8th and 9th Combined Issue: March 31, 2006 |
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| 8th & 9th Combined Issue - March 2006 |
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| In this issue, you will find: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Global Focus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mainland Exchange | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Overseas Practice Experience Sharing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Conferences / Events | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Contact us | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GLOBAL FOCUS |
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| New Employment Law in France and the People's Response | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The new employment law, First Employment Contract (Contrat Premiere Embauche or CPE in French), in France has sparked off big social and political crisis in the Country. The Parliament had passed the bill and the President and the Prime Minister were determined to put it in force. Millions of people gathered and protested against the Law. At time when this issue was prepared, the President had declared to scrap it. What is wrong with the CPE? A law which could agitate anger of millions of people from diverse background deserves a deeper and contextual understanding. But not many people in Hong Kong understand the basic facts behind the whole debate and big demonstrations. Some preliminary facts are gathered:
Arguments for and against the new law were oftenly heard, sometimes with confusions. In short, the government claimed that the law could help young people find job more easily since it could lift the heavy financial (or otherwise legal) burden of the employers to hire young people under 26. Critics suspected that the new law could make young people even more difficult to find jobs. The unionists and the students were discontent because the new law would attenuate the rights of young people to job protection. Some old generation of activists in France thought that the students were defensive and were nothing like the activists in the 60s who embraced a vision for change. Some commentators interpreted the crisis by linking it with the presidential election to be held in next year while some tried to map out the socio-economic conditions underlying the great resistance of the people. Although the bill has just been scrapped, the debates around the issue in relation to welfare reform have just begun. |
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Next UN Secretary-General: Who and Who Should Be? |
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Hit debate begins in the international community about the selection of the next UN Secretary General. It is expected that the appointment can be made by the end of the year. Much of the debate focuses on the practice of so-called "regional rotation," which is not a legal stipulation but a tradition. People are also concerned whether the terms of office should be 5 years or more. If the regional rotation practice is adopted, it is very likely that there will be an Asian Secretary-General. But there are governments who supports to select an East-European. In theory, a high profile candidate with strong competence should be selected. But in practice, this rarely happened. High profile persons were usually rejected as unpalatable to some governments. A candidate from a middle power and with little prior fame would be chosen. Article 97 of the Charter provides that the Secretary-General be appointed by the General Assembly upon a nomination from the Security Council. The nominee must receive at least nine votes in the Council, including no veto from a permanent member. This year, that includes permanent members China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States and rotating members Argentina, Congo, Denmark, Ghana, Greece, Japan, Peru, Qatar, Slovakia and Tanzania. Rule 48 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council requires that the Council's deliberations on the nomination must be held in private session. Similarly, Rule 141 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly requires the Assembly's consideration of the Council's nominee to be discussed and voted on in closed session. NGOs and individual states advocate for a more open and transparent selection process. UNSGSelection.org is an informal NGO coalition calling for a more open and transparent process for the selection of the UNSG. Drawing inspiration from selection processes for other high-level officials, the group provides a useful set of tools and mechanisms for an improved selection process, and is developing a list of procedural requirements and candidate criteria that can be endorsed by civil society groups to guide the current selection process and initiate longer-term procedural reforms. |
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| Corporate Social Responsibility: Some New Approaches and Guidelines Overseas | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) have written two papers on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and trade’ and ‘CSR and investment agreements’ as part of a 2005 SOMO project on CSR and Trade. Trade
and the need to apply international Corporate Social Responsibility
Standard The project seeks to identify the differences, similarities and gaps between the trade, investment and corporate social responsibility agendas, from the perspective of poverty eradication and sustainable development. Where on the one hand, rights of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) when investing and trading internationally are increasingly being secured in different forums (such as the WTO), rules for the behaviour of MNEs are being developed on a voluntary basis (i.e. the OECD Guidelines). The discussion papers outline a number of concrete policy proposals in the areas of CSR, investment and trade policies at the (inter) governmental level. For example, the application of the OECD Guidelines to trade, proposals to make bilateral investment agreements more supportive of CSR and the adoption of interpretations by the WTO to allow governments to discriminate between corporations on the basis of CSR performance. With these policy recommendations SOMO hopes to contribute to restoring the balance between the rights and rules for MNEs. |
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| MAINLAND
EXCHANGE |
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| The Eleventh Five-Year Plan: Directions for National Social Development |
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| The Eleventh Five-Year Plan has just been endorsed in the 10th People's Congress of the nation. Among all the strategic missions mentioned, the so-called "SanNong" Issue (Farming Industry, The Rural, and Farmers) tops the list. The Prime Minister calls for more efforts to pool resources and channel public services for the development of the rural areas and for better livelihood of the farmers. To summarize, there are 10 national priorities to work on in the Plan:
Underlying these 10 priority goals is 39 quantitative indicators measuring the achievement of goals throughout the coming 5-year period. In areas of social welfare and civil affairs, the emphasis remains on the establishment and enhancement of social organization mechanism in terms of their institutional structure and capacity, funding, and their functioning. The poor and the socially disadvantaged in both the urban and rural areas are the strategic targets of assistance. Reducing social contradictions and promoting harmonious society are the overall goals. The Plan and other details and discussions of it can be obtained from China.com.cn |
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| "Share for Care" and "GAS Network": Virtual and Real Mutual Help Resource Network | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For a long time, we have been hoping to identify the needs of Agency Members in relation to their service and project development in the Mainland. In the last few months, two concrete projects were given birth. "Share for Care"
(有福同享)
"Share for Care" gives you not only information and resources, it will give you a new experience of web navigation, which cannot be described but experienced. GAS Network Three gatherings have been organized. Participants expressed positive opinions about the effort. In the first gathering, participants collectively identified a few areas which they would like the GAS network to focus on. The second and the third followed up on two areas which were identified in the first gathering: one on legal environment in the Mainland and one on need of service development in the Mainland. Share for Care and GAS Network will be the archorage of the Council's effort for Agency Members to get support, a support from Agency Members themselves. The directions of these virtual and real networks will also be determined by Agency Members. Opinions and suggestions about these two initiatives can be directed to Ms Judith HO, our officer who is taking care of the 2 networks. |
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| Training on Employment Support Programme, Vancouver, September 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A delegation was sent last year to Vancouver for a Training on Employment Support Programme. Six Council's delegates attended the training course offered by an organization called S.U.C.C.E.S.S and had learnt a great deal from the course. Since then, they have conducted 2 local events to spread the messages and knowledge out to frontline workers providing employment related services and support. One of tools for career counselling and employment support that has been shared in the local workshops is what they called "Personality Dimensions". It builds on the foundations established by the work of David Keirsey, Linda Berens and Don Lowry, and a history of temperament theories that spans 25 centuries (includes MBTI, True Colors). This new, dynamic tool is a culmination of the research and validation work that has been done in Canada over the past five years to support temperament theory and to provide an easily understood methodology for building self-awareness, self-esteem and effective communication strategies. Personality Dimensions is a temperament instrument based on leading-edge research into human motivation and behavior and helps to explain what motivates behavior in people with different personalities or temperaments.? This new, interactive human relations and communication model/process enhances the basic values of self-esteem, dignity and self-worth. The program helps understand individual preferences, styles and temperament types, recognize individual’s own unique blend of strengths and qualities and learn to appreciate others differences. It is therefore well-suited for employment support services and programme. If you want to know more about the fruits of the delegation, you can contact our colleague, Ms Amber Lee. More on employment service in Canada can be obtained from http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/en
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| For
details of other Council’s subsidized events, please visit http://www.hkcss.org.hk/cb5/events/0607.htm |
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5th International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health, Dec 10-14, 2006, Hong Kong |
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| This is a Conference which you can't miss. Why? Let's look at some basic data:
DON'T MISS THE CHANCE. REGISTER NOW AND ENJOY THE EARLY BIRD RATE. Patron: The Honourable Mr Donald TSANG Yam-kuen, The Chief Executive of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Keynote and Plenary Speakers:
Inquiries:
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| To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE, please email to irn@hkcss.org.hk. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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