Trade and Employment From Myths to Facts - International Labour ...

Trade and Employment: From Myths to Facts
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Box 4-6: India: National Commission for Enterprise
in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS)
One of the major highlights of the Fourth Report of NCEUS (2007) was the official
quantification of unorganized and informal workers, defined as those who do not
have employment security, work security and social security. These workers are engaged
not only in the unorganized sector but in the organized sector as well.
Examination of the regulatory framework for ensuring minimum conditions of work
for unorganized wage workers shows that: (1) there is a lack of comprehensive and
appropriate regulations in India; and (2) even where regulations exists, they are inadequately
and ineffectively implemented. The Commission reviewed and analysed
the various perspectives on a comprehensive legislative framework for unorganized
wage workers and made appropriate recommendations. The Commission established
at a very high government practice level the need to make separate policies for
informal workers and women workers.
Source: NCEUS, 2007.
Box 4-7: International labour standards
Throughout the ILO, a system of international labour standards and labour Conventions
was developed during the last century. Workers’ rights include both core labour standards
around which there is widespread international agreement and other basic
rights. The core rights, encompassed in international Conventions, include freedom
of association and the right to collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of forced
or compulsory labour; elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and
occupation; and the effective abolition of child labour. The longstanding commitment
of the ILO to protecting the core rights of all workers irrespective of where they work
was reinforced in 1998 when the International Labour Conference unanimously
adopted a Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work that applies
to all those who work, regardless of their employment relationship. Most recently, the
ILO has explicitly incorporated the informal economy in its policy framework called
“Decent Work”.
Most ILO standards apply to all workers or, if targeted at workers in the formal
economy, have explicit provisions for extension to other categories of workers. One
ILO Convention – the Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177) – focuses on a specific
category of worker in the informal economy: home workers or industrial outworkers
who work from their homes. And two ILO Conventions – one on rural workers, the
other on indigenous and tribal peoples – focuses on groups who are often in the informal
economy.
Source: ILO: Decent work and the informal economy: Abstracts of working papers (Geneva, 2002).