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As the Director-General of the ILO, Juan Somavia, steps down, a pertinent question to ask is: will the Decent Work agenda that he introduced to the ILO survive and should it? In this week’s Global Labour Column Frank Hoffer makes a case for Decent Work as it “gives equal recognition to all workers” regardless of the kind of work that they do. Hoffer argues that while the current system of the monitoring of labour standards is important, it is not effective. He states that the fear that many countries have of losing competitive advantage if they comply with international labour standards is unjustified given that countries with relatively high labour standards such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands out-compete countries with more flexible labour markets such as the US and the UK. Hoffer calls for a tighter monitoring system to augment the current supervisory machinery with measures such as “financial obligations for governments that fail to consider ratification or implementation of conventions” and constant measurement and comparison of the progress that countries make in the implementation of the Decent Work framework. He asserts that now, more than ever, the need for international rules and standards is apparent given the “visible disaster of the belief in the invisible hand”. Frank Hoffer is senior research officer at the Bureau for Workers' Activities of the ILO. He writes in his personal capacity.

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Written by Frank Hoffer, senior research officer at the Bureau for Workers' Activities of the ILO. He writes in his personal capacity.

Published by Global Labour Column and edited by CSID at Wits University.