UN panel wants globalization to work for workers
( 2002-02-06 12:07 ) (7 )

The United Nations labor arm will soon set up a commission to explore how globalization can better serve the needs of employees as well as their bosses, its director said on Tuesday.

"We know we have to move into a globalization that benefits more people, but we have not done enough work to know how to go about it," Juan Somavia, director-general of the International Labor Organization, told Reuters.

Fresh from speeches to both the World Economic Forum in New York City and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Somavia said global crises typically lead to financial and monetary adjustments rather than steps to promote productivity and job creation.

And while business and government have long agreed that labor protections are fundamental to economic development, "we know that there are policies being implemented that don't take us in that direction," he said.

For example, workers' rights can be overlooked when the monolithic corporation of the past is replaced by a more flexible structure in which tasks are farmed out to networks of subcontractors, he said.

"None of these things is wrong. They're just unbalanced," he said. "We all know we don't have quick-fix solutions to the problem. But let's get a dialogue going."

Somavia, a former Chilean diplomat, said the commission would be formally unveiled later this month. It will have a two-year lifespan and about 18 members drawn from the business world, trade unions, governments and interest groups, he said.