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.”
In Panama, a seminar was held for the purpose of engaging ministries in reporting preparation.
It is reporting that in Panama, the involvement of ministries not directly responsible for ILS reporting can sometimes pose challenges. A seminar on the subject of international labour standard being reported on was recently planned and held with representatives from relevant other ministries in order to get their involvement in the reporting process.
In Swaziland, ILS-responsible focal points are designated in other ministries.
In Swaziland, it has been reported that “focal persons” have been appointed to deal with ILS matters in the relevant ministries, who come to coordination meetings when invited.
ILS obligations can be expedited when it is possible to call upon a specific person in another ministry or department who has been given responsibility – and hopefully some authority – for dealing with ILS matters.
Ms. Gloria Beatriz Gaviria Ramos, Chief, Oficina de Cooperación y Relaciones Internacionales, Ministerio del Trabajo, Colombia describes practices of meetings with other ministries.
“Our Ministry holds meetings with other Ministries to discuss the observations (the observations made by the Committee of Experts) and examine ways to overcome them and respond to them in the respective reports.”
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.