All Resources

Among all the hype and propaganda surrounding the murky subject, a key concept of ‘globalisation’ is summed up in the buzzword ‘flexibility’.

When the concept of flexi-time was publicised in the 1970s, it was broadly welcomed by professional workers who were offered it. Many salaried professionals work a fixed-hours week in name only as they are not paid for overtime, therefore it seemed like a bonus rather than an attack on working conditions.

 

Human Resource Management

 

 

Formal cooperation masks rejection of key labour rights

 

 

Labour Law and ILO Conventions in Regulating OHS

 

Mr Lee Cheuk Yan is General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU). He is also a legislator in Hong Kong's Legislative Council.

 

ALU  Please tell me the first contacts the CTU had with the International Labour Organisation [ILO].

 

No Collective Bargaining Rights

 

 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) moved into Cambodia within months of the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement. Since then, the ILO has been engaged in a range of activities like employment generation programmes, technical training programmes, and monitoring garment factories. This paper examines the overall activities of the ILO in Cambodia with special focus on its role in the garment industry, which is the largest non-agricultural industrial sector in Cambodia.

 

 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was created in 1919 at the post-war Peace Conference in Paris as Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles.

 

The first meeting of the ILO, with delegates from the original 45 country members, adopted the first six of many International Labour Conventions.

 

Apart from the Vatican and N Korea, almost all countries are members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

 

The ILO is an international body that sets details of minimum labour standards. It is important because most governments must account to it over labour affairs.

 

Its most important job is to adopt conventions and recommendations, and monitor their implementation. Once a government has ratified a convention, its standards must become part of national (or local if not a recognised state) law.

 

 

 

The world has witnessed during the last decade an unprecedented scale and force of corporate-led globalisation. The Third World in particular has experienced the immense negative social and environmental impacts of this globalisation.

 

 

Since 1996 Northern-based Export Credit Agencies (ECA) have become the largest long-term official creditors of Southern countries - far exceeding the total annual investments of multilateral development banks and bilateral agencies.

 

 

 

As discussed in much more detail elsewhere in this issue, export credit agencies provide credit insurance (and loans) to enterprises doing business overseas. Although private companies (such as EULER and HERMES, CNA, Eurofactor, and Hiscox) sometimes provide these services, credit insurance and loans are more often provided by public - government-backed - agencies.

 

 

 

Export Credit Agencies and Investment Insurance Agencies, commonly known as ECAs, are public agencies that provide government-backed loans, guarantees, credits and insurance to private corporations from their home country to do business abroad, particularly in the financially and politically risky developing world. Most industrialised nations have at least one ECA, which is usually an official or quasi-official branch of their government.

Asian Labour Update has kindly agreed that in each edition the Asian Workers' Occupational Health, Safety and Environment Institute (OHSEI) will present a section dealing with aspects of occupational health, safety and environment and trade unions. The section will include a round up of occupational health, safety, and environment news, or present typical training/discussion leading materials.

 

 

 

A Brazilian soccer team kissed the trophy in triumph after the final game of the 2002 World Cup tournament. The event hosted by South Korea and Japan lasted from 31 May to 30 June.

 

Shree Jee International, a shoe factory in Agra, India which exports to the UK and Ireland caught fire on 24 May 2002. 42 workers died in the accident and 11 were injured. One injured worker died on 29 May in hospital.

 

Between 200 and 250 workers were in the factory when the fire erupted. At the time of the accident the only door at the entrance of the factory was locked and its seven windows were heavily secured.

 

This issue of ALU is even more of a challenge than usual because it tackles a subject that is not an obvious one for labour.

 

Our theme this quarter deals with governments underwriting investment risks taken by home companies investing abroad. For this reason it is perhaps not dealing as directly with working men and women as usual, but it is so important and under-discussed that the editorial team was unanimous in the decision to investigate the topic.