formal as well as infornal sectors. In formal economies, sectors such as BPO and hospitality require special attention. We tried to do advocacy with some BPO companies and hotels to help them develop their workplace policy and programmes for workers. The response was very slow. We had better success in reaching out to hotels than in BPOs. We succeded in developing a policy for Travel and Tourism Association of Goa which has some 400 memebrs, both small and big hotels. The policy followed the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and we also offered training to these hotels to implement the policy. In the BPO sector, much more advocacy work needs to be done and some research also needs to be undertaken to see the levels of knowledge, attitudes, practices and behaviours of very young workers in the BPO sector. In addition, IT, HRD, sales and marketing functions also involve young workers, and therefore it is important to work with corporate sector. In India, we are working with 12 large corporate groups who have set in place a good programme for their workers.

2. In the informal sector, young workers are every where. It is important to take a sectoral approach and readh them in sectors sich as transport, construction, mining, agriculture etc.   It is difficult but a  good aproach is to mainstream HIV in existing programems which reach these workers whether they are skill development, occupational safety and health, youth employment etc etc. 

HIV infection is preventable. It is affecting workers' rights and welfare. Stigma and discriminaiton associated with HIV has to be remosed. It calls for policy interventions, backed by multi sectoral efforts to change attitude and behaviours.

thanks

Afsar

 

Dear colleagues,

I would like to connect to Valentina's message which raises a number of interesting issues concerning young people's voice and representation. True that in many countries, trade unions' agendas are mostly focused on collective bargaining in areas such as wages and other conditions of work - which benefit all workers, including the younger ones. Employment promotion issues for labour market entrants are not always a top priority in the above-mentioned agendas and strategies. In some countries and regions however, there is increasing attention by trade unions to the needs of young workers who are at the margins of the labour market. This includes the provision of services and assistance to young people who do not yet have a job as well as the support in giving voice and representation to young workers with decent work deficits such as, for instance, young people in precarious jobs and/or young workers in the informal economy.

In many countries, young trade unionists are quite active in the promotion of rights at work for young people. Dedicated youth sections are increasingly being established within trade unions. There are also multi-country and regional networks where young trade unionists share information and experience across countries.

Having young trade unionists taking action on rights and other conditions of work for young workers is certainly beneficial, at least on two counts: i) to have youth employment feature high in trade unions’ agendas and strategies, and ii) to promote inter-generational change in the management of trade unions themselves. However, it is worth mentioning that - in many instances and notwithstanding the innovative ideas and interesting initiatives – young trade unionists and their networks have little power within their own unions. In this respect, the International Confederation of Trade Unions (see website on young workers at http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?rubrique94) is promoting a series of initiatives to empower young trade unionists. For instance, there are ad hoc youth committees whose young representatives participate in the decision-making bodies of regional and international bodies of trade unions.

The ILO has been quite active in promoting participation of young trade unionists in initiatives concerning youth employment. For instance, in some countries we supported youth networks to develop and implement awareness-raising campaigns on rights at work for young people, in others we assisted in the development of packages for the promotion of decent employment for youth in schools and other settings. It would be very interesting to get to know what types of initiatives are put in place in the Asia and the Pacific Region to support action on rights at work for youth by trade unions. Can anybody help?

A good weekend.

Gianni

 

Dear Arun and AP-Youthnet colleagues,

I would like to throw in a couple of points for discussion and would be interested to know about the experience of other members of Youthnet.

Developing countries, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, face a number of structural or institutional issues that directly or indirectly affect young workers especially at the workplace in the informal economy. These include: weak school to work transition mechanisms, inadequate public employment services, non-responsive education and training systems, and no proper focus on employability or soft skills. These issues affect young workers entering the labour market in a number of ways ranging from exploitative contractual arrangements with little or no social security, low wages and poor working conditions to less opportunities for learning and training.

Best regards,

Manzoor Khaliq

Officer-in-Charge,

ILO office in Afghanistan

Congratulations and greetings to all from Sri Lanka on the success of the ongoing forum. All signs are there that the discussion will be as successful as the two previous discussions.

 

I am Henrik and I work closely with a national team of ILO colleagues and a range of partners of stakeholders to implement our Youth Employment Project (ILO/Japan).

 

The project targets one province and most of the activities are designed to benefit youth living and working in the plantation sector (tea & rubber) - a sector with particular challenges in terms of poverty, labour market structures, access to services of labour market institutions and employment generation.

 

Rights and conditions of young women and men is key to the project. Below I raise two of the many rights and conditions issues we deal with.

 

In terms of gender, we aim to ensure that all project interventions include young women. Consequently we monitor to what extent project activities benefit minimum 50% women. We have learned this is an ambitious target but we keep up the ambition. We track and trace this and advocate the importance of this with all our partners, stakeholders and ILO constituents involved in the project.

 

In terms of labour conditions, we work with plantation sector companies to enhance CSR, HR strategies and OSH. We also inform on and advocate for ILO’s approach to decent work and ILO’s International Labour Standards – and here the ILS on Plantation Work: http://www.ilo.org/empent/Whatwedo/Publications/lang--en/docName--WCMS_116346/index.htm.

 

Linked with this we advocate with chambers of commerce and employers’ organizations to get their buy in on boosting employment for young women and men.

 

In terms of young people’s voice and representation, we aim to undertake a workshop early 2010 for the project’s stakeholders and partners – but specifically for trade unions – on how TUs could be strengthened to cater for the voice of young people e.g. through the establishment of Youth Wings and appointing youth focal points.

 

This highlights just a few of our project interventions with a rights and conditions focus. You might wish to visit the following pages on the APYouthNet for more insights on the project as well as brief reports on activities and interventions:

 

Project interventions & pictures:

http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/photo-gallery/ilo-ye-initiatives-in-sri-lanka

 

Project outline and background:

http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/resources/project-activities/ilo-sri-lanka-youth-employment-project

 

best regards, Henrik

Having worked both in Vietnam and Denmark for a number of years, I was interested to read your early discussion on flexicurity, Denmark and Vietnam.

Indeed flexicurity seems - as a concept - to have taken of from Denmark.

Its invention is generally attributed to the Danish social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in the 1990s.

The concept obviously blends the words flexibility and security – in a way in an effort to take the best from quasi-liberal labour market economics and welfare state protection and security.

In general the term is used to describe most - if not all - the Scandinavian economies – often referred to as the “Nordic labour market model”.

But lately also many other European countries have shown interest in the concept. Consequently, the term also found its usage in the European Union and related European Commission policy papers (e.g.: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/20&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

and the term is often used in connection with discussions on the “European social model”.

Critics of the flexicurity model long hailed the more liberal models. However, this voice seems to have been silenced lately with the very tough beating very liberal economies took during the financial crisis.

In other words it seems we are left with flexicurity as a strong concept which in general also seems to perform from a macro-economic AND social perspective.

As for Vietnam, I surely find it interesting the country is pursuing this concept. However, a major concern would be that the economy does not over-stretch itself in terms of social security.

But perhaps with the severe present pressure on the Vietnamese economy – being an export driven economy that has taken a severe beating during the crisis – it will be more difficult to take the flexicurity road, anyway?

This against the background that the foundation of the flexicurity systems built in Scandinavian countries is from times of much stronger economic growth in these countries (i.e. 1960-1980).

For most developing countries – and especially against the background of the present crisis climate and export and global market challenges – it would be difficult to find the resources to fund the security part of flexicurity – at least in the short to medium term.

But Arun is of course right, what will be interesting to see in countries like Denmark is how much further the flexicurity model can be upheld against the background of the same crisis. Will flexibility also here be on the increase? It’s a fair question.

BTW: Two Danish labour market and industrial relations institutes have produced considerable research in flexicurity:

CARMA: http://www.epa.aau.dk/forskningsenheder/carma-english/

(And indeed the following paper from CARMA makes a very strong case even though atypical work is on the rise prompted by globalization and economic trends, flexicurity is still going strong in Denmark: http://www.epa.aau.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/conniek/Dansk/Research_papers/2009-1-Kongshoej_m-fl.pdf

FAOS: http://faos.ku.dk/english (where I by the way graduated from – many, many years ago )

Best regards, Henrik

Dear colleagues,

A short note in reply to Henrik's interesting intervention on the Danish "golden triangle" model of flexicurity. There is a concern, shared by many quarters, that the effective system of Denmark, which balances the need of enterprises of labour market flexibility with the security of workers, requires very solid (and well funded) labour market institutions. In this respect, one wonders whether an effective approach for balancing flexibility with worker security should not require an investment in strengthening these institutions (e.g. active labour market policies, unemployment insurance). Put it otherwise, it could be interesting to ascertain how many midlle- and low- income countries of the AP region would be in a position to enforce a flexicurity system.

The approach seems to be even more critical when it comes to its application to young people. In the vast majority of countries, young labour market entrants are not eligible to income protection in case of unemployment. This leaves a key labour market institution out of the "triangle", thus weakening the protection elements of the flexicurity concept. In my view, this aspect is far from being sorted out even in the region where the concept seems to have become one of the key determinants of labour market reforms.

The colleagues interested in this topic may wish to refer to a recent ILO paper that was discussed at the Governing Body last month and a working paper that reviews the application of the flexicurity concept in six Asian countries. As you may see, the quest on the application of the concept to young people is far from being a key concern of the flexicurity debate.

 ILO Governing Body: Combining flexibility and security for decent work (Employment and Social Policy Committee - November 2009) accessible at:http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_116409.pdf

Paul Vandenberg " Is Asia adopting flexicurity? : A survey of employment policies in six countries (ILO, Economic and Labour Market Paper 2008/4) accessible at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_elm/---analysis/documents/publication/wcms_113927.pdf)

Maria Sabrina De Gobbi, "Flexibility and security in labour markets of developing countries : in search of decent work for  all"    (ILO, Employment Policy Paper 2007/6)  available from http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_policy/documents/publication/wcms_113897.pdf

Best regards,

Gianni

Ref: Flexicurity:  more flexi than security

Thanks Gianni and Henrik for taking further the discussion on (employment) flexibility and social security (for the workers).

Nordic model (or atleast what used to be - with slightly different shades in each of the scandinavian countries) was a fair compromise and a negotiated balance between the needs of the industry and the needs of the workers. However, what employers and many others in Asia forget is that  -

1. in Nordic countries all parties paid for this - the system funded these 'flexicurity' thru contributions by employers, workers and thru high taxes on every one and labour institutions ensured that workers were helped to find new jobs or be trained for new jobs.

2. The system worked also because there were strong employers and strong workers organizations and mutual respect for the rights of each parties. Meaning- freedom of association and right to colelctive bargaining were (and to lot of extent still) respected in practice.

Employers in Asia are found deficient in both of the above mentioned areas. In the absence of universal social protection and respect for fundamental rights of the workers to organize and negotiate, flexicurity will only mean flexibility & precarious employment while state is left to cope with the  burden (political, social and economic) of this freedom that employers want and have to a large extent already. Its the same attitude towards the environmental costs of the business - employers are quite reluctant to 'internalise' the costs of pollution and enironment degradation that is due to their business operations. 

best wishes

arun

 

 

dear Valentina integration of young people (and in a similar vein also of women) is one of the weak sides of the labour movment, even though many unions are making efforts to rectify this. but the fact remains - it is not enough. Talking of unions in the west, someone once described unions as 'male, pale and stale' (male dominated, white and bureacratic), I guess one can find ways to describe unions in A-P - as old, male & public sector dominated and unhealthily linked to political parties-directly or indirectly (with a caveat that there are certainly exceptions to this description in A-P and especially in case of unions in private sector). Unions in private sector are comprised of young unionists but most of these unions are at entreprise level and often not affiliated to any national centre - governments generally deal with national centres where old leaderships dominate and we in the ILO also often deal mainly with the national centres and our world view of the unions is coloured by what we see there. But what we must also remember is that - in almost all countries, unions operate in very difficult and hostile environment - the governments are reluctant to enforce workers rights to organize and collectively bargain - and recognition of unions as social partners is not hardly there - this influences a lot of union behaviour and limits what they can do. This anarchical state also increases the influence of politicans on unions (since it is often political influence that resolves industrial relations matters rather than bi-partite negotiations between employers and workers). Now to come to the question of - how young people perceive unions? Let me ask you and others in this forum: How do most people form opinions in todays society? would it be wrong to say that media influences how we view things? institutions? politicans? people? Does it surprise anyone that (capital controlled) media would generally tend to undermine trade union movement (the only institution that seeks to promote share in the 'pie' and tries to counter balance the power of the employers). Why would media paint a positive picture of unions when it is the business that funds the mdeia and keeps it in profits? We all know the influence of advertising revenues on newspapers printing or pursuit of news that is harmful to the companies. (this is not to say that there are not things that unions can do to attract youth). Secondly, when the mere fact of 'wanting to unionise' can lead to a job loss - many young people will be reluctant to join unions since it is not easy nowadays to get jobs. Moreover, majority of the young people who are in employment are in precarious jobs or in jobs where there they can be fired at will. Third: Todays education, media and the market economy tends to encourage 'individualization' - many young people tend to think that they can do better by themselves and solve their own problems if they approached the management on their own - and young people turn to unions only when this approach does not work. All this is not to say that there are not problems within the union movement - there are many weaknesses and certainly unions can do many things to attract the youth. Starting with the assessment of the employment situation of the young people to be targeted and then the adaptation of policies, offers and organisational structures accordingly - many unions are doing this already such as - educational outreach into schools, reaching out to young workers in services and other sectors thru means and media that young people relate to, and creating space - organizational, activities, establishment of a trade union information’ desks and referral service on campuses, for anyone with work-related problems and so on. By the way, the current economic crisis has seen rise in union memberships and this includes also the young people - it is normal human tendency - in times of trouble, join whoever it is that can help. all said and done - the challenge remains - how to reach out to youth? and this challenge is linked to the employment structure - how to organize workers in precarious employment? best wishes arun

dear Manzoor,

thanks for chipping in and raising the problems of young people in developing countries like Pakistan and Afganistan. all things that you point out are true. But in case of these two countries, we also need to bear in mind that both of these countries are in very difficult circumstances - years of political and social instabilities - the political circumstances are not such as to promote economic development. too many resources going to fighting internal wars (in my opinion both these countries are paying the price for 'war on terror' (sic).  One only hopes that with time and lot of prayers, these two  nations will get a chance to start building the country again.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out one more thing: many commentators often stress on the idea of mismatch between what the employers need and what the youth offers - lot of people argue that if only the schools provided the right education or if the youth had the right skills, they would not be unemployed - I feel this argument is often overstressed. whats more, this argument tends to shift the blame to the youth itself or to the schooling system and prevents the attention from focusing on the nature of the economic and industrial growth that is being promoted under current economic model. This jobless economic growth that we are seeing is the result of current monetary, fiscal and labour policies and ofcourse trade policies that are governments are signing.

best wishes

arun

 

Dear Valentina, Giani, Arun and all,

 

Trade unions and youth employment

 

It was interesting to read your postings on youth fora especially youth wings of trade unions (TU). This posting to a) indicate what we are presently planning under the Youth Employment Project (ILO/Japan) in Sri Lanka and b) ask for your – or anybody’s – input to or suggestions for specific interventions for trade unions on youth employment – and especially rights and conditions of young workers.

 

At our project’s recent annual review and future directions workshop for all the project’s partners and stakeholders (see: http://ap-youthnet.ilobkk.or.th/photo-gallery/ilo-ye-initiatives-in-sri-lanka/annual-stakeholder-and-partner-review-workshop-december-2009) we did a special break-up session for participating trade unions officials.

 

The break up session a) develop a rapid practical situation analysis based on the situation in Sri Lanka as perceived by the participating trade unionists, b) looked at specific issues in the public and plantations sectors respectively, c) suggested solutions and d) outlined sessions and components for a workshop for trade unions on youth employment in which capacity building or TU’s youth wings feature prominently.

 

I attach the PPP we developed in the break up session and would very much appreciate inputs from colleagues and virtual discussion partners on how TUs youth employment interventions could be further boosted.

 

As earlier mentioned the project is planning a workshop for TUs on youth employment challenges in Jan or Feb 2010.

 

Best regards, Henrik (Sri Lanka)