SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENTS MADE FOR AND AGAINST RATIFICATION OF
THE HOME WORK CONVENTION (C177) DURING THE 1996 ILC
Today, reading through the final record of the plenary session of
the 1996 International Labour Conference , which documents the discussion
that preceded the vote on the adoption of the Home Work Convention,
one is first of all struck by the hardness of the front dividing
the employers on the one hand and, on the other, the Workers’
Group and the majority of the Government representatives. The employers
wanted to prevent a Convention by whatever means necessary. This
is all the more surprising as the employers also voted to place
a discussion on a Convention to protect homeworkers on the ILC’s
agenda.
The then Director-General of the ILO, Michel Hansenne, made the
following comment on this:
“However, what is new in the situation
we are faced with today is that it would seem – and some
ILO officials have a very long memory – that this is the
first time in the history of the Organisation that a group has
decided not to participate in the drafting of the text of an instrument
which, by unanimous agreement of the groups, had been placed on
the agenda of the conference.”
No secrets about where we stand on this issue –
the title and aims of this brochure already make that quite clear.
Nonetheless, in what follows, we will attempt to weigh up the arguments
for and against in an objective way.
The employers thought that a Home Work Convention
would be premature, and inappropriate to homeworkers’ situation.
They were convinced that the situation of many homeworkers needs
to be improved, but they felt that a Recommendation, and not a Convention,
would be the right instrument for this. Unlike a Convention, a Recommendation
is not binding. The employers’ grounds for arguing that a
Convention was not the right means may be summarised as follows:
a) the definition of homeworkers and of intermediaries for home
work is not clear, particularly as regards the borderline between
them and self-employed homeworkers (pp. 210, 223)
b) a Home Work Convention would mean more superfluous bureaucracy
(pp. 211ff, 218)
c) a Convention would be damaging to entrepreneurs and would
prevent job creation (pp. 218, 224)
d) the Home Work Convention would not gain many ratifications
and would therefore help to weaken the ILO as an organisation
(pp. 212,218,226).
Regarding a)
The Chair of the Workers’ Group, a trade
union representative from the Netherlands, disputed the employers’
view that the definitition of homeworkers was unclear. On the contrary,
she argued that the definition was very clear and precise, and she
added:
“It is this very point which has always been
the problem with the application of other ILO Conventions to homeworkers.
It is too easy just to define large categories of homeworkers –
and especially the most vulnerable of them – as independent
or other workers, in such a way as to cause them not to fall within
the scope of labour protection.”
Remarks in similar vein were made by the representative
of the US unions. He said it was precisely their self-employed status,
which often consisted just of owning a sewing machine, that kept
homeworkers outside the protection of laws and regulations, even
though their conditions are far below the minimum conditions for
regular workers.
The government representative of Cyprus made it
clear that the point of departure for launching a discussion on
a Convention was that homeworkers all over the world were among
the workers enjoying the least protection.
Regarding b)
The argument that the Home Work Convention would
lead to more superfluous bureaucracy was also contradicted. The
trade union representatives from the Netherlands and Israel and
the government representative from India made it clear that the
governments of countries that ratify the Home Work Convention do
not need to set up any additional monitoring bodies. Rather, they
could develop their own appropriate solutions and/or incorporate
them into their existing systems. The Israeli government representative
described the Convention as “simple and modest.”
Regarding c)
In other contexts too, the employer side often
argues that protective measures for working people lead to the destruction
or non-creation of jobs. As far as the Home Work Convention is concerned,
the union representatives from Israel and Bangladesh and the government
representative from India pointed out that, while home work does
bring with it the benefits of flexibility for both sides, employers
and workers, it also entails the great risk that flexibility can
often be achieved only through the use of child labour. The government
representative from India explained that the Home Work Convention
would help to make home work a “mainstream” occupation,
thus leading to higher productivity and employment and more spending
power. Home workers would be able to send their children to school,
instead of their having to help with the work. Reputable employers
would be protected against destructive competition which did not
abide by these standards:
“It (the Convention) would help to bring
them (the homeworkers) into the mainstream of the labour market.
(…) If the poverty of the homeworker is alleviated and the
position of women is improved along with their wages, homeworkers
would have the means to send their children to school and should
no longer need to be assisted by their children in order to earn
a living. (…) Improvement in the conditions of work leads
to improvement in productivity and overall performance. By setting
a floor for basic standards, the Convention would protect reputable
employers from the destructive competition of home work which does
not meet those standards. Better wages would improve purchasing
power, which in turn will help in expanding markets, stimulating
investment and increasing employment.”
Regarding d)
Not only did the employers say that a Home Work
Convention was superfluous, they also argued that the reputation
of the ILO as a whole would suffer as a result of unnecessary Conventions.
This led the worker representatives from the USA to remark that,
though almost all the ILO Conventions were indeed also applicable
to homeworkers, the reality was different. The Home Work Convention
would, they contended, ensure that the core labour standards were
also applied in the case of homeworkers. It was pointed out that
the adoption of a Convention at the ILC and the ratification of
Conventions were two different things. The government representative
from India cited cases where his country had ratified Conventions
that had been adopted twenty years previously. As the German worker
representative pointed out:
“The vote here and the national ratifications
remain two different procedures. If member States could only adopt
Conventions if they were able to immediately ratify and apply them
at home, then many Conventions would never be adopted or ratified.”
It should be added that there has been a growing
trend towards ratifications in recent years, particularly of Conventions
that already date back quite some time. Within the past five years,
only three new Conventions have been adopted by the ILC.
In the final discussion, it was pointed out several
times that the Home Work Convention is an instrument created in
response to new developments in the global division of labour. Even
those countries which now believe that such precarious employment
relationships do not play any part in their own economies could
very soon have to face changed realities. And indeed, at the 2002
ILC, which had “decent work and the informal economy”
on its agenda, it was noted that the area of the informal economy
is growing all over the world.
In conclusion, we would note that, for an outside
observer with the benefit of nine years’ hindsight, the employers’
dismissive attitude is and remains incomprehensible, particularly
as they were ready to put this topic on the agenda in the form of
a discussion on a Convention. However, trade union participants
in the Conference complain of an increasingly hostile employer attitude
to social standards anchored in international law, and of growing
attempts to undo the existing minimum standards.
In our view, the developments of recent years tell
their own tale. Reputable employers, even in their own interests,
can have nothing against minimum standards. On the contrary, minimum
standards ensure a level playing field. No reputable employer can
compete against child labour. It is up to governments to ensure
that inhuman working practices, such as forced labour, child labour
or socially unprotected employment, do not serve as a competitive
advantage.
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