I.L.O. CONFERENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20513, 1 June 1938, Page 9

1.L.0. CONFERENCE

MEETING AT GENEVA FIRST SESSION TO-DAY (Special to Times) GENEVA, May 4 Government, employer and labour delegates from most of the sixty nations having membership in the International Labour Organisation will assemble in Geneva on June 2 for the twenty-fourth session of the International Labour Conference. Six items are listed on the agenda of the session. They are:— 1. Technical and vocational education and apprenticeship; 2. Regulation of contracts of employment of indigenous workers; 3. Recruiting, placing and conditions of labour (equality of treatment) of migrant workers; 4. Regulations of hours of work and rest periods of professional drivers and their assistants) of vehicles engaged in road transport; 5. Generalisation of the reduction of hours of work; 6. Statistics of hours and wages in the principal mining and manufacturing industries, including building and construction, and in agriculture. Important Issues

The first five Items come up for preliminary discussion this year. Final action on them will not be taken until 1939. But this year’s conference will he called upon to consider the form of regulation to be adopted in each case, and to draw up points for a questionnaire on each. Copies of the questionnaires will then be despatched to the various Governments for the purpose of obtaining their views on the regulations proposed.

In the case of ‘‘technical and vocational education and apprenticeship,” the conference will be asked to undertake a fresh review of the whole problem, with the idea of reorganising vocational training upon lines more suited to present needs, and to consider especially methods of vocational retraining for unemployed persons. Due to the large number of road accidents in recent years caused by tired drivers falling asleep at the wheel. Ihe fourth item on the agenda: ‘Regulation of hours of work and rest periods for professional drivers 'and their assistants) of vehicles engaged in road transport” is regarded as especially important. In this connection, the conference will be asked to consider the advisability of limiting the period of uninterrupted driving, limiting the normal weekly hours of duty, providing breaks for rest, and fixing the minimum length of the uninterrupted daily rest. As regards the ‘‘generalisation of the reductions of hours of work,” the conference will he called upon to examine proposals for reducing hours of work in a 1 t economic activities other than agriculture and shipping.