Decent work

1 March 2007

Businesses and employers face a new challenge to achieve higher standards for providing productive work that delivers a fair income. 

 

This follows the Parliamentary launch of Decent Work: Charting our Progress, marking the beginning of a campaign to identify and promote decent work.

 

New Zealand businesses, trade unions and others will now be able to benchmark New Zealand’s progress against a set of critical success factors posted on the Department of Labour’s Decent Work website.

 

The website is a snapshot of where New Zealand is now with regards to Decent Work, says Business New Zealand employment relations policy manager Paul Mackay. 

 

“The website lists ‘Critical Success Factors’ that help identify and prioritise areas that you can improve.  You can also access advice, resources, information and assistance,” Mackay says.

 

Critical success factors

 

1.  There is a comprehensive and appropriate legislative framework, including a minimum employment code.
2.  Government mandates and supports appropriate social protections such as accident compensation, health, income support, and basic education.
3.  Standards are enforceable, institutionally supported, and politically accepted.
4.  New Zealand signs up to and complies with international instruments, such as International Labour Conventions and Recommendations, treaties, and bilateral trade agreements.
5.  Education equips people with skills they can transfer to the workplace, and opportunities exist for life-long learning and targeted skill enhancement.
6.   The capacity and capability of all sectors and participants is built and supported.
7.   There is investment in appropriate technology and other capital items.
8.   There is high participation in the workforce.
9.    Equal opportunity is expected and delivered.
10.  More quality jobs are created.
11.  People have real choices about work opportunities.
12.  Constructive employment relationships exist.
13.  Employers and unions understand the value of constructive relationships through engagement and partnership.
14.  Workplaces are productive.
15.  Workplaces are safe and healthy.
16.  People are satisfied with their working lives because the organisation of their work supports the need to balance work requirements with societal and family responsibilities.
17.  Strategic and other labour market planning is based on sound knowledge about the labour market.
18.  Relevant information is communicated and accessible to those who will benefit from it.
19.  Through strong, representative, and accountable social partners, tripartism and social dialogue (consultation and exchange of information between representatives of governments, employers, and workers) are an integral part of the way decisions affecting the labour market are made.
20.  The contribution of engagement with and between all sectors and participants at all levels is valued and promoted.
21.  The processes for social dialogue and engagement at all levels have real authority and impact.
22.  New Zealand engages internationally, whether through tripartite, government, or private processes or initiatives, for example through membership of organisations such as the International Labour Organisation and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Decent work delivers a number of things that are good for business, Mackay says. “If people are happy and satisfied at work, and if they believe they’re doing work of real value, they’re likely to be more productive. 

 

“These days, when the margins not just for profitability but survivability are becoming so narrow, then the human factor becomes more important.”

 

Decent Work affirms New Zealand’s support for the International Labour Organisation’s Millenium Development Goals.

Decent Work: Charting our progress is a joint initiative between the Department of Labour, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand.

 

 

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New Zealand has taken the lead in promoting the idea of having a national perspective on Decent Work throughout the Asia Pacific region, particularly as a way of demonstrating that Decent Work is a way that enables countries to progress and develop, said Minister of Labour Ruth Dyson at the scheme’s launch.

 

“New Zealand's involvement in this initiative is an opportunity, as a founding member of the ILO, to support a worldwide goal with far-reaching consequences. It also offers New Zealand significant social and economic benefits. 

 

“In the current environment of labour and skills shortages, it is vital that New Zealand’s workplaces are attractive to workers and the Decent Work initiative supports this goal,” Ms Dyson said.

 

 

 

 

Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said at the launch that it was essential to go beyond minimum entitlements and place decent, quality work at the centre of our social and economic development policies.   “The International Labour Organisation promotes Decent Work as an organising framework firmly rooted in the core principles that labour is not a commodity and that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere,” Ms Beaumont said.