The new president of the International Organization of Employers (IOE), Daniel Funes de Rioja, began his three-year mandate last Tuesday following his unanimous election at last year’s IOE General Council. USCIB is the American affiliate of the IOE.

Prior to his election, Funes de Rioja, from Argentina, served as IOE’s executive vice president under outgoing President Tan Sri Dato’ Azman of Malaysia. Speaking to the IOE General Council upon his election, Funes de Rioja thanked his predecessor for “firmly establishing the IOE as the global voice of business on the international stage.”  As the new president, Funes de Rioja will also assume the presidency of the 2014 International Labor Conference in Geneva from May 28 to June 12.

As Tan Sri Dato’Azman gave his farewell remarks last Tuesday, he said the IOE had established itself as the representative body for the private sector across the UN and other multilateral organizations. He felt proud of the IOE’s consolidated position, and as he handed the presidency over to Funes de Rioja, he said he was confident the IOE could meet future challenges.

IOE Secretary General Brent Wilton congratulated Funes de Rioja and said the incoming president “brings to the presidency of the IOE decades of experience representing employers across the range of international forums affecting business.”

Staff contacts: Ronnie Goldberg and Ariel Meyerstein

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Over half the world’s migrants are active in the labor force, and demographic challenges coupled with globalization will continue to drive labor mobility in the future. Workers in the developing world are expected to grow faster than the jobs created for them in their home countries, while demand for migrant labor in the developed world is surging. Many employers now seek migrant workers to fill gaps in all sectors and skill levels, and there is a need to protect these workers’ rights to ensure the full potential of labor mobility.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched a series of briefings in New York City to discuss contemporary labor migration issues. USCIB’s Senior Counsel Ronnie Goldberg represented the voice of business at an IOM briefing about the ethical recruitment of migrant workers on May 22, 2014 at the UN headquarters in New York City.

She reiterated the International Organization of Employer’s (IOE) commitment to fair recruitment practices and to fight forced labor and trafficking. She also announced a joint imitative between the IOM and IOE, the International Recruitment and Integrity System (IRIS), designed to protect migrant workers’ rights.

Goldberg noted that employers, who create jobs and stimulate development, have an essential role to play in the migration debate. Private sector knowledge of markets and staffing trends, along with employers’ practical workings of immigration laws and procedures, can provide vital information to governments to clarify and improve regulatory regimes.

“It is in the interest of all responsible employers, wherever they do business, to have clear, transparent, and efficient national immigration laws and policies that permit the movement of employees when and where they are needed,” Goldberg said.

She also called for the harmonization of national immigration laws across borders to facilitate cross-country labor migration. Improved regulatory regimes would also lower the costs businesses incur as they hire and transfer employees across borders, she said.

Unskilled migrant laborers are one of the most vulnerable segments of the population.  The IOM and the IOE have announced a partnership initiative, IRIS, to protect workers’ rights.

“Specifically, IOE and IOM have agreed to partner in a voluntary certification process for international recruiters to help protect migrant workers and their employers from abusive practices,” Goldberg said. “For the IOE, it will be a demonstration that employers adhere to fair recruitment practices and are fully committed to fight forced labour and trafficking.”

Read Goldberg’s remarks.

Staff contacts: Ronnie Goldberg and Ariel Meyerstein

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USCIB Senior Advisor Ronnie Goldberg, who serves as the North American regional vice president of the International Organization of Employers (IOE), took part in a March 12 panel discussion of equal pay at the 58th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York.

The panel, organized by the International Labor Organization and the government of Finland, facilitated the sharing of experiences and challenges, across countries and regions, of promoting equal pay for women and men, and informed the discussions during the session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Articulating the global voice of employers, Goldberg stated: “Employers support, not just the human rights case, but the compelling business and economic case for unleashing women’s skills and talents and empowering them to enjoy equal access to job opportunities and career development.”

In her remarks, Goldberg presented a menu of recommendations to enhance efforts by companies and governments to support and promote women’s advancement and gender equality in the workplace.

The toolkit of best practices presented for companies included measures and policies around the following themes:

• Top management leadership and commitment to gender equality
• Making gender core to the business strategy, which requires measurement and accountability
• Providing an enabling framework through human resource and operational policies, including opportunities for flexible schedules and part-time work.
• Providing a robust and relevant support system for women executives through education and training
• Changing mind-sets and corporate culture
• Addressing the broader social context.

At the same time, Goldberg underlined that businesses looked to governments to adopt the following general approaches:

• Recognize gender equality as a key lever in economic development and competitiveness
• Champion for women’s economic empowerment with government officials at the highest level
• Act as positive role models, promoting ambitious gender diversity targets for their own administrations as well as the state enterprises under their control
• Engage in dialogue with business.

Goldberg called for governments and the business community to work together to come up with data- and fact-based strategies with realistic goals, and urged the OECD, ILO, other international organizations and the international financial institutions to continue to work together to come up with data- and fact-based strategies with realistic goals. She further urged these bodies to continue to work collaboratively to raise awareness of the economic dividend of gender equality.

Staff contact: Ronnie Goldberg

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Earlier this month, in a welcome contrast to a needlessly stringent U.S. approach to conflict minerals from Central Africa, the European Commission put forward a draft regulation to set up a system of supply chain due diligence self-certification of importers of minerals to the EU. The regulation would encourage industry self-certification of responsible imports of tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold from conflict-affected and high-risk areas.

The proposal is based on the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, the credible international corporate due diligence benchmark. The EU self-certification system calls for the adherence to the five steps of the OECD due diligence guidance through monitoring and overseeing of purchases.

USCIB has played a key role coordinating business contributions to the OECD due diligence guidance, and we have advocated for the EU regulation on conflict minerals, working actively with BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD to encourage responsible sourcing and to offset the disincentives created by Section 1502 of the U.S. Dodd-Frank law, which many observers believe encourages a de facto embargo of minerals exports from the Democratic Republic of Congo and other affected regions.

The OECD due diligence guidance was developed in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, both of which aim to advance supply chain due diligence practices and avoid the inadvertent consequences of Dodd-Frank.

Staff contact: Ronnie Goldberg

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