Working for a Social Protection Floor

Ellen Ehmke

Andreas Bodemer

Worldwide, 75% of the population have no or insufficient access to social security provision. Despite the long record of social security as a human right, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 22, 25) and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (Art. 9), its implementation has been widely disregarded.

Many pretexts have been given to excuse this severe injustice. Prominently, the competitiveness of a globalised economy has allegedly caused a scarcity of financial resources available for social policies. On the one hand, the assumed negative effects of social security on economic growth have served as reason to cut back globally.

Supporting Dissent versus Being Dissent

Steven Toff

Jamie McCallum

When the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) began on September 17th 2011, few could have predicted the wave of occupations that would soon sweep the rest of the country and indeed much of the world in what has been referred to as the American Fall. While it remains to be seen how this inchoate movement will mature, it has so far exceeded everyone’s calculations - it is the first time since the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle that tens of thousands in the US are taking to the street for economic reasons. Average Americans, many of whom have long understood the moral and economic turpitude at the root of Wall Street, are now expanding that stance to make a wholesale critique of neoliberalism and questioning some of the most foundational principles of capitalism.

Decent Work 2.0

Frank Hoffer

Last month, Juan Somavia, the long serving Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) announced his departure in 2012.

As head of the ILO, he introduced the Decent Work Agenda in 1999 to re-focus the ILO and make it relevant for the 21st century. Twelve years later, the concept of ‘Decent Work’ is firmly established in the global debate and as an objective of national policy. It appears in many documents of the multilateral system, the G20 and national policy fora. It generates millions of Google hits. It is the subject of much academic research and debate. It is enshrined in several ILO Conventions and Declarations, and the international trade union movement introduced the annual Decent Work Day to campaign for workers’ rights. ‘Decent Work’ is so ubiquitous in ILO documents that some cynics say: "Decent Work is the answer, whatever the question!"

New Economy vs. Old Ways

Goran Lukić

New buzz-words are entering into the traditional economic landscape of industrial relations. Managers and politicians who want to be in touch with new economic trends are using terms such as 'green economy', 'renewable energy' and 'corporate social responsibility (CSR)'. Another concept that is being touted as a 'big idea; is 'fair-trade' or 'Creating Shared Value (CSV)'. It seems that these terms are being translated into real action. According to an HSBC Global report, 19% of anti-crisis measures in France were put into the renewable energy sector in 2009, while 13% of Germany's 2009 anti-crisis measures were put into green investment and green tax reform. Q-Cells, a manufacturer of photovoltaic cells, which has its headquarters in the German city Bitterfeld-Wolfen, began its operations in 1999 with 19 employees, and soon had more than 1 000 people on its payroll.[1]