The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) are jointly undertaking an initiative promoting compliance on labor standards, occupational safety and health (OSH) and gender equality to businesses in rural sectors of agriculture, fishing and mining which are highly characterized by poverty and poor working conditions.
ILO in a statement said these sectors are usually linked with long working hours, low wages and other issues related to payment of wages, hazardous working environment, widespread informality, ambiguous employment relationships, non-standard forms of employment, among others.
The ILO noted women workers in these sectors are at further disadvantage and face inequalities and challenges that affect their access to decent work, such as lack of information on jobs availability, opportunities for training and education, limited access to property, land, financial and non-financial services, among others.
According to ILO, 9 million Filipinos work in the agriculture, fishing and mining sectors of which 22 percent are women. Agriculture and forestry registered an increase in employed persons of over one million in 2021 while the mining industry’s GDP share has also increased P102.3 billion to GDP.
To help address these issues, ILO and ECOP jointly organized a series of webinars in line with the former’s project on Improving Workers’ Rights in the Rural Sectors of the Indo-Pacific with a focus on Women . The webinars kicked off yesterday on agriculture; fishing on February 22 and mining on March 1.
ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. called upon companies and their supply chains in the country to undertake plans and actions in response to the ever-growing demands of their international markets, consisting of compliance to, and application of, good business practices based on universal human rights and respect for workers’ rights.
“Globally, there is also a growing demand for businesses to ensure responsible business practices and due diligence within their supply or value chain. More and more countries are integrating labor provisions in trade policies and agreements, helping promote compliance to labour standards, including OSH and gender equality,” said Khalid Hassan, director of the ILO Country Office for the Philippines.
