News

November 1998

  1. Press release

    New encyclopedia lists main threats to worker health worldwide

    16 November 1998

    WASHINGTON D.C. (ILO News ) - The International Labour Office (ILO) has published the latest edition of its Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety, which shows that workers today face many of the same dangers that existed in 1930 when the First Edition was published. The traditional threats range from factory fires to catching tuberculosis in hospitals. New workplace concerns include eye and hand strain from working on computers, jet lag in business travel, and radiation leaks at nuclear power plants.

  2. Press release

    ILO Governing Body to examine private sector social initiatives

    09 November 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - The social dimension of globalization will once again dominate the agenda of the International Labour Organization's Governing Body meeting for its 273 rd session over the next two weeks, in Geneva. Among the items under discussion: private sector initiatives addressing social issues, a first set of studies on the impact of globalization on individual economies - in this case, Chile, Mauritius and the Republic of Korea -, and the follow-up to the adoption by the International Labour Conference last June of the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work.

October 1998

  1. Press release

    Labour market flexibility boosts productivity in machinery/electronics sector, says ILO, but poses challenges for the workforce

    26 October 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - Flexible labour practices can boost the competitiveness and employment prospects of firms in the mechanical and electrical machinery industries, according to a new ILO report 1. However the process of engineering change often proves wrenching for the workforce coming, as it does, at the expense of long-established workplace practices with unwelcome consequences for the personal lives of many employees.

  2. Press release

    ILO Report on Sex Sector Receives Prestigious Publishing Prize at Frankfurt Book Fair

    10 October 1998

    FRANKFURT (ILO News) - A prestigious publishing prize, the 1998 International Nike Award, has been awarded to Ms. Lin Lean Lim of the International Labour Office (ILO) for a recently published study on the sex industry in Southeast Asia. Ms Lim, who authored The Sex Sector: The economic and social bases of prostitution in Southeast Asia, will accept the award on Saturday, 10 October at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.

  3. Press release

    ILO meeting calls for improved social and labour conditions in Export Processing Zones and End to restrictions on trade union rights

    02 October 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) B Delegates to an international meeting on Export Processing Zones (EPZs) today called for an end to restrictions on trade union rights in a few EPZ-operating countries and said that the absence of workers' organization representation, effective structures for labour-management relations and the shortage of human resource development programmes in a number of countries formed obstacles to upgrading skills, working conditions and productivity of the 27 million strong EPZ workforce.

September 1998

  1. Press release

    Export processing zones growing steadily

    28 September 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - As global competition for jobs and foreign investment intensifies, Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are proliferating worldwide, growing from just a handful a few decades ago to over 850 today, according to a new report 1 published by the International Labour Office.

  2. Press release

    ILO World Employment Report 1998-99

    24 September 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - The number of unemployed and underemployed workers around the world has never been higher and will grow by millions more before the end of the year as a result of the financial crisis in Asia and other parts of the world, says the International Labour Office (ILO) in its latest World Employment Report issued today in Geneva.

August 1998

  1. Press release

    Report of ILO Commission of Inquiry reveals widespread and systematic use of forced labour in Myanmar (Burma)

    20 August 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - The obligation to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour is violated in Myanmar in national law as well as in actual practice in a widespread and systematic manner, with total disregard for the human dignity, safety and health and basic needs of the people, according to a report issued by a Commission of Inquiry appointed under the Constitution of the International Labour Organization.

  2. Press release

    Sex industry assuming massive proportions in Southeast Asia

    19 August 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - Prostitution in Southeast Asia has grown so rapidly in recent decades that the sex business has assumed the dimensions of a commercial sector, one that contributes substantially to employment and national income in the region, according to a new report published by the Geneva-based International Labour Office.

July 1998

  1. Press release

    Violence on the Job - a Global Problem

    20 July 1998

    GENEVA (ILO News) - France, Argentina, Romania, Canada and England have reported the highest rates of assaults and sexual harassment on the job, says the International Labour Office (ILO) in a new report, the most extensive worldwide survey of violence in the workplace.