“Trade unions have shrunk in many parts of the world and according to a national representation security Index estimated for 99 countries, most workers have a very low probability of having a secure voice in their labour market relationship,” states ILO’s new report, ‘Economic Security for a Better World’, launched on 1 October 2004, at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Guy Standing, Director, ILO Socio-Economic Security Programme, addressing a group of selected audience during the South Asia launch of the Report, said, “Existing forms of traditional trade unions cannot address the concerns and needs of the 21st century. There is a felt need for new organisations to emerge, a new form of collective representation to come into fore, to address the issues”.
The Report considers de-unionisation, (reduction in the percentage of workers in trade unions) which prevails all over the world, as the worst news for workers. It further states that in some industrialised countries the unionisation rate has shrunk below 10 per cent.
Responses collected during the surveys conducted for the Report, clearly indicate an absence of trust in unions in many countries. Most workers, when asked for their views on unions, were either unaware of their existence or skeptical about their value. The Report emphasises this as a trend in developing countries, such as Bangladesh and parts of India and Pakistan.
Deepak Nayyar, Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi, in his introductory remarks at the formal launch of the Report, said, “This study seeks to explore the social and economic dimensions of human security. In doing so, it unpacks the components, such as income security or representation security, to examine global trends. The analysis and evidence show that globalisation has been associated with erosions in critical areas of economic security. Yet basic security can, and does, improve the well being of human kind. This is the essence of our quest for a better world”.
Professor Ajit Singh, from Cambridge University, while talking on subject - The Globalisation of Insecurity: An Asian Perspective said “As long as there is low economic growth with intense competitions, workers are bound to be insecure. Globalisation does not allow free movement of labour”. According to the findings of the Report, the pattern and trends in national economic security in Asia is affected by the differential experience of the two mega - countries, China and India, both of which have experienced higher economic growth in the globalisation period and a decline in economic instability.
According to the Report, work insecurity - the lack of protection for workers’ health and wellbeing in the form of work-related accidents, illness and stress, lack of workers’ compensation and paid sick leave, lack of maternity protection, excessive hours of work, etc, remains one of the worst aspects of economic insecurity around the world. It estimates that two million workers die from work-related accidents and diseases each year.
The Report also looks into the gender aspect and the findings prove that women face greater economic insecurity. The People’s Security Surveys (PSS) conducted in 15 countries around the world, which feature in the Report, state that women not only have more problems procuring paid employment and generally receive lower wages and fewer benefits than men, they also suffer from higher levels of irregular payments. Often, they have no right over their earnings and have to hand it over to their husbands or other family members. The report further states that in most countries, probability of upward mobility is greater for men than for women, and probability of downward mobility is greater for women. Discriminatory recruitment practices against women are more common among small firms and greater in private than in public (state) enterprises.
After interviewing more than 48,000 people across the world, the ILO is able to declare that economic security promotes happiness and is beneficial for growth and social stability. This Report, for the first time, makes an attempt to measure social and economic security of individuals and countries around the world.
The ILO analysis is that conventional social security systems are inappropriate for responding to the new forms of systemic risk and uncertainty that characterises the emerging global economic system. Accordingly, governments and international agencies should promote universal, rights-based schemes that provide people with basic economic security, rather than resort to selective, means-tested schemes. The ILO Economic Security Report thus concludes, “What is worrying is that there has been a powerful erosion of the main forms of voice in the world of work in the era of globalisation.