ILO offers study tour in Japan

CEBU, Philippines - A 10-member delegation from government and civil society organizations in Asia and the Pacific countries was invited by the International Labor Organizations to a study tour and symposium from February 15 to 18 in the cities of Kamaishi and Tokyo in Japan.

The study tour and symposium will gather decision makers, practitioners, academia, businesses, non-government organizations, and community members engagedin  the  current  reconstruction  efforts  in Japan after it was hit by the strong earthquake and tsunami.

“Surviving a natural disaster is one thing. Surviving the life after the disaster is another thing. Unless you have decent work to bring back not only income but also human dignity, post-disaster recovery will be a thorny one”, an ILO primer on “Working Out Of Disaster: Job-led Recovery After Natural Disasters” states. 

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapiles-Baldoz was invited along with other delegates in the country from the business sector and trade union to take part of the program.

The Associated Labor Unions, an affiliate of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), is part of  the delegation. Arthur Barrit, ALU-TUCP director for Education and Information, is the sole representative from the labor sector.

This program has something to do with the employment-led post-disaster recovery program under the new framework for cooperation adopted by the ILO and the government of Japan.

The ILO under this new framework for cooperation has been collecting and analyzing lessons on employment and livelihood recovery efforts. It also develops policies and programs for disaster management and response.

Likewise, the study tour and symposium serve as an opportunity to reflect on employment-led recovery efforts in the disaster affected areas in Japan.

It aims also at sharing knowledge and experiences from ongoing disaster recovery efforts in other Asia and the Pacific countries.

According to Barrit, the team will visit Kamaishi City, one of the cities hit by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011 and the subsequent tsunamis that left 15,879 dead and more than 2,700 people missing as of 16 September 2012.

After the earthquake that hit the northeast Japan, employment and labor issues remain one of the most challenging recovery issues among the disaster-affected people.

Millions of Japanese filed for the unemployment scheme in the aftermath of the mega-disaster and there were a number of employment and labor measures that have been carried out both by public and private sectors.

Recognizing the clamor, the Japanese government launched a job-creation scheme under a framework “Japan as One” Work Project.

The scheme protects existing jobs, creates new jobs through public works and applies existing social protection to disaster-affected people.

Moreover, outcomes of the program are expected to include improvements in the compiling, analysis and distribution of information on how employment and labor measures can support disaster recovery, capacity building for governments in Asia Pacific to improve their ability to respond to natural disasters.  (FREEMAN)