Want to tackle inequality? Shore up collective bargaining

Posted on 3 March 2015 by ILO Blog

Susan Hayter, Senior Specialist, Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining

From the forums in Davos to the protests taking place on the streets: inequality is the defining challenge of our time. It hurts economic growth, denies workers their fair share and robs families of their hopes for a better future. The sources are well known.

As a new volume just released by the ILO shows, they include a lack of job opportunities, low wages, and inadequate social policies. They set off a domino effect, which harms the well-being of workers and their families today while closing the door to education and opportunities for generations tomorrow. Continue reading →

Can cooperatives deliver more jobs and greater social inclusion in a changing world of work?

Posted on 18 February 2015 by ILO Blog

Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO’s Co-operatives Unit and Waltteri Katajamaki, Junior Professional Officer – ILO Cooperatives Unit

The cooperative enterprise model is seeing a renaissance around the world. The turnover of the largest 300 cooperatives in the world over the last 3 years has grown by 11.6 per cent to reach 2.2 trillion USD in 2012. Preliminary data from 76 countries points to more than 250 million people working in co-operatives. The International Co-operative Alliance recently postulated that cooperatives would be the fastest growing form of enterprise by 2020.

This is an ambitious goal, even taking into account the momentum of the cooperative movement in the aftermath of the crisis and following the 2012 UN International Year of Cooperatives. Their continued appeal in follow up to the global ‘great recession’ suggests it might not be off target.

Continue reading →

The SMART way to show your love on Valentine’s Day

Posted on 13 February 2015 by ILO Blog

Kofi Amekudzi, Technical Specialist, ILO/AIDS

Young people, including young workers, are presented with a vast array of smart options in their daily lives. Our phones are smart phones. Our TVs are smart TVs. Our watches are smart watches. But our LOVE needs to be SMART too.

Today, 35 million people live with HIV on all continents and in all regions of the world. More than half of them don’t know it and are likely to be sexually active.

Continue reading →