GLOBALISATION and the competitive pressures it puts on business should not be allowed to undermine human rights and protection for people at work, according to the Minister of State for Labour Affairs.
Ms Eithne Fitzgerald told the International Labour Organisation yesterday it was wrong to assume that high social standards and competitiveness did not mix.
She was speaking at the annual conference of the ILO in Geneva. ILO activities throughout the world will be reviewed at the event including reducing the organisation's budget, abolishing obsolete labour conventions and giving the ILO a greater role in monitoring and enforcing human rights in the workplace.
The ILO is seeking a mandate to outlaw child labour, give workers the right to join free trade unions and provide greater protection from discrimination.
"High social standards are not necessarily incompatible with competitiveness and can even enhance competitiveness," Ms Fitzgerald said.
She said social protection systems could facilitate changes in the workplace. Citing child labour as an example, she said: "Any country which tolerates child labour and fails to ensure that its children are properly educated is condemning itself to perpetual under development."
It was inevitable that differences in development would result in differences in working conditions and levels of social protection, the Minister said. "But any ILO strategy must distinguish between legitimate differences and those which are created or maintained artificially, merely to establish a competitive advantage.