January 2006

1. Article

   Environmentally sustainable development: the WILL is there

   30 January 2006

   NAIROBI (ILO Online) - The Workers Initiative for a Lasting Legacy (WILL 2006), organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the ILO, SustainLabour and the UN Global Compact, held here the first ever trade union assembly on labour and the environment last week. ILO Online spoke with Lene Olsen from the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities who participated in the assembly.

2. Article

   Maritime Session of the International Labour Conference (7-23 February 2006): The global seafarer: mixed fortunes mirror global trends

   29 January 2006

   Nearly 1.2 million seafarers work for the world's shipping industry. Aboard the world's cruise ships, crews often represent 20 nationalities or more. While the current shipbuilding boom has created strong demand for officers worldwide, the trend towards increasingly automated vessels also reduces the need for ratings. The ILO now heads for a new Maritime Labour Convention reflecting the needs of a globalized shipping industry. If adopted, the standard will consolidate and update more than 65 international labour standards adopted since the 1920s. Journalist Ian Gill reports from the Philippines.

3. Article

   Which is best for the economy: employment stability or employment flexibility?

   20 January 2006

   A recent article in the ILO's International Labour Review analyzes the relationship between employment stability and productivity in six major sectors in 13 European countries. According to the authors, both, extensive and short job tenure can produce adverse affects on productivity. They propose a policy of "protected mobility" on the labour market, together with active labour market policies seeking to combine both flexibility and security. ILO online spoke with Peter Auer, co-author of the article.

4. Video

   Vocational Training in Denmark

   19 January 2006

   One of the major themes at the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos is on the future of jobs, but according to a new report from the International Labour Organization, that future relies heavily on the ability of workers to continually upgrade their skills as ILO TV explains.

5. Video

   Denmark: Port State Control

   19 January 2006

   Long before talk of globalization, seafarers lived and worked in a globalized world, with working conditions subject to 60 different labour conventions and recommendations. The International Labour Organisation has now brought all the different rules and regulations together under one maritime labour convention. ILO TV goes on board a North Sea oil tanker in Denmark to check that all is ship-shape.

6. 

   Article

   The Lego experience: "Putting flexibility and security together"

   13 January 2006

   Workers who are facing layoffs may want to know why employees at Danish toymaker Lego don't worry too much if their jobs are outsourced. It has to do with what the International Labour Office and others call "flexicurity". ILO Online reports from the Lego toy factory in Denmark.

7. 

   Video

   A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour

   10 January 2006

   How does someone get caught in the trap of forced labour? From the rainforests of Peru to the meat factories of Germany, ILO TV tells the stories of men and women forced to labour, and shows what is being done globally to combat this modern day slavery.

8. 

   Article

   Asbestos: the iron grip of latency

   10 January 2006

   The ILO estimates that 100,000 people die each year from work-related asbestos exposure. Asbestos-caused cancers will kill at least 15,000 people in Japan in the next five years, and up to 100,000 people in France over the next 20 to 25 years. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of injury claims have been filed since the 1970s for deaths, cancers and other health problems related to asbestos exposure, bankrupting dozens of U.S. companies. ILO online spoke with Jukka Takala, Director of the ILO InFocus Programme SafeWork.

9. 

   Article

   Working out of Disaster: Tsunami, one year after

   06 January 2006

   On the morning of 26 December 2004 a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia triggered a series of tsunami waves that struck the coastal regions of Asia and Africa. In Asia, the coastal areas of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand bore the brunt of the damage. The ILO, together with the governments, employers' and workers' organizations in these four countries has been engaged in its largest-ever income generation and employment creation effort, helping to restore the livelihoods of people affected. To mark the first year after the disaster the ILO has documented the lives of those people affected by the disaster and their efforts to get back to work quickly and rebuild their lives

10. Publication

    Free trade agreements and labour rights: Recent developments

    01 January 2006

    Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry and Eric Gravel - International Labour Review, Vol. 145 (2006), No. 3