According to the NASW Code of Ethics, “the primary mission of the social work profession is to improve human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty.” NASW lists social justice as one of the core values of the social work profession, including: In capitalist societies, governments regularly intervene in the economy to support social justice. Social justice advocates often advocate for policy reforms in areas such as health care, immigration, or the criminal justice system to combat potential bias against certain demographic groups. In socialist economies, social justice is a fundamental principle of economic policy. Socialist governments typically implement large-scale programs of forced redistribution of land, capital, and other assets, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Holodomor, in the name of social justice. In the context of work and employment, social justice ensures that “those who have less in life must have more in the law.” (Judge Velasco, Jr., separate and dissenting opinion in Perez v. Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company, G.R. No. 152048, 7 April 2009) Social workers are committed to social justice because they need to pay attention to the environmental and societal factors that contribute to people`s struggles. Reamer explains this in his article Social Work Today, writing about how social workers understand “that clients` individual struggles with problems such as clinical depression, anxiety, domestic violence, substance abuse, and poor health are often due to significant social and economic problems associated with poverty. unemployment, unaffordable housing, inflation and other environmental problems.” Social justice advocates may seek to achieve their goals through a wide range of peaceful or non-peaceful means, including various government programs, social campaigns, public activism, violent revolution, or even terrorism. At the government level, social justice initiatives can be pursued through various types of programmes.
This may include the direct redistribution of wealth and income; protected legal status in terms of employment, public subsidies and other areas for disadvantaged groups; or legalized discrimination against privileged groups up to expropriation, collective punishment and purges. International labour standards have also been developed to create a global system of social and labour policy instruments, supported by a monitoring system, to address all types of problems encountered in their implementation at the national level. They are the legal component of the ILO`s strategy to manage globalization, promote sustainable development, eradicate poverty and ensure that all can work in dignity and security. The Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization stresses that in order to achieve the ILO`s objectives in the context of globalization, the organization must “promote the ILO`s standardization policy as a cornerstone of the ILO`s activities by increasing its relevance in the world of work, and ensure the role of standards as a useful means of achieving the Organization`s constitutional objectives”. Definition of social justice: Social justice is a type of justice rooted in the idea that all people should have equal rights, opportunities and treatment. “. Whether employed locally or abroad, all Filipino workers enjoy the protective mantle of Philippine labor and social services, regardless of contractual provisions to the contrary. The Declaration is consistent with the State`s basic public policy of protecting work, promoting full employment, ensuring equal opportunities at work, regardless of sex, race or creed, and regulating relations between employees and employers.
Indeed, the State guarantees the fundamental rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining, security of property relations and fair and humane conditions of work [Article 3 of the Philippine Labour Code; See also article 18, article II and section 3, article XIII, of the 1987 Constitution]. This decision is also made binding by article 17 of the Civil Code, which provides that “laws concerning public order, public order and morality may not be deprived of effect by laws or judgments or by findings or agreements made in a foreign country”. The labour market, labour policy and organised labour tend to be among the main problems of the private sector. In the labor market, equal pay and opportunities for all segments of the population are generally two key points for progressive advocacy. The formation and dissemination of trade unions is often justified and framed in terms of social justice in order to promote the interests of workers against exploitative employers. To understand and respond effectively to these new challenges, the ILO launched a Future of Work Initiative and established the Global Commission on the Future of Work in August 2017. Six thematic groups focus on the most important issues that need to be addressed if future work is to ensure security, equality and prosperity: the role of work for individuals and society; the widespread inequality of women in the global world of work; technologies for social, environmental and economic development; life-cycle skills development; new models of inclusive growth; and future work management. The Global Commission presented its report in January 2019. Each value is linked to an ambitious ethical principle. For social justice, the ethical principle is “social workers challenge social injustice.” The Code of Ethics extends this principle: in order to relativize the current challenges, it is important to recall that the signatory States of the Treaty of Versailles founded the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1919, recognizing that “there are working conditions that entail so much injustice, hardship and deprivation for a large number of people. that they cause such great disturbances that the peace and harmony of the world are endangered.
To address this problem, the newly formed organization created a system of international labour standards – international conventions and recommendations developed by representatives of governments, employers and workers around the world – covering all labour-related issues.
