Position Paper on Asian Social Security Minima
Asia has a population of 3.7 billions, and 1 billion of them are living below US$ 1.25 (ppp) per day. Almost two thirds of the world’s poor are in Asia. And in terms of Gini Coefficient, Asia has the greatest income disparity. Hence there is an urgent need to provide basic social security protection to those in poverty and make sure that they enjoy the fruits of social and economic development. In particular, Asian countries have large rural population and large informal sectors. As the majority of the Asian countries are developing economies, it would not be appropriate for the Asian governments to follow strictly, at this moment of time, the ILO Social Security (Minimum Standard) Convention No. 102. For the sake of Asian solidarity and fair share of economic progress, there is obligation and responsibility for the Asian governments to adopt a unified standard of social security minima. It is hope that ultimately, it would facilitate different workers from different parts of Asia to travel freely and work in whatever Asian country they want without losing basic social security benefits. At the same time, it would benefit the Asian economy as a whole because the matching between workers and the enterprises would become optimal at the end. We should therefore seek to adopt the unified Asian social security minima and provide a basic but unified living protection to all Asians.
Principles of the Unified Asian Social Security Minima:
- The social security system must be basic and universal and non discriminatory. The priority design should include social assistance, minimum wage, health service, work injury insurance and pension.
- Social Assistance must be set up to provide individual benefits including disaster relief target at a replacement rate of 15% of the country average wage. Job security must be recognized as a universal human right. Governments should provide jobs to the welfare poor at or beyond the minimum wage level, to build up the basic social infrastructure, such as housing, hospitals, schools, roads, electricity and irrigation.
- Minimum wage must be legislated to provide all employed at the replacement rate of 40% of the country average wage. This is because individual working poor on average needs to support at least 2 family members.
- Medical and health services must be provided to all people on the principles of equity
- Work injury insurance scheme based solely on employers’ contribution should be provided to all those workers who are injured in the workplace, with free medical treatment and rehabilitation. At the same time, a full monthly wage of the individual concerned should be given to the injured until they are fully recovered. A additional compensation should also be given to those who are permanently injured.
- Universal flat rate pension must be in place for all those 65+ at a replacement rate of 20% of the country average wage. This is to be financed by a tripartite contribution of 30% shared equally among the government, employers and employees. Workers and peasants earning less than 40% of the average wage will be exempted from contribution. The contribution rates could be adjusted by regular acturial assessment every 3 to 5 years.
Therefore we demand that:
- Asian governments should come together and sign treaties or agreements to implement the Asian social security minima within the next decade.
- Government of all Asian countries and regions should commit at least 6% of their GDP to providing social security for all by 2015.
- Social Funds donated by the Asian governments should be set up to facilitate experimental projects, consultancy and research to assist country partners to implement the Asian social security minima.
- NGOs, Trade Unions and scholars of different countries should be encouraged to form Asian level social security organizations and provide technical assistance to governments for the introduction of the Asian social security minima.
- We welcome initiatives from the ILO and other bodies to modify ILC 102 in the coming years, and demand them to make changes in the related ILC on social security to meet the challenges.
- We also demand that in the existing and forthcoming regional initiatives and bilateral and regional trade agreements, should have clauses related to social security measures for all.
We acknowledge that our proposal does not address all the needs and certain category of people but would like to work with them to make changes in the coming days.
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