ILO Elections 2022: Kang Kyung-hwa, the first female director-general?

Prior to the 2022 election of Director-General for the ILO, EU Reporter interviews one of the top running candidates for the role, KANG Kyung-hwa from the Republic of Korea, who would also be the first woman to be elected in this role, writes Tori Macdonald.

While having no direct work experience related to labor to date, what prompted you to run for ILO DG? In Korea, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the most representative trade unions, refused to support your candidacy, stating your lack of proper labor experience, what is your stance on this?

I served for over three-and-a-half years as a core member of the cabinet of a government that started out under the banner of “respect for labour” and has undertook many significant steps to enhance labour rights in the country, including the ratification of three fundamental ILO conventions, reduction of working hours, annual increases to the minimum wage, and many other legal and regulatory changes to improve the working conditions and strengthen social security schemes for workers and families. 

Within my own purview, during my time as Foreign Minister, I was happy to see the unionization of the administrative staff in our overseas missions, and oversaw the first collective bargaining with the union. (See Kyung-hwa's CV here)

The progress is insufficient and much more work needs to be done, but this should not diminish the advances made so far.  I compare the situation of workers in our country now with twenty three years ago in 1998, when then President Kim Dae-jung, whom I closely assisted at the time, established the first tripartite mechanism in the country to weigh in on social and economic policy-making.  And I am heartened to see the changes that this has led to in terms of labour rights and social protection, even as the economy has grown to become the 10^th largest in the world.

Furthermore, when I worked for six years as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, I led much collaborative work between the Office and the ILO.  Human rights and labour rights are both about human dignity and justice, and the human rights and labour rights mandates in the UN community are both about setting global norms and supervising/monitoring their implementation. I am happy to see that the collaboration between the two offices have strengthened over the years.  So, “no direct experience” is not accurate. 

If the point is that I am not an ILO insider, that is indeed accurate.  But as the organization enters its 2^nd century, I think an outsider with plenty of experience and broader perspective rather than an insider with partial views or narrow scope of experience is what the ILO needs if it is to live up to the enormous expectations of the global community..

I regret that KCTU continues to refuse to support my candidacy.  But the other umbrella confederation FKTU has been supportive from the beginning.  I hope KCTU will also be supportive in the end. I continue to reach out to the membership of the KCTU, some of whom have indicated their support. 

I also don’t think “proper labour experience”, if that means being a labourer oneself or having been active in a union, is a necessary qualification to be the DG of the ILO.  Many former DGs came to the position without that, as far as I can see. 

Tripartism at ILO headquarters, which is the DNA of the organization, seems drained of energy and purpose, with much distrust dividing the tripartite constituents, according to the many participants that I had the opportunity to talk to over the past few months.  It needs a fresh boost.  So at this point, I think the community needs a DG taking up the post with impartiality, deep commitment to the social justice mandate of the organization, a fresh pair of eyes, new energy and wisdom that comes from extensive experience at the highest levels of public service, including in steering difficult conversations.

Tripartism and social dialogue are the DNA of the ILO.  They need rise up to the challenges of these transformative times, at Geneva HQ and in countries, if the ILO is to remain relevant for all of humanity in the 2^nd century. 

What would be your priorities as the next ILO Director General??

My vision for the ILO is to be more relevant and more impactful for all of humanity, and this can only be done by the organization becoming a central players in the multilateral order with a much deeper and wider reach on the ground.  And this is very much in line with the 2019 ILO Centenary Declaration and the Agenda 2030 of the UN system.

The ambitions of the Centenary Declaration for a human-centered world of work have been made even more pressing during the past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The immediate priority is inclusive, sustainable and resilient recovery in the world of work, as outlined in the International Labour Conference Global Call to Action in June last year and reaffirmed by the UN General Assembly. 

Behind the aggregate numbers indicating the economic downturns triggered by the pandemic containment measures are hundreds of millions of lost jobs and livelihoods and tens of millions without social protection fallen into poverty.  The ILO needs to join forces with other UN agencies and international and regional financial institutions to assist countries on the road to job-rich economic recoveries and strengthened social protection schemes, while also meeting the just transition goals in climate action for a human-centered, green and digital world of work.  Building back better has to be  not just a slogan but a real goal, and there are plenty of good examples around the world where this is the case.  The key is scaling up, which calls for joined-up efforts by all UN agencies and the WB, the IMF, regional development banks, and PPPs, and the ILO needs to be at the center of the endeavors.

As the first female DG, what would be your priority to promote rights of female workers, who appear to have a poor position within the labor market?

Indeed, despite decades of the ILO’s norm-setting, supervisory and technical assistance efforts for gender equality and non-discrimination in the work place, women are poorly positioned in labour markets around the world.  The persistence of the gender pay gap, even in the most developed economies, is a clear indication.  The pandemic has exacerbated the gender divide, with employment and incomes losses brought by the pandemic hitting working women much harder than men.  Gender inequality has been exacerbated, as women have had to give up paying jobs to provide unpaid work at home due to closure of care facilities and exposed to domestic violence due to longer hours at home, and jobs in informal sectors where women are predominant have been curtailed or terminated with little or no social protection.

For me, gender equality and women’s rights have been an unwaivering commitment in all of my roles in public service.  I will fully utilize the full exent of the tools available to the DG of the ILO, including advocacy, to really push the transformative agenda for gender equality as contained in the Centenary Declaration, and make significance inroads for women workers and micro, small and medium business owners, particularly in sectors that have received little attention so far.  For example, large parts of the care economy remain informal and mostly undertaken by women in many countries, including my own.  This would be one area where the ILO under my DGship would place greater attention and resources.  I would also do whatever needs to be done to transform the Office as an employer into a true model of gender equality, just as I did as the top manager of the Foreign Ministry of Korea.

How would you cooperate with the UN or other multilateral organizations?

The ILO has a very big part of the responsibilities in the global community’s Agenda 2030 to achieve the SDGs and make the bold transition to carbon neutrality by 2050.  The Agenda has recently been made more focused to reflect the disruptions triggered by the Covid19 pandemic into the Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda (OCA), which contains dozens of action points, many of which the ILO needs to be leading or co-leading. 

All of this has to be done while more actively participating in and contributing to the UN development system reform.  In the initial stages of the reform, I think there was a certain degree of apprehension about taking part in the reform on the part of the ILO and other specialized agencies.  For the ILO in particular, the tripartism that is at the core of the Organization raised concerns that this unique identity and mandate could get lost in the reform process, and also made it difficult for other UN entities to understand the ILO.

But after the initial years, I do see a great deal of openness on the part of the other UN entities, both at HQ level and in the field, to welcome the ILO at the table.  This is largely thanks to the DG Ryder’s active outreach and dialogue with the Secretary-General and other UN leaders.  The next phase is to build upon this dialogue to enhance ILO’s profile and voice in key Member State processes, coordination fora and other policy-setting discussions that take place at UN HQ in NY. 

In the field, ILO staff needs to work far more closely with other UN agencies, and regularly participate in UN Country Team meetings. So far, that seems to be the exception than the norm.  Working with the social dialogue partners, the ILO field offices need to create synergy with other UN entities and leverage the authority and access of the Resident Coordinator to advance ILO’s Decent Work country programs, especially in countries where the ILO does not have field presence.  If elected DG, knowing the leaders and how things work at the UN HQ and having deep knowledge of the UN’s work in the field, I will vigorously lead the Office in this direction.

Read Kang Kyung-hwa's vision statement here.

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