The International Forum on Transforming Cities for Decent Work was organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation(ILO) with the support of the Ministry of Employment and Labor and social partner organizations and institutions on September 5 to 6 in Seoul.
Representatives and officials from 10 different city governments around the world and 8 institutions home and abroad participated in the forum amid the high enthusiasm of hundreds of audiences for two days.
The forum was designed to achieve the following objectives:
- Enhance the ideas and policies concerning labor and employment with the aim of realizing Decent Work at city level and developing a City Labor Model.
- Exchange experiences of and information on labor, employment and social policies at city level.
- Promote and facilitate the ILO's Decent Work Agenda at city level.
- Propose a dynamic and practical network of Decent Work Cities at home and abroad.
- Introduce, receive feedbacks, and evaluate the labor and employment policies explored by the Seoul Metropolitan Government
- Adopt the Seoul Declaration to localize and formulate the ILO's key strategy of Decent Work at city level.
ILO Director-General Guy Ryder was invited to Seoul to attend the international forum by the Korean Government. Upon his arrival in Seoul on September 4, Mr. Ryder started off his 3-day hectic schedules from a couple of important meetings.
Employment and Labor Minister Kim Young-joo organized a meeting for Mr. Guy Ryder by inviting Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation(KEF), President of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU) and Acting President of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and Chairman of the Economic and Social Development(Tripartite) Commission at a restaurant in downtown Seoul.
Late that afternoon, Mr. Guy Ryder met with President Moon Jae-in and reportedly they discussed labor issues in Korea including the ratification of fundamental ILO conventions on freedom of association and right to bargain collectively.
For following days, Mr. Guy Ryder met the Speaker of the National Assembly Chung Se-kyun and Chairman of the Environment and Labor Committee of the National Assembly Hong Young-pho and other committee members while he was visiting the Assembly.
Mr. Guy Ryder also visited the Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU) and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU) for a separate meeting where two apex trade union organizations expressed their concerns particularly on the right for trade union activities in connection with the unratified fundamental ILO conventions in terms of raising unionization rate in Korea, and renewed their commitment to realize the ILO Decent Work Agenda.
In particular, Mr. Guy Ryder on September 5 paid a tribute with laying a bundle of 47 red roses(marking 47 years after his death) to Jeon Tae-il, a labor activist and advocate of human and labor rights who burned himself to death in protest of horrendous working conditions of the sweatshops in 1970 at the age of 22. His sacrifice inspired the trade union movement under suppression and after all contributed to the development of democracy in Korea.
reported by Kim Hak-tae
translated by Kim Sung-jin