Ms. Dorine Monica Brooks, Director, International Labour Agencies and Information, ILO Desk Officer, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Jamaica contributes practice on involvement and follow up.
“The Social Partners are usually invited to take part in all events (training, seminars, conferences etc.). In addition, every document of importance is circulated all both areas, followed by telephone calls to ensure that documents are received.”
In Turkmenistan, ILO representatives are called on to help engage high level social partners in ILS matters.
It is reported that in Turkmenistan, to explain the importance of ILS to employers and workers on a high level, representatives of the ILO are needed to engage the social partners.
In Chad, an ILS library is open for consultation.
In Chad, it is reported that the service responsible for international labour standards has established and maintains a library with documents relevant to ILS, including government reports. The library can be consulted by labour inspectors who take note of ILS provisions in the questions they deal with in their work.
Ms. Delia S. Palomar, Chief Labor and Employment Officer, International Relations and Cooperation Division, Department of Labor and Employment, Philippines, describes the consultation process followed in the Philippines (December, 2011).
“So for the past six years we have been doing quite well in our reporting obligations due to the fact that we subjected our reports to tripartite consultation, aside from the government consultation that we have upon the first draft. So after we do our first draft and consulted government organizations, we submit our report to the technical Executive committee of the tripartite industrial peace council for their inputs and their comments and as soon as we get their comments, we consolidate all of them into a draft Philippines report which is submitted to the ILO.
For ILS reporting, we… the consultation process takes upon receiving the request from the ILO, we coordinate with the concerned agencies, we write them a letter requesting for their inputs on the reports being requested by the ILO. As soon as we receive their inputs, we prepare them and transmit them, transmit to them (the agencies) through email for validation, after which we call them for a meeting, a consultation meeting to validate their responses. And also if other agencies have inputs to contribute on those reports.
In cases where we don’t have the answers we need, we try to research and we draft the replies and send it to the concerned officers for validation if we… huh if that is the correct reply and if they have more inputs to add. But sometimes that is one of the challenges that we are having in preparing the reports due to the various loads of other officers but as much as possible we try to submit to them the report for their proper answer.”
Special thanks got to the Honorable Secretary of Labor and Employment of the Philippines, and the Director and staff of the International Labor Affairs Bureau of the Department of Labor of the Philippines for their generous cooperation in the production of this video.
Ms. Maria Consuela Baki, Mediator/Arbiter, Bureau of Labor Relations, Department of Labor and Employment, Philippines, describes consultative processes from a perspective outside of that of the bureau directly responsible for preparing reports (December, 2011).
“Hi, I am Maria Consula Baki, I am a Mediator/Arbiter of the Bureau of Labor Relations of DOLE. The Bureau of Labor Relations work with ILAB relative to contentions of the International Labour Organization, that’s why we were invited for this session.
We are the tripartite monitoring body of the Department of labor and with that we act as the secretariat for the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council. We calendar consultations with both the employers’ sector and the workers’ sector. We try to meet with the sectors every month or as may be necessary because of circumstances that may arise, so if there is a report that is needed by the ILO, we try to conduct meetings with the sectors as much as necessary. As the secretariat for the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council, we provide ILAB with reports that we collect from other government agencies as well. Everything pertaining to international labour affairs or anything pertaining to conventions of the ILO we coordinate with ILAB and then if there is a contention like for the domestic work or the maritime labour convention, the ILAB tries to invite us for possible consultations and then they forward us the convention and then we set that convention for consultation with the labour sector and the workers sector through the TIPC. We have a very close coordination because I think the Department of labor is not only concerned with labour matters locally but also we situate that we take care of the labour factor overseas, so we see the importance of coordinating with ILAB for us to be able to formulate policies that are both applicable both local and overseas, applicable to both local and overseas workers as well. The fact that we have a lot of overseas workers I think it is the general mandate of the department of labor to formulate policies that protect both its local and overseas workers so through coordinating with ILAB, we are able to foresee changes in the working conditions outside of the country and then we can actually address them from here.”
Special thanks to the the Honorable Secretary of Labor and Employment of the Philippines, and the Director and staff of the International Labor Affairs Bureau of the Department of Labor of the Philippines for their generous cooperation in the production of this video.
In Macau, all ministries are contacted in May each year in respect of ILS reporting.
In Macau, the Department responsible for ILS matters systematically contacts by letter, email and telephone all departments responsible for subjects on which ILS reports are due under Article 22 of the ILO Constitution.
Ms. Gloria Beatriz Gaviria Ramos, Chief, Oficina de Cooperación y Relaciones Internacionales, Ministerio del Trabajo, Colombia describes the benefit of a single office responsible for coordination.
“The Ministry of Labour is responsible for coordinating everything concerned with international labour standards and compliance with the Conventions, and has a coordination office for this purpose, which is responsible for notifying all other stakeholders who are connected with certain Conventions, to ensure compliance with the Conventions and also for the drawing up of reports.”
In Panama, ILS-responsible management promote training in ILS for other officials.
It has been reported that in Panama ILS-responsible managers promote the training of government officials outside the scope of their immediate management responsibility with a view to improving inter-departmental and inter-ministerial understanding.
In Tajikistan, very high level officials are invited to ILS-related events.
In Tajikistan, key representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, President’s Office, Parliament and legislative centres and the President are invited to ILS-related events, whether related to reporting or not. This is done to help assure that they are fully aware about ILS principles and sufficiently knowledgeable to provide support when it is needed. It is also useful to use Minister to Minister contact in promoting ILS-related matters. This can all be helpful in managing reporting.
Ms. Gloria Beatriz Gaviria Ramos, Chief, Oficina de Cooperación y Relaciones Internacionales, Ministerio del Trabajo, Colombia tells how interagency agreements in Guatemala encourage support and action.
“Guatemala draws up interagency agreements over information sharing, and information provision. We thought this was an interesting method, not only because of the cooperation factor, but it imposes a certain mandatory aspect, since we sometimes struggle to make information available to the Ministry of Labour and also to comply with certain aspects, which are covered by the Conventions. Having written agreements is binding for the parties, it is binding for one party and also for the other party.”