Multilateral institutions should help India to create decent work environment: ILO's Richard Samans
India’s G20 presidency will address some of the key labour related issues including the low female labour force participation rate, Richard Samans, the G20 Sherpa of the International Labour Organisation said. In an interview with Yogima Seth Sharma, he said multilateral institutions should help India and other developing countries to build capacities to provide decent work and social protection to its workers.
Edited excerpts:
Countries world over are fixing wage standards and standards for working conditions for their trading partners. How do you see this impacting the workforce in India and other developing nations?
This has been a long-standing controversial issue in the international trade regime.
As these core labor standards are universal human rights that the world has agreed to, trading between nations doesn’t mean there should be a derogation down on a safe and healthy work environment for labour.
Secondly, the issue is, how do you constructively engage with trading partners on the lack of capacity to implement these set standards. I would argue that is both morally unjustifiable, but it’s also economically probably short sighted in the long run, because a healthier, more empowered and enabled workforces are more productive.
At the end of the day, it really should be the government that provides a level playing field within the country.
