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Raising labour standards

Globally, the electronics industry is said to be larger than the agriculture, textiles, and clothing sectors put together, earning export revenues of an estimated US$ 1 trillion, providing employment for over 18 million people, and making hardware for products as varied as semi-conductors, cell phones, computers, and television sets. While this sector is at the cutting-edge of technological and product innovation, sub-contracting of manufacture has seen a steady shift of industrial plants from the industrially advanced economies of the United States, Japan and Germany to the emerging economies of Asia such as China, Taiwan, and South Korea. The process has spawned concerns over the management of industrial relations, wage negotiations, and social and environmental issues.

Against this backdrop has come the message from the ILO's recent tripartite meeting that greater employee participation in decision-making, giving the workers their right to association and collective bargaining, and implementation of the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative are vital for keeping up the current momentum of economic growth. And this is of particular relevance to India. As the country's outsourcing boom of recent years in the software sector is in the process of being replicated in the manufacturing industry, guaranteed social protection for the vast pool of workers in charge of assembly and operational functions ought to be the topmost priority for all the stakeholders. Given the increasingly global character of production processes and distribution chains, the need for compliance with international labour standards through enactment of national laws is ever greater.

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