Rethinking the fight against poverty and inequalities: The future of work and social protection

Good morning, everyone, and good day to all of those who are joining online. Thank you very much, Olivier, for that inspiring keynote, which I think has got everyone energized. As Olivier already said, my name is Shara Razavi, and I'm the Director of the Universal Social Protection Department until the end of June of this year, and then we have a number of mergers in the ILO. I'm very honored to have been asked by Olivier and colleagues to moderate the conversation among our panelists in this morning's session. I will first introduce the members of the panel, and I will keep this brief in the interest of time. But please do look at the documentation for the conference to be able to find more details about their very distinguished careers. So with me here this morning, I will start with the end on the left and then move forward, is Acristina Morni, who is the Director of Policy at the International Organization of Employers, the IOE. Next to her, I have Katarina Ivanovic-Knezevic, who is the Director of Social Rights and Inclusion, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion in the European Commission. Then on my right is Eveline Astor, who's the Director of Economic and Social Policies at the International Trade Union Confederation, the ITUC. And last but not least is Timothee Parrique, who is a researcher at HEC in University of Lausanne. Welcome to you all. I will be looking at my iPhone and I'm not checking messages. I'm going to have to keep time very strictly because I want to make sure that all the panelists get the full set of questions. and at the same time that we keep time for a Q&A after the panel. So I will be very strict and I would like all of you to stick to three minutes for each of the answers that you provide. And to kick us off, I want to just quickly maybe just say a few words about what we hope to achieve based on also what Olivier just said, some of the themes we will be picking up on. We want to examine how labor markets, social protection systems, and public services can be reoriented, as was mentioned, to tackle poverty, to reduce these rising levels of inequality, while reducing their dependence on economic growth. as the main engine for achieving the objectives that we all have, I think, highlighted this morning. To clarify these complex interactions, there are sort of three sets of issues that I hope you will be touching on in your responses, although we may not go into all of them to the same extent. One is this whole question of forces that produce income inequality, which is mainly driven by what happens, as we heard, in labor markets. That's what we call pre-distribution, including the relative income shares of labor and capital. And I hope some of you will have something to say about that. As well as, very importantly, the role that is played by the tax and transfer system In high-income countries, we refer to this as the welfare states, but more broadly, I would like to see this as social protection systems and public services. So the redistribution side and social investment side. Secondly, we want to look at labor market dynamics, and we want to see how labor markets tackle or tackling the mismatch between work that is valuable and sustains our societies and how this work actually gets rewarded. We know that sometimes and in many contexts, very valuable work, socially useful work, is often undervalued by labour markets. And there's a lot of work on the care economy, but also other sectors, the essential services that we all, and essential workers that we all applauded during the COVID crisis, but we know that that undervaluation of that work continues despite that applause that we heard, and how this socially useful work can be better rewarded by labor markets. And finally, the third set of issues around how countries can expand the fiscal space for universal social protection systems and public services while operating within planetary boundaries. this kind of being able to provide this by moving beyond growth as the only engine. It's a tall order, but let's hope that at least some of the issues can be tackled by the members of the panel this morning. So I want to start and kick us off with one question that I want to address to all four panel members. to really tell us from where you sit with your experience, your institutional location, what you think will be one of the biggest challenges in moving to a beyond growth approach. to eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities and really putting economies on a human rights economy path to sustainable societies and environmental sustainability, and what you think will be the main way of addressing that particular challenge that you see. And if I may, maybe I start with Tina. Three minutes.

Three minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much. And good morning, colleagues. I would like, first of all, just to thank the ILO, the Global Coalition for Social Justice Secretariat team. I know Sana, Emmanuel have been working hard behind the scenes under the leadership of Ms. Laura Thompson. And of course, the OHSR for kindly co-organizing this event as well. Just to say a little bit about the IOE, the International Organization of Employers, where I represent, we're almost as old as the ILO, we're 106 years old this year, and we represent the voice of 50 million companies around the world in more than 160 countries, both developing and developed nations, and not just representing the voice of large companies, but also small and micro, micro and small medium enterprises. We are the secretariat of the employers group at the ILO. As you know, the ILO is a tripartite body and our members are employer organizations at the national level who more or less influence and shape labor legislation and policies at the national level. So to answer your very, very difficult question, Shara, within two minutes now, I think it's very difficult to answer, but I would like to highlight that from our side, at least from the perspective of business, there are a lot of challenges that we face these days, of course. Micro, small, medium enterprises do not normally get support. Geopolitics, of course, are taking, playing a big, important role. The trade tensions as well are also putting some pressures on supply chains where our enterprises operate. Informality is persistent. That's the elephant in the room where some governments are finding it difficult to discuss. 60% of the workforce are in the informal sector, and that's in some countries more than 90%. in the country, and that's a big challenge because that's linked to, of course, those people not having access to social protection, whereas you have formal enterprises who play by the rules. So that's really, really difficult. And of course, you have access to finance, skill shortages as other challenges as well faced by companies. The challenges we see as well is that there needs to be more recognition of the important role of employer organizations. They are the closest to the labor market and can provide honest and genuine perspectives on how to improve the labor market, how to tackle inequalities and poverty at the national level. They have many, many ideas, but in some countries, the governments go directly to the big companies. rather than the employer organization who play an important role and they represent the voice of smaller companies as well. So the challenge that we have there, and that's where we need the UN to help, and of course with the help of the ILO, to also invite them to these conversations because they can provide some ideas on social protection systems. I know Shahar, your whole team is very busy providing member states social partner support on that, but there are some ideas that they can share that could be really, really useful. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm not going to summarize the points in the interest of time. You heard what Tina had to say. I think very important points put on the table. And I want to turn to Katerina for your take on what the main challenge is and how to overcome it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Also, thank you for the three minutes. I'll try to be super speedy. So first of all, many thanks for inviting us to be able to speak on behalf of the European Commission, which is I would dare to say in such a crucial moment in time, because we will be launching in two weeks time, exactly today, two weeks time, the first ever EU anti-poverty strategy, which is not just going to be alone, EU anti-poverty strategy, it will have also two additional initiatives. that will be adopted at the same day. One is breaking the cycle of poverty for children and strengthening the European Child Guarantee. And the third is actually the Council recommendation on fighting housing exclusion. On the same day also, it's important to know that the strategy for the rights of the persons with disabilities will be adopted as well. So it makes really a big, big anti-poverty and let's say life in dignity package as we like to call it. But what is the diagnosis? You could imagine when we started preparing the first ever anti-poverty strategy, we had to dig really deep to assess what the root causes of poverty in the EU are, what are the elements that are exacerbating poverty in different stages of the life cycle. You will see in two weeks time, we took fully the life cycle approach. So we will start the diagnose and actions from early age. So we take children, children and families. We take them towards the adulthood and the young people, especially vulnerable young people like students or others who are living in precarious situations. Then we go to the work age population. and speak specifically about in-work poverty and also some other elements that are very relevant for the working age population. And here, when we speak about in-work, and you asked the first part of your question was what the diagnosis is, in Europe, we have seen many elements that do contribute to the poverty, such as 40% of working age people are employed, but in very low work intensity or precarious jobs are still quite visible with part-time workers twice as likely to face poverty. We have a quite visible pension gap, almost 30% of the gap when it comes to the pensions. We know that it doesn't happen at the age that woman retires. It's accumulation of everything that she has done during her lifetime and the career breaks due to mostly care responsibilities. So everything putting together and then we'll go to old age and to see what are the drivers of the old age poverty. All of this in order to help Member States to reach 2030 targets. 2030 targets for EU Member States is that we want to have at least 15 million people less in poverty than 2019, including at least 5 million children less. Now we are at around 3.4, 3.5 million less. We still only have four years to go and the really a large number of people to be supported, to be lifted out of the poverty. So stepping up the efforts. And then we have a very ambitious objective to help to eradicate poverty by 2050. This is what makes this strategy, I would say, intellectually stimulating to develop, but also at the same time very heavy to have in a meaningful manner something that would be reaching up to 2050.

Thank you, Katarina. And if I can move over to Evelyn for your take on the biggest challenge.

Sure. Well, first of all, I would want to start by saying that I would broadly share the diagnosis made earlier by Olivier de Schutter around the fact that economic policies are ignoring or at least deprioritizing very important questions in relation to jobs and job quality, around well-being and around economic distribution. And we are seeing that economic growth is ultimately not translating into measurable improvements in workers' wages, in working conditions and livelihoods. And I think there were a lot of very important statistics that were shared earlier in the introductions, but I would like to exemplify my point by highlighting the significant decline in the labor income share. over the last decades. This is the share of workers' earnings as a percentage of GDP. And what we are seeing is that this share has been declining in both developing and advanced economies. Workers' wages levels have relatively stagnated in relation to productivity, including labor productivity. And as a result, actually, if labor income share would have remained the same as 20 years ago, workers would be receiving 2.4 trillion US dollars annually than what they are actually receiving. We are also seeing jobless growth in some countries and regions. There was a really good report put out by the Africa Labor Research and Education Institute a couple of weeks ago. Looking at Sub-Saharan Africa around how sustained periods of GDP expansion has not led to any significant employment growth. Rather, we are seeing very high rates of informality of over 80% in the region and employment growth mainly being concentrated in informal and vulnerable sectors. I don't need to reiterate, I think, the figures around Poverty, just to say, one in five workers worldwide, despite being in the labor market, are still living in poverty by very conservative estimates. And I think we spoke earlier very much around low levels of social protection coverage, high levels of inequality, et cetera. But what I would like to emphasize is that these are trends that are not accidental. They're actually the byproduct of policies that have put the pursuit of growth actually at the pursuit of everything else, and a model, a global economic model that has promoted and enabled downward competition between countries and companies on the basis of low wages and labor standards. And I think Olivier really highlighted very well how some countries are using low wages and labor standards as a means of attracting foreign direct investment. looking at even lower minimum wages or exemptions to minimum wages or exemptions to freedom of association and collective bargaining within export processing zones, for instance. We are also entering a new era of deregulation. We are seeing this in Argentina, in Indonesia, in Bangladesh, often promoted also by some international institutions around deregulating or flexibilizing labor markets. in the name of enhancing competitiveness and growth. So, I mean, overall, what I want to emphasize in this first set of interventions is that we need a high road approach to economic policy, not a low road approach to economic policy. We need an approach that is based on the objectives of decent work, on fair distribution, and on the interests of people whom our economies are ultimately supposed to serve.

Okay, thank you. And over to Tibbette for three minutes.

Well, main obstacle in one word is capitalism. So we've talked about this monomania on economic growth we all agree on. But today, the pursuit of economic growth has become some kind of marketing for capitalism. And so behind capitalism, there is a minority of wealthy people and elite that is using the economy to secure a return on investment, using not only the economy, using businesses, corporations, sometimes even states. And I think that's the main obstacle because when we're looking at the roadmap, we realize that we will need to reverse decades of that unfair grabbing of human and natural resources. And I think talking about transforming the economic system, which if we really, I think, look deep into the roadmap, is opening a door towards what scholars are calling post-capitalism. That system is going to resist somehow. So we have the widening of inequality that has created a very powerful disparity in the economy and that class of people which is a minority but which will lose. I think it's very important to be rational about this. There is no money, or at least not much money, to be made in the ecological transition and even in the social ecological transformation as we understand it. So the class the capitalist class, which have been the winner of that extractivist, linear model of growth-based economy, is going to be the net loser of both that transition and also then of the long-term running of a human rights economy. And it's going to be very difficult to explain that to them.

Thank you. think we heard a range of responses, and I would say some of the common denominator that I heard was around issues around precarity of labor, the lowering and declining labor share of income, in this context also the problem of informality and the challenges to formalization that were mentioned. You also mentioned the precarity of work of working age people, accumulation of those disadvantages that we see reflected in inequalities in terms of pensions, and some more radical ideas around how we can move to a post-capitalist economy and overcome some of the opposition that we may see to this kind of transition to a human rights economy. Maybe on that point, I'm going to now be addressing some individual questions. And I'm going to turn to Tina and ask, in a way, picking up from Timotej's charge, to say, from the perspective of employers, who are a very diverse group, and as we heard from Tina, also small and medium-sized enterprises, whom we may want to bring into a coalition for a different kind of economy, how can businesses reconcile their contribution to environmental sustainability and social justice? And I know there are discussions among your members about how they can contribute to that agenda with the expectations of their shareholders, the investors. Three minutes, Tina.

Thank you, Shahra, and thank you for this question indeed. Employers have a strong duty, of course, to meet the expectations of their investors and shareholders, but at the same time, they have a heavy responsibility to manage their workforce, promote workplace cooperation, promote and respect fundamental principles and rights at work. So colleagues who are not aware perhaps of the fundamental, the ILO fundamental principles and rights of work, I would invite you to take a look at that because that's very important and that's very much linked to the company's sustainability, the competitiveness and productivity levels. But we're also seeing investor preferences changing. There's an evolution there and we're seeing there's a social dimension there that's attached. There are more and more knowledge now in terms of making better products and better services for consumers who demand environmentally friendly goods, who demand products that are free from child labor and forced labor, who demand you know, products that are good for society. So there are companies out there that are more advanced, there are some are behind, they're building the product lines around sustainability. while also maintaining a strong financial performance. But of course, more work needs to be done, and that's our role as well, together in cooperation with the ILO and of course the UN agencies, in increasing the awareness on the need to push for that balance there. But in general terms, the employers would like to add value to society, and that's very much linked to creating employment. decent work. This is very strong to our mandate and we want to have a win-win for governments and also workers alike. And that's why we see the ILO as a very unique tripartite body within the specialized agencies within the UN family because it's the only specialized agency within the UN that's tripartite. Workers, employers and governments. We all have to work together. That's why the governing body the International Labour Conferences are so difficult. 30 in the morning negotiating on different topics like just transition, sustainable social protection. We have a discussion at the ILC on gender equality, which is very much linked as a cross-cutting issue, it's important to us. So all these issues are very difficult, but when all the three constituents reach consensus, it does have an impact on the ground because there's a buy-in from all the three constituents. Especially when the country ratifies a convention or international labor standard, there's an obligation there for all the constituents to support and promote that. So that's why here the ILO has an important role when it comes to, and that's linked to the conversation we have on the ILO reform, on making sure that the policies and the technical support that's provided by ILO staff at headquarters stakeholders in the field is very important, especially on all these topics that are linked to labor and social issues. Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you very much, Tina. And maybe being in that tripartite conversation, I will first turn to Evelyn and then I'll go back to the other two panel members. I mean, we heard about some of the efforts that are being made by employers and enterprises to align with not only the fundamental principles and rights at work, but also to contribute to this environmental sustainability imperative, because many of those enterprises will also perish if we continue treating the climate and environment in the way that we're doing. So I want to turn to you and say, how are workers in this context of even some of these positive changes? What is their experience, whether they're working in the formal or informal economy of the current economy that we're in with some of the positive changes that are happening?

Well, first of all, I think that we can commend the fact that over the last two years, there's finally now a consensus at the ILO in relation to living wages. This is a major achievement in terms of finally having an international definition and a commitment amongst constituents around actually raising wages in order to meet the needs of workers and their families. And I think that this is one very fundamental building block in an economic model based on decent work. We want to see living wages now implemented, first of all through adequate minimum wages, and Convention 131 from the ILO provides a very important framework to this, and we're happy to see that some countries are now stepping up ratifications in this area, and of course also through strengthened collective bargaining on wages, and we are You know, we see this happening at enterprise level, but also at sectoral level. And I think there are also some very important regional frameworks that are helping the achievement of this, most notably in Europe as well, with the directive adopted several years ago on minimum wages and strengthening collective bargaining coverage. These are two important pieces in the puzzle. Beyond that, of course, as Agustina mentioned, we need to see greater respect for fundamental principles and rights at work, including freedom of association and collective bargaining. These need to be universally ratified and effectively implemented, because even though in this house we understand that their universality, we still see major violations of labor rights. Also, reforms in some cases of governments making it more difficult to organize, more difficult to strike, reducing the coverage of collective bargaining. And we know how fundamental these rights are. They're enabling rights that allow for the enjoyment of all other fundamental principles and rights at work. They're fundamental also for the reduction of inequalities and fair distribution of value. So we need to see these now stepped up. Beyond the labor market, I really want to say something about social protection and around tax. I think labor market measures are, of course, fundamental to make sure that work is decently rewarded, but we also need to ensure that workers enjoy protections against risks that they might experience across their life course. We want to see adequate social protection We want to see social protection universally extended in terms of coverage. We want to see social protection adequately financed. And that requires, of course, social security contributions being adequately funded, but also tax justice, progressive taxation. tackling tax evasion and strengthen international coordination in relation to tax. And we're very happy that right now that there is a process going on around the negotiation of a UN convention on tax, which is a game changer. It really has the potential to stop this downward competition between companies and countries on tax. And it's a process that we are greatly supporting as a labor movement.

Thank you very much, Evelyn. I think you brought in a number of very important issues around the financing of social protection systems, public services, and we're all watching and many UN agencies are involved. And I know that you, ITUC, are also engaging in this discussion that's happening at the UN on the framework convention on taxation. So an important piece of work that's happening there and discussions that are happening. If I can maybe turn now to Katarina with this discussion around financing. Of course, the EU includes countries with very advanced welfare states, financed through taxation and social security contributions. But in the current EU policy context, where we see a very strong emphasis on competitiveness and constrained public budgets, what are the most credible options to strengthen the essential services, social protection systems, and prevent them from being crowded out by other priorities?

Yes, thanks a lot. It's a very complex and difficult question to reply in three minutes, but I'll try. And it's true in the current European landscape, which has been, as you know very well, defined by the poly crisis environment that we are living in. It is true that the elements or constraints, financial constraints coming from the redistribution within EU budgets, but also national budgets, And indeed, one might say the increased attention to competitiveness might be a dominating when it comes to reflecting at the EU level how to construct the budgets and how to construct proper budgets to have a solid social welfare as we would like to have and as we know that we can have. And for us, I would dare to say, for us from the social filiere or social rights filiere, it is quite important the change of the narrative that we have been pushing for many years, which is trying to present and understand investments in social policy as social investments and not a pure social spending. And this is something that we have been fighting for many years. Sometimes I feel like a parrot repeating it, its importance to have it as a social investment. Fortunately, we have very good facts and figures that support such a social investments. They are particularly visible when it comes to early age. Every euro invested in child, according to different calculation, has the benefits later in life that contributes between four and five and six and even nine euro, depending on the different aspects. We measured in some countries, like in Sweden, the impact of school meals. We measured the access to early childhood education and care, how it impacts mostly women, particularly women, in returning to the market and all the other elements. So this is something that we find very strong. I hope that you will be able to see in our anti-poverty strategy how successfully we have embedded this issue of social investments. I think there are maybe when we speak about the priorities that we would like to drive Europe today and tomorrow, we could summarize it in few elements. First would be investing in child guarantee and investing in youth guarantee. these two areas of intervention, not only because Olivier mentioned the importance of guarantees, we are not yet at the jobs guarantee, but actions, I will tell you about the third pillar, which we find extremely important, but these two elements are very important. When it comes to the child guarantee, we ask, and our member states are implementing, free and effective access to childcare for children in need, which are for us children living in poverty or social exclusion or belonging to certain categories of children. So free ECEC, free education, free health and free at least one healthy meal per day. And then we ask for effective access to housing and effective access to nutrition. So services that are mostly relevant for children. In

Yeah, time.

Okay. Youth Guarantee, you know it. For young people neither in education, training or work, we ask for inclusion in one of those elements. And then the third and fourth element, which are equally important, is activation. We have 40% of people living in poverty, more than 40% are inactive. So take it, calculated out of 93 million people living in poverty and activation is extremely important. It will be the backbone of our strategy. And the fourth element is transitions. Transitions from childhood to youth, from youth to work, and then from work to retirement. This is extremely important, the bridges.

Thank you very much for that. Very interesting. We look forward to seeing the strategy document, the anti-poverty strategy document, when you publish it. And I think the social investment narrative, of course, has been very powerful. We heard it from Olivia as well. I often worry a little bit about things that can not make the case for social investment, like pensions, long-term care. It's a bit harder. We can talk about the fact that those investments create jobs, but it's not in the same sense as investing in young people and children. The economic arguments are not as strong when we go to the... Yeah, but anyway, just to say, important to have that discourse and that narrative to continue the investments that are needed in particularly early life and active age and youth. But maybe I can turn back again to Timothe and ask you, many policy discussions, and Olivia mentioned this as well, we still seem to assume that in order to be able to invest in social protection systems and public services, we need to have continued GDP growth, because otherwise, welfare states cannot mobilize the resources that are needed to reduce poverty, to address all of the needs that we have. Is that assumption correct? And or are there other macroeconomic alternatives that governments should be considering that could help them mobilize the resources that they need, but without having to rely on endless growth?

One good news, one bad news. And I'll start with the good news, is that for high income countries, no, that assumption is not correct. In these countries, Poverty, in all the way it remains, is a distribution problem and not a production problem. It's like we have 10 people arriving in this room and we tell them, "Sorry, you cannot be seated. We need to build a new front of seat just because some of you are owning 10, 20 seats and do not want to share them with it." As simple as this. So in these countries, capitalism generates an artificial scarcity. which pushes welfare state to enter this kind of Ponzi scheme mechanic of just trying to grow, let a big part of that wealth be captured by an elite, try to retrieve a small part of this in a new wealth of, in a new cycle of wealth accumulation. So that's the good news. But then there's a bad news. And I think what Olivier said earlier, he pronounced a sentence that is so important and which is the result of decades of research, which is green growth is not happening. And that sentence has a lot of implications because if green growth is not happening, it means Ecologically, we cannot continue much longer in the Ponzi scheme, especially for high income, which have high macroecological footprint countries. So in that sense, if green growth is not happening, it means richer parts of the world will have to downscale production and consumption. And that's quite a game changer. So that idea of degrowth as a temporary transition, where an economy, a rich economy, will actually slow down as the only way to get back within planetary boundaries, that is a game changer. And I really want to make the point of this being two different parts of the sequence. So you can be worried about, of course, how to organize, how to finance the welfare state, about unemployment, about geopolitics, about everything you want. in a slowing down economy, but that's secondary. Because if green growth is not happening, the only plan B is to produce and consume less. So it's a bit like you're playing Monopoly on a house on fire. And you're like, "I don't want to get out of the house. How will I take my shower and my clothes?" The house is on fire. If you don't get out, you die. Then once you get out, it opens a lot of new problems to solve. But I think in these discussions, We need to put a hierarchy of issues. And unfortunately, I feel that ecological sustainability has been treated as an add-on afterwards. Whether here, if we do not solve the ecological crisis in also multidimensional dimensions, then unfortunately, that will make most of these social problems unsolvable.

Thank you for that, and thank you for making that distinction between high-income countries that are really living beyond their means and the planetary boundaries that they should be observing, but also noting that it may be a different question for low-income countries in terms of the whole dynamics of growth. Because I think for organizations like the ILO with universal membership, it's really also important to make those distinctions very clear. And I hope we can pick that up in the conversation as we move forward. If I can turn to Tina again about this issue around financing that Timothe kind of responded to partially. And I want to turn to you about how businesses can contribute to financing and are contributing. already to financing of welfare states and decent work in sectors that generate high social value and help us remain within planetary boundaries, such as sectors like care, health, education, and so forth. If you can elaborate a bit on what businesses are doing and how they can further contribute to the financing of these important social investments.

Thank you very much, for that question. And you mentioned that businesses are already contributing. There's an economic role of companies, obviously, because they pay wages, employers participate in minimum wage setting, collective bargaining, social dialogue. They contribute to taxes. They pay social charges. They contribute to social protection systems and they also invest. So they directly and indirectly contribute to healthcare and education systems. I wanted to touch on the education system part and I was very interested to hear what Katarina was saying with the child guarantee and youth guarantee. Everybody says that education is important. everybody, no one will deny education is important. Skills, development, upskilling, reskilling, promoting culture of lifelong learning is important. But when you look at how much investment are put in the, if you look at the total public expenditure, if you look at the UNESCO data, we're on the board of the Global Education Monitoring Report, there's a slight decline when it comes to investing in education. In 2010, the global total public expenditure average is 14.4%, but 2024 has gone down to 12.6%. It's a small percentage, but if you look that in numbers, it's a lot. And that doesn't really help when it comes to, you know, by the time they enter the labor market, you know, the employers are finding it really difficult to find workers with the right skills. It's a paradox and it's a vicious cycle, I would say. So that's where we hope there'll be more commitment from governments and of course, in collaboration with the private sector to invest more in education. Of course, employers are playing a role. They're paying for upskilling, reskilling, training of workers, especially when you take a look at the impact of artificial intelligence, technological changes in the world of work, climate change, demographic changes. There is a need to do more. And here, there are a lot of policy levers that could be used when it comes to upskilling, reskilling. We have work skills councils that are that take into account both social partners, our views at the national level. You have apprenticeship systems that maybe is not part of the conversation. I see my colleague Christina here from the Global Apprenticeship Network. We could have a chat with because they can also help Good apprenticeship systems in the country can also help disadvantaged youth and also adult apprentices as well to access employment where possible, and they can also earn as they learn. So there are a lot of policy levers there, but there is also difficulty in upgrading. I would say the TVET system, the TVET reform is very sensitive topic for some ministries as well. Shahra is winking at me, so I'm running out of time. But when it comes to government contributions, they, of course, play a big role on this systems. But the private sector can also play a complementary role, I would say. Thank you.

Thank you, Tina. I will turn now to you, Evelyn. I mean, you heard Tina emphasize the importance of apprenticeship, skills, education. in investing in workers, in people, in workers, and also helping them kind of navigate a kind of very changing and dynamic labor market situation. Now, from your point of view, from the trade union perspective, what do you see as some of the key items that need to be changed or investments that need to be made in order to really support workers in navigating the current dynamics of labour markets as we have them.

So, labour markets are transforming. I think there's a lot of uncertainties around what the future of work looks like with, you know, the massive deployment, for example, of artificial intelligence and other technologies. Also, you know, climate change and climate mitigation and what that means in terms of the transformation of industries. And I would fully agree with Tina that, you know, we need to have accessible quality education, skills training, lifelong learning in order to make sure that workers are are prepared for the the future. But I also think we need to look at broader employment strategies around, It's good to prepare workers for the future within a transition, but we need to also make sure that there are jobs and that there are quality jobs. I think what's very interesting and important within this roadmap is the suggestion around an employment guarantee, which some countries have started to do. The challenge, of course, is that we see that very often, some countries that have put in place employment guarantees have not necessarily made them a very good conditions. I think there's also a role in terms of, you know, national employment strategies where social partners are involved from the very beginning to actually plan together between representatives of industry and workers around what the future of the labor force looks like, what it should look like, and how to design good jobs for the future. And the last point I want to say is around coherence and the role of the international financial institutions in supporting that effort. We know now I'm a bit jet lagged still because I was at the spring meetings last week at the World Bank and the IMF. The World Bank has been putting job creation at the center of its strategy. Nevertheless, I think there are questions around what that means in terms of job quality. We don't want to just create any job. We want to make sure that jobs are good quality and grounded in the principles of decent work. And I think more broadly speaking also, we need to ensure coherence between international financial institutions who have a lot of power in terms of policy advice, conditionalities attached to their lending programs and grants. to make sure that they are promoting economic models that are centered around decent work and fair distribution. And that would be my last plea for this intervention.

Great, thank you very much. Indeed, I think having many civil society organizations, of course, engage in that conversation has been important, but the social partners, and I think ILO will have an important role to play in that discussion that the Bank and the MDBs are now engaged in on creating more jobs, but always emphasizing, you know, the quality dimension, decent work, and what that entails and what it means. So turning to you now, I would also like pose the same question from an EU perspective. How do you see countries being able to support this employment generation, quality employment generation, and also maybe if you can say a few words about how to address this persistent problem of the underevaluation of certain kinds of work, including paid care work, that remains an issue even in many EU member states.

Thank you, thanks a lot. Continuing what previous speakers have said, I would say that for us at the EU level, we have traditionally constructed our either employment or social policies, but especially employment policies around not only finding the job, finding the good job, finding the quality job, but also around other components, which is access to services and access to adequate benefits. So these would be like three elements that are equally important, especially when it comes to the minimum wages. Thank you, Evelyn, for mentioning the directive on minimum wages. It was a game changer for a number of countries, despite the court ruling which said that we cannot define criteria, but everything else we can. And this is the everlasting, I would dare to say, the struggle between EU and the member states' competencies and shared competencies and where we have sometimes where we have a very limited competencies indeed. But the minimum wage was, I would dare to say, a big win of the European Union in legislating this sphere of work. When it comes to minimum income, for example, then we speak, first we speak about the benefits, but then equally we speak about this access to services and the importance of having the access to services, not only when it comes to the child guarantee or youth guarantee, but throughout the lifetime. And then the question of access to labour market for persons who are on the minimum income benefits is equally important. Now, when it comes to the broader picture, how to value and how to address this issue of, let's say, low paid jobs or sectors which have been traditionally in a lower sphere, there in the gender equality strategy, you might see that we start also from an early age. It's well known for a number of years that girls are supported in entering the stem. And now this time we introduced also heal for boys. So education, inclusion of boys in health, mostly speaking about services, right? Health, education, Administration and literacy, I don't know how literacy came in, but my colleagues from DG JUST must have had a solid explanation. Starting from this early age is extremely important, and I'm then coming back to the child guarantee. On the care, I'm very happy to see that more and more EU Member States are recognizing long-term care within its full impact that it has as a social protection filial. This is very important. We see reforms being put in place. We see systems changing, but it's not enough. So this is definitely the spendings and the percentages spent on the long-term care are insufficient to meet the needs. And there is a lots of out-of-pocket spending. When it comes to the workforce, to the care workforce, it is really very much undervalued. The working conditions are very difficult. We have less and less young people willing to be a part of the long-term care workforce. And this is something that we see as an issue all across EU member states. The solution, we are trying to find the best way out of it in two important instruments that we have. First is, and I'm sorry that I'm a bit late, but it's important to mention, last year in December we adopted Quality Jobs Roadmap, defining what is the path towards the quality jobs, addressing some specific elements. Towards the end of this year, EU is going to have the Quality Jobs Act, We are just, I think, about finishing the second stage consultations with the social partners. It's really driven by also the social partners as well. And there, the key elements relevant to the quality jobs, also including new like AI, algorithmic management, subcontracting and some others will be addressed. The intergenerational fairness strategy is something that mentions the care deal. And then the last thing is care deal, which is announced to be done next year, but we'll see exactly when next year. But in order to address this workforce shortages and also different elements linked to the workforce in care sectors, in particular long-term care, but we are also reflecting how to play with or how to address the childcare and maybe health, so this is still to be defined.

Thank you very much. And I'm sure some of the shortages in the care sector have also a lot to do with the working conditions, the relative pay and so on. So improving working conditions in the care sector may also help address the shortages that many many are experiencing, many countries are experiencing. And now I want to turn to Timothe with my last question. I did have another round, but I would rather stop and then have questions from the floor. You've heard a lot, I mean, we keep on going back to this issue of how do we finance social protection systems, public services, important social investments. And we are living in a world which is highly, we have high degrees of financialization illicit financial flows, tax avoidance by many multinational corporations. What role do you see for measures such as financial regulation, different kinds of taxes like wealth and inheritance taxes that we heard about, or other measures to be able to finance these really important investments, social investments, environmental investments that all countries need to make?

So the roadmap is a wonderful toolbox and right now we have policy profiles and a vision and I think the next step is to find the synergies between these that can turn into a policy sequence that gives a transition. And the question of financing is an important leverage point. I would say like some of these policies need to happen before others. And I think what Olivier said earlier with the four point of, I think it was prevention, redistribution, social investment, and money creation, I mean, are arguments that now we're used to that solve that problem of how to finance welfare during a degrowth transition, and then how to finance welfare in a steady state economy that will be beyond growth. Just let me maybe And the way it's been organized that I thought was also quite helpful is on the line of these three steps of pre-distribution, distribution, and redistribution. And I think this gives us also a hierarchy. And money creation, let me talk about this one, which is an important pre-distribution step before anything happened in the economy. Any businesses can be launched, any public services can be financed, someone needs to get the money. Today, in our capitalist economy, we have privatized, so money has become a market commodity, and so commercial for-profit commercial bank, which are privately owned, have the final say in what gets financed or not. And they have the final say in the condition of this financing. And because they are for-profit entities and they want to maximize a return on investment, they treat the act of monetary creation and destruction as a business. We will not be able to finance the transition and the model of a human rights economy by having this for-profit monetary system. And so we need right now before anything starts, to start thinking about a dual system starting with a channel of monetary creation, not-for-profit monetary creation, that can finance the social and ecological activities where there is no return to be made. And that links to social investment. We've seen there is a return in terms of welfare and well-being and sustainability over the very long term. But the bees and the well-educated child in the childhood, they will not return the money in a matter of years, in two years, in five years, or actually the return expected by bankers. And so by having this system, we are ensuring that we can finance our way. There's another, you talked about the inheritance, which is another great pre-distributive step. And the idea of universal inheritance of everyone, I mean that's basic when you play Monopoly, we all start with the same bills. Actually the very game of Monopoly is even fairer than the version we have in the real economy today. So the idea of making sure that from one generation to another we have a fresh start where everyone have access, have the opportunity to be included in economic activity is another important step. And when we put the numbers together Just even these things, we see that what has to be financed is largely covered by these two things, the redistribution, the avoided cost of prevention, the well-being return on the investment, and the remaining to be add by the new monetary system.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Timotee. And I do think that this idea of having real equality of opportunity and agenda for, you know, inheritance taxes would go a long way in addressing that and really getting us to equality of opportunity that is real and not just an abstract notion. Now we have approximately 15 minutes before the coffee break and I know that there are many burning questions and so therefore without any further ado I want to turn to colleagues, friends who have their hands up. I don't know if there are people who can go around with a mic so that the questions can be heard. You all have mics, okay, very good. Please, the gentleman there.

Thank you, my name is Fernando Morales de la Cruz. I'm a journalist who has investigated misery, hunger, malnutrition, and child labor in corporations for 12 years. And my question is for Mrs. Morny, because she's representing the private sector, regarding the fact that there are hundreds of corporations that profit from hunger, malnutrition, and child labor. And there are investors like Norway, the largest investor in the world, shareholder in 9,000 corporations, that profits from the exploitation of tens of millions of children by investing in these corporations. And so how can we try that within your organization, the International Organization of Employers? People talk about the role investors have in ending exploitation and child labor, because Norway is also violating its own constitution and its state obligations. Thank you.

Thank you. And if I can ask, we will collect a few questions. If you can keep your questions brief in the interest of getting more questions, and then time for our panelists to respond. Yes, please. You have your hand up.

Hi, yes, thanks. And my question actually touches on a similar point. My name is Caroline Dommen. I work on human rights economics and also on rethinking agriculture trade-- well, trade rules in general with a focus on agriculture. And several people this morning have mentioned the way that global production enables downward pressure on labor standards as well as other types of standards. I've been looking, doing a survey just this last week on gender equality standards and trade agreements. And almost all, or perhaps all, I'm not sure, but anyway, almost all current new trade agreements have a provision that says states must not lower environmental or labor standards with a view to attracting investment. So in a sense, states know that this happens. But when I speak to people in the trade community, they say, oh, no, no, no, there's no evidence about that whatsoever. Investment, the decisions are made for all sorts of reasons. So my question, I have two questions. So first, I'm interested in sort of hard evidence to demonstrate this fact. So, you know, that's a later question, perhaps we can discuss bilaterally. But more significantly, I'm wondering what institutions should we turn to to regulate this issue, which is really at the crux, is really, you know, social equity, North-South equity, you know, which types of institution and what types of provisions could we think about to address this question? Thank you.

Thank you. Yes.

Thank you very much. I work for the UN University Center for Policy Research. Allow me for a little bit of challenge. I have heard a lot about, so the theme was future of work and social protection. I have heard a lot about the present, and you just have to listen to what young people say. In France, the age of the first stable contract is between 27 and 29. I am 27, and I have still not achieved that despite working for the UN, I am a consultant. and we are the first to be ejected when a crisis occurs, like the UNAT. There is much more evidence on intergenerational equity and the lack of fairness of the job market on young people. Just have a look at the OECD to have and to have not report. But what I wanted to emphasize is the question of something that I have not heard and that is in the roadmap of universal basic income. because we young people are suffering from the decoupling of universal social protection from work, and you just have to remunerate work instead of creating jobs. I think this is the solution, but I haven't heard anything on universal basic income or universal basic dividend as Earth for All is pushing for. So what can you say about it? Thank you.

Thank you. The lady in orange there, yes.

Thank you. My name is Tuuli Hirvilammi. I'm from Tampere University and Sustainable Welfare Ecosocial Policy Network. I continue in a similar vein, also wanting to hear something more visionary here. And in the roadmap, one policy proposal included is the job guarantee. It was mentioned that EU is not yet there. So my question is, what would it require to have job guarantee implemented at the EU or global level? and how to make it environmentally compatible to provide jobs within planetary boundaries, who are the actors that should promote and advocate it and where? Please, thank you.

Okay, thank you. I'm gonna stop now. Then if we have time, we'll take another round and go back to the panel members to see if you would like to, there were some explicit questions addressed. I think there was one to you, Tina, one maybe to you on the EU policy, yes.

Thank you. Thank you very much to Fernando, I think, Fernando and Caroline for the question with regards to forced labor. This is an important question. It's very much linked to, we're big proponents of the fundamental principles and rights of work. And one of them is the elimination of forced labor. It's heart wrenching when you see that. There's a lot of evidence that shows that. And we do not support forced labor at all, just to be clear on the outset, okay? We were very strong on that and we are doing everything that we can within our membership to make sure that this does not happen. We also are big supporters of human rights, of course, promoting respecting human rights, regardless of your size, regardless of your location, whether your headquarters in a big country or a small, medium enterprise, All companies should respect human rights. And of course, we have the M&E declaration, which is the ILO declaration that talks about that as well. And then we're very much guided by the UN guiding principles on business and human rights as well. On our side, we have concrete steps we have taken. We have guidelines that we worked in collaboration with the ILO. to provide some guidelines to employers to combat forced labor. It took us three years to work on that with one of the team colleagues. And then that's also in consultation, of course, with ITOC and also the Bureau for Workers Activities at the ILO house as well. So this is a consensual document, and it provides practical guidance for companies. The problem that we have is that we cannot reach companies that are in the informal sector. If you look at the extraction sector, if you look at the critical, when the extraction of critical minerals, which as you know is a hot topic right now at the G7, for example, it's very difficult for us to reach that. And here we would need the help of governments to address, to help address that. They have a duty, they have an important role to play in terms of reaching those that are in the informal sector. So Here, we cannot emphasize enough companies that are linked to issues with forced labor have a reputation risk. That's very clear. It's not just a marketing, it's not a marketing thing, it's a real risk. A lot of companies have gone out of business, they've gone through legal cases, litigation cases at the courts, it's not very easy, and not to mention the audit. the cost that is associated to audit and to comply with all the different regulations. You have the EU directive, of course, they're very stringent. So any countries that trade with the EU have some obligations as well among other countries as well. So This does not create a level playing field when you have rogue actors that are not playing with the rules, and it competes directly with the formal enterprises that do play the rules, that respect human rights, that pay taxes, that contribute to society, create jobs, et cetera.

Thank you, Tina. Maybe Katerina, you can pick up the question on job guarantee.

Thanks a lot. I'd like to actually reflect to Dadi, I think, what's said about the role of young people. And I have been reflecting a bit on the transitions, and not only from childhood to adulthood, but also to the labour and participation in the labour market. Just to illustrate how important young people are for the European Commission, Each of our commissioners or executive vice president or president herself is tasked to have a youth dialogues on their own topics. Just a month ago, we had a youth dialogue on fighting poverty and the cost of living, what is important for the young people, how to address some problems, how to address the issues that are bothering them on a daily basis. And it's very important to continue, but it's also very important to act. on different labor market related aspects when it comes to the young cohorts. On the job guarantee, I already spoke about child guarantee, youth guarantee, and I also have announced that in the anti-poverty strategy, we are going to have an initiative on activation, which we would like to take one step further the minimum income recommendation, which identified those three elements I told you, benefits, which we will put aside, but labour market activation, which is extremely important. We want to look into each and every individual who is now being inactive and who can work and has potential to work and how to address it with which services. We will be pulling in different services to work together in order to have this person back to the labor market or included for the first time in the labor market. This is very important. Second, we are putting in place the skills guarantee. This has been announced last year in our union of skills. Skills guarantee is still being defined. What will it entail? How will it be defined? And the way how it will reach individuals. We have also some instruments in our hands, like individual learning account, Timothy might know, because it's being implemented. France actually innovated this instrument, it was rolled out. the coverage and intensity does vary a lot, and I could not fully say that it was crusted, but let's see if the skills guarantee could help a bit in this regard. So, thanks a lot.

Thank you. Evelyn, you had a couple of questions that you were going to respond to. Yeah.

Sure. I think the first one is in relation to social protection and the proposal around universal basic income. And here I would really want to emphasize that universality is a very strong, commonly agreed objective amongst trade unions across the world. Where there are differences, however, is around ideas on how universality can be achieved. And that depends, of course, on what systems already are in place or not in place. and national context, I can say that we have some members within the ITUC, for example, in South Africa, who have been pushing for a UBI. But we also have unions in other countries who, quite frankly, are not favorable to the concept because actually there are rather well-developed social security systems in place that might need to be reformed to be made more inclusive, to extend coverage to categories of workers who are left out, like those on precarious contracts, who want to step up minimum income guarantees. And I think we need to be mindful of the fact that universality can be achieved in different ways. But overall, yes, every person should have the access to social protection. On trade, I would just want to note that last month there was the WTO ministerial in Yaounde, where WTO reform was on the agenda. We did have a labor delegation there. We did come with strong common objectives around incorporating ILO fundamental labor standards into the WTO's rule book, as well as also making sure that trade policies promoted by the WTO are supportive of countries' policy space to regulate labor markets in public interest, but also to be able to develop their national labor markets, employment policies, and create decent jobs. The outcome was very disappointing, but nevertheless, if you want to hear more, you can go to our website. You can look at our global unions position, our statement after the ministerial and happy to talk afterwards.

Thank you. I think we'll take maybe two more questions and please do. Okay. The first two hands I saw the gentleman there and the lady here. And if you can say who your question is addressed to, please, and be brief so that we can break for coffee on time.

Christian Felber, Economy for the Common Good. My question is mainly addressed to Timothy, because he addressed capitalism, which is a high road approach. So if a high road approach is called for, then we should address capitalism, but also define the alternative we are desiring and talking about. And it could be just economy as Aristotle defined it, because Aristotle distinguished economy from capitalism. In his times, and was about financial indicators, money and capital as the goals, whereas the economy was about the well-being, the welfare, and the common good. And If we define economy as that was Aristotle defined as oikonomia, then economic growth would be something substantially different from GDP growth. And thanks to this move, we could slip out of the equation of economic growth and GDP growth. We could farewell GDP growth, focus on economic growth from satisfying basic needs to protecting climate without having any longer any problem with growth, because more of a goal is always better, and we cannot have too much of a goal, we only can have too much of a means. So with this small building brick in the narrative, distinguishing economic growth from GDP growth, we could initiate a new narrative.

Thank you. That is a great question, and we will turn to Timotej. First, I would like to ask a question.

Thank you very much. My question is about the universal care income, which is part of the road map but has not been mentioned at all by the panel. It is different from the basic income because it recognises care work not just as wage work in an industry but as work done by women, starting with mothers in the home, and, of course, other caregivers too. It starts with mothers. And I have to say that I'm very grateful to the UN rapporteur for daring to raise the issue of degrowth at a time of military budgets growth which is really threatening all of us. And I want to also thank the UN rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, for daring to speak out against the genocide, because we cannot discuss a caring economy at this meeting without acknowledging that we are in the midst of a genocide and without acknowledging the fact that the military industry is threatening all of us, and that is the growth that's being advocated. So please, could you say something about the universal care income, because it is really caring versus killing at this point?

Thank you very much for those two questions. I will turn to Timothee first.

Yeah, I think conceptually, the notion of economic growth is a sinking ship, and I don't think we should try to re-kindle it, we should just let it die. The very concept of economy, I think, is also a sinking ship. And I've been trying in my work also, and I've been criticized for it, so the alternative to capitalism, I'm more to take an institutional approach, like in political economy, capitalism is a very specific economic system, so for example, where most of production is organized in the form of a regime of social ownership of the means of production, where most of allocation is organized through markets, where most businesses are for-profit businesses, where most social relation, work relation is handled through labor work. And so when we're discussing, for example, job guarantee, and especially job guarantee, local job guarantee within the social and solidarity economy, then this is not really a labor market. If we treat it not only as a way to return to the labor market, but as a new form of labor commons, oops, we're losing one molecule. We're transforming work, which was treated as a commodity in the labor market, into a multidimensional activity handled within a not-for-profit democratic commons. Same thing if we're saying, well, We cannot entrust for-profit companies to deal with important activities such as health, education, energy, and most importantly, anything having to do with the ecological transition. And so therefore, we will want to see the rise of not-for-profit cooperatives, like it already exists in the social and solidarity economy. Then we're losing another institutional molecule of capitalism. And you see same thing, if many of the mode of allocation is through just market exchanges, but now we see a lot of reciprocity networks, a lot of non-monetary relations, a lot of alternative currencies emerging. So same thing, the economy is diversifying and I think the notion of post-capitalism is opening for a menu of different alternatives in different contexts because we've been, I think it is so important, here we are facing a transition at different speeds with not a single recipe but rather a menu of options. What's important, I think, to end today is these kind of end of history discourse, that there is no alternative, and the kind of false Darwinian sense that the system we have today is supposedly the best because that's the system we have today. No, I think the roadmap is opening many roads to alternative economies that seems not only more ecologically sustainable than the one, and that's an important imperative I've put first, but also more socially desirable.

Thank you. And I take it that the discussion around varieties of capitalism is now a little bit outdated and we cannot introduce that discussion. Or maybe that's also a question to have whether we do really have varieties of capitalism and some forms can be more ecologically sustainable and socially inclusive. Maybe that's a discussion we can take up later. But for the last very provocative question that you had, a very interesting question that you had. I will turn to you, Evelyn, to respond to that on a universal care income.

I think care is such an important issue to this discussion, and I think we need to start by, first of all, recognizing the complete undervaluing of care work, both informal care work, care for children and family members, but also the undervaluing of care services, care and support services, and the precarious, informal, and low-paid conditions that many care workers actually face. And I think we need to look at care, first of all, as a right in itself, one that has been recognized at the last International Labor Conference and also in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but also the importance of supporting a reconciliation of work and family responsibilities so that people don't have to make the choice about if they wish to stay at home and care or wish to enter the labor market. So Yes, this means valuing and providing financial support to carers, but also stepping up affordable quality care and support services. This also is about supporting leave, including paid parental leave to both women and men, because it is about mothers, but it's also about families, and fathers have a role to play too. I perhaps I gave a more comprehensive answer than just care income, but I think it's a broader question than that.

Thank you very much. I think that was a great response, if I can also say, of not putting all your eggs in the same basket. Yes, maybe a benefit, but I think there's a very lively debate among feminists in terms of whether it's a good idea to have a benefit, a care income, or whether it's better to at the same time be investing in all the reconciliation policies that we need in also having universal systems that include people who spend time out of the labor market and also investing in a diverse set of services that are accessible to everyone. So I think that's a lively debate that maybe can be continued through the roadmap and through the next sessions. I will now like to invite you for a coffee break. We are asked to be back in the room here by 11:45 for next session, which is on the very important topic of post-growth as a decolonial project. Enjoy your coffee break and wish you very good discussions and networking during this more than 20 minutes that we're going to have. Thank you.