Consultations focussed on three fields of action:
- Strategies for more and better employment in industrialised countries
- Broadening and strengthening social protection in developing countries and emerging economies
- Corporate social responsibility.
Müntefering stressed the fact that improvements on the social front accelerate economic success. The final declaration also underlines the importance of social protection for globalisation. Social protection systems need to be based on universal values such as social equity, fairness and justice, it states.
Photo: REGIERUNGonline/Härtrich
Family photoAt the same time the declaration regrets that no notable progress has been made in developing countries and emerging economies on implementing these standards and social protection programmes. This is partly because each country can itself decide how it organises and finances its social protection system.We must keep appealing to reason, and do all we can to encourage compliance with agreements made, declared Müntefering. This, he said, is the only way to ensure that international core labour standards are finally implemented worldwide.
Globalisation – an opportunity and a challenge at once
The Ministers agreed that globalisation can and must be shaped at political level. Governments and international organisations are called on to act. But the two sides of industry, private businesses and of course civil society also have their part to play.
In the G8 nations, more flexibility is needed to create more and better jobs. At the same time every employee must be assured of an appropriate and safe workplace, according to the final declaration.
Work must pay, and the unemployed must have an incentive to find work. The experience of older members of the workforce must be better harnessed. This is the only way to counter the problems of demographic change.
The responsibility of industry
Private businesses with international operations also have a responsibility to help achieve a more socially just world. It is of course primarily the task of governments to ensure that human rights are respected and that labour standards are complied with, but companies can go beyond what is merely required by law, in the form of voluntary commitments.
They can promote
- Acting in line with the rule of law
- Transparency
- Good corporate governance
- Anti-corruption
- Good working relations between employers and the workforce.
In Dresden, representatives of the G8 nations, the EU Commission, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and socially committed private businesses met.
