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MEANINGFUL REPRESENTATION AT G20 MEETING

Mr Erol Kiresepi, International Organisation of Employers (IOE) President since 2017, Chairman of Board of Directors of Santa Farma İlaç and Deputy President of Chemicals, Petroleum, Rubber and Plastics Industy Employers’ Association of Turkey (KIPLAS), represented the Global Employers at G20 Employment Working Group Meeting.

Mr Erol Kiresepi, International Organisation of Employers (IOE) President since 2017, Chairman of Board of Directors of Santa Farma İlaç and Deputy President of Chemicals, Petroleum, Rubber and Plastics Industy Employers’ Association of Turkey (KIPLAS), represented the global employers at the Employment Working Group meeting which was organized through video conferencing method G20 2021 Italian Presidency on February 15-17, 2021.

Two agenda items were discussed at the meeting with the participation of ministries of labour and economy from G20 member states, international organisations including International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Bank, and B20 and L20 representatives acting for global employees’ and employers’ associations. In that respect, G20-level activities conducted for 'reducing the gap in participation rates between male and female employees below 25 per cent by 2025' in line with '2014 Brisbane Leaders’ Communiqué’ and the efforts made for increasing the permanence and effectiveness of social protection systems were analysed at global level.  

“Social protection is an effective tool”

Having participated as the representative of B20, Mr Erol Kiresepi made a speech about social protection systems on February 16, 2021 in which he underlined that social protection is an effective tool especially for resolving the humanitarian challenges arising from COVID-19, it is critical to implement the recommendations adopted by G20 urgently, and IOE has launched an initiative to provide support to businesses and employees involved in pret-a-porter supply chain and known to be affected negatively from the pandemic along with a number of stakeholders such as ITUC and IndustriALL in coordination with ILO with a view to helping the industry overcome the crisis. Mr Kiresepi noted that the development of social protection systems should be addressed in combination with the policies to combat informal economy and it is critical to avoid taking any action that might be detrimental to formal employment.

Mr Kiresepi expressed the need to adopt urgent measures for sustainability of social protection systems with due regard for the ongoing demographic transformation and emphasized that it would be beneficial to avoid imposing extra loads on young generations and businesses under those systems.

“ILO Recommendation no. 202 should be implemented”

Mr Kiresepi noted that adapting social protection systems to the new reality may be possible only through developing private sector oriented social security tools, new financing models and new social protection systems for a number of clusters such as freelancers and said:

“In the upcoming period, social protection systems should assume new functions in terms of development of skills and increasing employability. Faced with challenges to meet ever changing skill needs, governments fail to take prompt action as necessary but we will be able to address the problems very swiftly if social parties are engaged in the management of the process. ILO Recommendation no. 202 should be implemented as a framework that is accepted by the representatives of employees, employers and governments in relation to social protection systems.”

Also, the representatives of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services made a presentation about increasing women’s employment and improving effectiveness of social protection systems in the session where governmental practices and policies were evaluated.