LABOUR: HOME WORK CONVENTION READ FOR VOTE AT ILC

10:39 AM Jun 19, 1996

LABOUR: HOME WORK CONVENTION READ FOR VOTE AT ILC
Geneva 19 June (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The International Labour Conference is due to vote Thursday at a plenary on a Convention on home work and a related Recommendation.

The Convention faces an uncertain prospect about its adoption in the plenary where a twothirds majority is needed for adoption. In the Committee stage the employers had refused to participate in the framing of a Convention, but had done so on the Convention.

It is not clear whether the employers would join hands with some of the governments to deny the requisite majority for adoption.

But even if adopted, the Convention's entry into force is equally uncertain, conference sources said. Many governments are unlikely to join the Convention, the sources said. While thus weakening the aim, it will still remain a normative element.

Under the convention, States parties to it are required to adopt, implement and periodically review a national policy on home work aimed at improving the situation of home workers.

The national policy "shall promote" as far as possible, equality of treatment between home workers and other wage earners, taking into account the special characteristics of home and conditions applicable to the same or similar type of work carried out in an enterprise.

The equality of treatment to be promoted is to be in relation to:

the home workers right to establish or join organizations of their choice and participate in the activities of such organizations; protection against discrimination in employment and occupation; protection in field of occupational safety and health; remuneration; statutory social security protection; access to training; minimum age for admission to employment or work; and maternity protection.

Home work is defined to mean work carried out by a person, a homeworker:

* in his or her home or in other premises of his or her choice, other than the workplace of the employer,

* for remuneration,

* which results in a product or service as specified by the employer, irrespective of who provides the equipment, material or other inputs used,

Unless the person has the degree of autonomy and of economic independence necessary to be considered an independent worker under national laws, regulations or court decisions.

Persons with employee status do not become homeworkers simply by occasionally performing their work as employees at home, rather than their usual work places.

And an employer means a person, natural or legal, who either directly or through an intermediary gives out home work in pursuance of the business activity.

The national policy on home work is to be implemented by means of laws and regulations, collective agreements, arbitration awards or other appropriate manner. The Convention also provides for a system of inspection and adequate remedies, including penalties, where appropriate.

In the discussions in the Committee on the provision of the Convention that it would not affect more favourable conventions applicable to home workers, the ILO Office said that Convention on home work should be considered a Convention of general applicability covering a specific form or condition of work similar to the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention.

But the exchanges in the committee did not make clear the implications of the ILO office statement that it is a general applicability one, and whether this implied that it is a universal standard whether or not a country is a party to it -- an argument advanced about the social clause and core conventions.