ILO and Media join forces to fight labour & social injustices

The International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Country Director for Zambia has said that employment and labour issues are central to survival of communities and governments.

Alexio Musindo was speaking at the ongoing training course for media professionals in Livingstone, Zambia. He said employment and labour issues are central to all political campaigns and as ILO they believe decent work is the route for sustainable development, for assisting people work out of poverty.

The four day workshop in Livingstone brought journalists from SADC countries of Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique to equip them with knowledge on international labour standards. Objective media reporting on labour and social matters which can further public understanding and in turn, strengthen the application of ILO at local level so as to advance human rights at work, he said, can advance opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.

President of Zambia Union of Journalists (ZUJ), Shamaoma Musonda urged journalists to remember that they still have the workers out there to fight for to ensure all get decent work and a decent wage. “And this is where this training course becomes extremely important.” He said the cost of human labour has turned into something employers are not appreciating properly and get to come up with all sorts of aggressive moves to ensure they pay workers close to nothing. This has led to abuse of staff especially those vulnerable because of immigration issues, poverty and joblessness among others.

“As a media, we are naturally inclined to make sure we play our part in stopping this evil and when an organisation as big as the ILO identifies the media as a key player in fighting this injustice, it turns into a win-win situation for both,” added Musonda.