IT MAY be several years before thousands of Irish women benefit from an International Labour Organisation Convention on Homeworking, adopted in Geneva this week.
Although the Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) helped secure ratification of the convention against strong opposition from employer bodies, there are no plans to introduce domestic legislation soon to make it effective.
Homeworkers, 95 per cent of whom are women, work for employers from home and are prevalent in the garment industry. Because they are not protected by existing labour law, there are no reliable statistics for them in Ireland.
According to the Census of Industrial Production, there are 1,727 registered homeworkers in the Republic. However, it is accepted that the total is much higher. A meeting of Western Women's Link earlier this month was told there were 4,000 homeworkers in Galway city alone.
The Convention on Homework was approved at the 83rd ILO conference after employer organisations abstained en bloc. The 246 votes for adoption came mainly from governments and trade unions.
Commenting on the outcome yesterday, Ms Claire Cunning ham, of the European Homeworking Group, said she hoped the convention would be quickly ratified and implemented by the Government, especially as it involved no cost to the Exchequer.
Governments which wish to ratify the convention must adopt, implement and periodically review a national policy on home work. This aims to promote "equality of treatment between homeworkers and other wage earners".
Areas of equal treatment include pay and conditions, social security, maternity leave, health and safety, protection from discrimination and the right to organise.
The conference also adopted a new International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. This will involve increased international co operation on the enforcement of existing ILO conventions, publicity campaigns and work on a new convention.
The conference also reaffirmed the ILO's commitment to promoting full employment. The ILO director general Mr Michel Fansenne, said, greater international co operation was needed to "humanise globalisation" of economies and reconcile the demands of social justice with those of economic competitiveness.
He urged delegates not to abandon the tripartite approach of trying to resolve problems through consensus among government, union and employer organisations.