Global Labour Column (GLC)
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The problem of capitalism is not its wealth-creating capacity, but its inability to share it. A global economic system that produces incredible wealth, but cannot ensure “zero hunger” on this planet is deeply flawed. Markets lacking the visible helping hand of democratic and accountable governments are producing socially undesirable, and most likely unsustainable, outcomes.
The most successful – and actually the only – way to provide universal minimum social protection in modern societies is the welfare state that guarantees basic rights for those in need, and is financed through compulsory payments (contributions or taxes) by all members of society according to their abilities. Systems might be organised in different ways, but at the end of the day all systems are based on the capacity and willingness of governments to impose on their citizen obligatory solidarity with the poorer members of society.It is impossible to protect the poor through voluntary social security systems and it proved very difficult to extend contributory social security systems beyond the formal economy. Recognizing how few advances were made to move from informal labour markets to rights-based employment in many developing countries, it became increasingly clear that progress in extending coverage requires new decisive and innovative state policies to extend social security coverage. Following intensive debates at national and international levels, and at the International Labour Conference (ILC) in 2012, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted the new Social Protection Floors (SPF) Recommendation[1] (No. 202) (“the Recommendation”) stating that universal social security coverage is necessary, desirable, and possible: “… social protection floors … should comprise at least the following basic social security guarantees: a) access to a nationally defined set of goods and services, constituting essential healthcare, including maternity care, that meets the criteria of availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality; b) basic income security for children, at least at a nationally defined minimum level, providing access to nutrition, education, care and any other necessary goods and services; c) basic income security, at least at a nationally defined minimum level, for persons in active age who are unable to earn sufficient income, in particular in cases of sickness, unemployment, maternity and disability; and
 
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