Action Plan approved at the conclusion of
the Meeting of Ministers of Labor of the
Andean Community
Cartagena de Indias, May
23 1999
We, the Ministers of
Labor of the Member Countries of the Simón
Rodríguez Convention on Social and Labor
Integration, meeting in the city of
Cartagena de Indias on May 20, 21 and 22,
1999 for the purpose of developing the
proposals and objectives of the Declaration
of Cartagena de Indias and aware of the
importance of reactivating that Convention,
have decided to establish this Action Plan
and promote its execution.
In light of the
complexity, level of specialization, and
importance we attribute to the issues set
out in the Declaration of Cartagena de
Indias, we have decided to form three
working groups. These groups will meet to
study the subjects entrusted to them and to
put forward draft Decisions, Agreements and
Recommendations that will be evaluated by
the next meeting of Ministers of Labor of
the Member Countries of the Simón Rodríguez
Convention.
Group No. 1: Basic
Rights, Free Circulation of Workers,
Productive Employment and Professional
Education and Training
It is essential to
guarantee the basic rights of the workers by
bringing globalization, integration, and the
universal application of those rights into
harmony. Furthermore, given the rising
mobility of labor between countries, it has
become necessary to guarantee due social
protection to migrant workers and their
families.
At the same time, the
serious employment crisis in the subregion
and the structural imbalance between
professional education and training and the
labor market, call for joint actions to be
taken to promote employment and to make
professional education and training as
effective as possible in keeping with
production requirements.
Based on the foregoing,
the working group is entrusted with the
following tasks:
Basic Rights
-
To promote the
ratification and observance of the ILO
Conventions on Basic Workplace Principles
and Rights, among them those referring to:
(a) freedom of association and freedom to
form a union and the effective recognition
of the right to bargain collectively; (b)
the elimination of forced or compulsory
labor in all its forms; (c) the effective
abolishment of child labor; and (d) the
elimination of job and occupational
discrimination.
-
To design strategies
and carry out actions at the subregional
level that are geared towards ensuring the
observance of commitments assumed in the
Declaration of Cartagena on the
Erradication of Child Labor, of the I
Latin American Tripartite Meeting at the
Ministerial Level on Child Labor.
-
To draw up programs and
action plans at the national and
subregional levels for promoting the right
to form a union, freedom of association
and the right to bargain collectively in
an environment of economic globalization.
-
To work toward
improving the institutional structures of
the Labor Ministries in order to ensure
that they fulfill their tasks of
protecting worker rights efficiently.
-
To establish and
harmonize provisions on labor
intermediation in such a way that their
application guarantees the observance of
labor rights.
Free Circulation of
Workers
-
To evaluate and revise
Decision 116 "Andean Labor Migration
Instrument", in order to analyze and
propose policy instruments that will
facilitate that free circulation, as well
as respect for the rights of migrant
workers and their families in the Member
Countries of the Simón Rodríguez
Convention, with a view to the full
implementation of the Andean Common Market
by the year 2005.
Productive Employment
and Professional Education and Training
-
To design strategies
and policies at the subregional level that
will contribute to the fight against
unemployment and temporary employment in
all their forms and will help to increase
labor productivity.
-
To draw up proposals
for strengthening the systems of
professional education and training in
order to bring them into line with the
evolving demand for skills, accompanying
these with policy proposals coordinated
with the education sector.
-
To propose mechanisms
for coordinating professional education
and training systems and public employment
services at the subregional level.
-
To prepare specific
youth training programs for jobs and
employment in the production sector.
Working Group No. 2:
Social Security and Workplace Health and
Safety
Social Security
Respect for the basic
rights of workers bears with it the need to
create the social policy instruments that
will guarantee adequate social protection in
terms of pensions, health and professional
risks.
The working group is
recommended to take the following actions in
this area:
-
To work toward getting
the basic benefits of social security
extended to the workers of the different
Member Countries through validation of the
periods of time worked and payments made
by affiliates into any of the social
security systems of the respective
countries so that they may receive old-age,
invalidity and survival benefits.
-
To evaluate and revise
Decisions 113 and 148 "Andean Social
Security Instrument" and "Regulations for
the Andean Social Security Instrument,"
respectively. Institutions specialized in
social security may be invited for that
purpose.
Workplace Health and
Safety
Improvement of the
working conditions and environment in the
context of the economic, social, and
technological changes is an issue that
arouses the greatest of interest on the part
of the Member Countries of the Convention.
In our countries, company
working conditions tend to be deficient,
with the result that work accidents and
occupational diseases are on the rise. In
most sectors of industrial activity,
companies that fail to implement with
adequate efficiency, measures to protect the
safety and health of their workers are
proliferating.
Furthermore, the
insufficient dissemination of specialized
information about workplace safety and
health, combined with the risks inherent in
introducing new technologies and in using
new chemical and biological products, pose
challenges that governments must take up
with political determination and technical
capacity.
In this area, the working
group is recommended to take the following
actions:
-
To work to get
Community workplace safety and health
provisions and product safety provisions
adopted.
-
To design and implement
programs for preventing work accidents and
occupational diseases that are common to
the countries in the area.
-
To draw up programs for
reinforcing the surveillance and control
of occupational health and professional
risks.
Working Group No. 3:
Updating of the Simón Rodríguez Convention
on Social and Labor Integration
The Advisory Council of
Labor Ministers will approve a draft
Amending Protocol to update the Simón
Rodríguez Convention before the year is out.
To that end, the Vice-Ministers
of Labor will be convened to perform the
preparatory tasks. The Andean Labor and
Business Councils will be invited to
contribute to the preparation of this
Protocol. The General Secretariat will
assist both the Vice-Ministers and the
Advisory Council of Labor Ministers in this
undertaking.
