ILO Governing Body - INS/6: EU Statement on Proposals for including safe and healthy working conditions in the ILO’s framework of fundamental principles and rights at work

Thank you Chair,

I speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries Turkey, the Republic of North Macedonia*, Montenegro*, Serbia* and Albania*, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, align themselves with this statement.

We align with the IMEC Statement.

We thank the Office for the paper on Proposals for including safe and healthy working conditions in the ILO’s framework of fundamental principles and rights at work.

Following the revised procedural roadmap agreed in March, we are asked at this session of the Governing Body to address process related questions and possible forms of the decision of the Conference, including the placement of a technical item on the agenda of the 110th Session (2022) of the Conference.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the importance of occupational health and safety for workers’ life and wellbeing. The pandemic has had a profound impact on people, economies, and jobs. The EU and its Member States recognise safe and healthy working conditions as an integral building block of a Human Centred response and recovery from the pandemic.

We support the approach that the International Labour Conference would take a decision to amend the 1998 Declaration in order to add a principle, which would have the effect of putting all principles on an equal footing and thereby ensure coherence across the fundamental rights. Adding a new principle also entails assisting members to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the ILO Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental rights.

We strongly support the need to recognise safe and healthy working conditions as a fundamental principle and right at work. We support decision point (a) to place “Inclusion of safe and healthy working conditions in the ILO’s framework of fundamental principles and rights at work” on the agenda of the 110th Session (2022) of the Conference as a new technical item and we can support the agenda item title as proposed by the Office in paragraph 36 of the paper. We agree that the amendment should be limited to paragraph 2 of the Declaration and consider that the most efficient route would be, in the first instance, to refer the matter to the General Affairs Committee, and if required, through the suspension of Standing Orders and the creation of an ad-hoc technical committee, as advised by the Office.

We thank the Office for providing extra briefing sessions on this paper. As the Office outlined, we strongly agree that as a non-binding Conference resolution, an amended 1998 Declaration would not give rise to new legal obligations, directly or indirectly, for States parties to Free Trade Agreements. We are, however, mindful that concerns have been raised by some ILO constituents in this regard. With a view to progressing this important matter, we would welcome if the Office could propose an appropriate wording/clause to insert into the Resolution which would clearly indicate that existing free trade agreements are unaffected.  

We note that protection against disease and injury and adequate protection for the life and health of workers referenced in the ILO Constitution and the Declaration of Philadelphia make the protection of workers’ health an integral part of ILO membership.

As previously stated we prefer “safe and healthy working conditions” already expressed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and close to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, but look forward to further discussions on the matter in order to find the best way of expressing the said principle.  

While we have previously expressed our preference for Conventions C155 and C187 as the key conventions, we understand that the decision on which conventions should be deemed fundamental can be made subsequent to the Declaration, thus allowing us to move ahead as we committed to do in 2019.

We thank the Office for providing a draft Resolution for consideration.

We support the decision point and the amendment proposed by IMEC. We do not support the amendments proposed by the government of Brazil.

Thank you, Chair.

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*The Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.