IMPACT is participating in a new initiative by President Michael D Higgins on ethical workplaces. The initiative was officially launched last night by the president at the 2015 Edward Phelan Lecture, in the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin.
The project will run for the month of March and its aim is to provide a platform for workers to reflect and explore themes important to ethical work. These include having a voice at work, dignity, equality and respect in the workplace, fair wages and conditions of work, physical protection and well-being, enhancing skills and potential, and support coping with life events and caring responsibilities.
Speaking at the launch last night, President Higgins said “Our notion of work or what constitutes decent or good work has evolved dramatically over the past century. Given Ireland’s recent history, an exploration of the meaning of work and the definition of an ethical workplace is most timely. The question of ‘good work’ within the wider frame of ‘the good life’ remains one of the defining issues of our times. I wish to congratulate ICTU on opening up this conversation and invite as many people as possible across the island of Ireland to take part in this project.”
Take part in the campaign
As part of this initiative IMPACT will be inviting members to respond to the question “What Does An Ethical Workplace Mean to You?”
You can make your response via the campaign webpage; tweet what an ethical workplace means to you using the #ethicswork tag; send a photo or video via #ethicswork; or fill out one of the campaign postcards which will be circulating in workplaces.
Participation is open to everyone regardless of their employment situation or membership of a trade union.
Decent Work at Heart of Ethical Society - ILO
The director general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder, is in Dublin today to address an event at the Institute of European and International Affairs. He has written a blog for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions website about the need for decent work, and its role at the heart of an ethical society.
Ryder says that, with 12 million of the more than 23 million unemployed Europeans looking for work for one year or more, many people do not have what some may consider the 'luxury' of a job.
“The financial crisis that began in 2008 is still causing pain for many people in the European Union, and its effects have hit the Irish economy and labour market particularly hard.
“While Ireland’s GDP is now expected to grow at above the EU average and the situation may be moving in the right direction, the jobless rate in Ireland is still higher than the EU average. And a growing share of jobseekers are among those falling into long-term unemployment, rising from 27 per cent of the unemployed in 2007 to 62.3 per cent in 2014.”
Read the full blog HERE
