This is the first Flagship report for the ‘Global Deal for Decent Work and Inclusive Growth’ partnership – hereafter the Global Deal. The Global Deal is a global multi-stakeholder partnership whose objective is to jointly address the challenges in the global labour market and enable all people to benefit from globalisation. The fundamental idea at the heart of the Global Deal is to highlight and promote the potential of sound industrial relations and enhanced social dialogue as a means to foster decent work, quality jobs, and increased productivity – and by extension greater equality and inclusive growth. The Global Deal was initiated at the behest of the Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, and developed in cooperation with the ILO and the OECD. The partnership was launched in September 2016 with an initial core group of states, businesses, trade unions and other organisations. The rationale behind the Global Deal is that cooperation within and across a wide array of stakeholder groups is a key element for coming to terms with some of the complex challenges that impede human prosperity and well-being. The Global Deal thus aims to facilitate and advance that cooperation by providing political impetus, scaling up existing processes, promoting evidence-based research and highlighting the opportunities for ‘win-win-win’ gains that mutually benefit workers, businesses and governments.

The present report provides an international portrait of the foundations, trends and challenges connected to social dialogue and sound industrial relations. Furthermore, it aims to demonstrate the potential effects of social dialogue and highlights the Global Deal partnership as a vehicle for accelerating change and as a tool for delivering on the SDGs. This is the first of what is meant to be a recurring report, to be published every other year, and serve as the main tool for following up on the Global Deal partnership.

This report highlights the crucial role played by social partners in shaping the future of work, through workplace cooperation, collective bargaining between trade unions and employers, or their organisations, and tripartite social dialogue between the social partners and the government. Social partners can jointly decide what technologies to adopt, and how. They can contribute to manage transitions for displaced workers, help identify skills needs, develop education and training programmes, and participate in the delivery of the latter. They can also play a role in providing social protection for workers and in promoting concerted action to address gender disparities and issues of discrimination – both in the workplace and throughout global supply chains, but also in terms of representation within the institutions of social dialogue – thereby ensuring better social and labour market outcomes for women and greater prosperity for society as a whole.