Preamble
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,
Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met in its Fifty-eighth Session on 6 June 1973, and
Considering that important changes have taken place and are taking place in cargo-handling methods in docks--such as the adoption of unit loads, the introduction of roll-on roll-off techniques and the increase of mechanisation and automation--and in the pattern of movement of freight, and that such changes are expected to become more widespread in the future, and
Considering that such changes, by speeding up freight movements, reducing the time spent by ships in ports and lowering transport costs, may benefit the economy of the country concerned as a whole and contribute to the raising of the standard of living, and
Considering that such changes also involve considerable repercussions on the level of employment in ports and on the conditions of work and life of dockworkers, and that measures should be adopted to prevent or to reduce the problems consequent thereon, and
Considering that dockworkers should share in the benefits secured by the introduction of new methods of cargo handling and that, accordingly, action for the lasting improvement of their situation, by such means as regularisation of employment and stabilisation of income, and other measures relating to their conditions of work and life, as well as to safety and health aspects of dock work, should be planned and taken concurrently with the planning and introduction of new methods, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to social repercussions of new methods of cargo handling (docks), which is the fifth item on the agenda of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of a Recommendation supplementing the Dock Work Convention, 1973,
adopts this twenty-fifth day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred and seventy-three, the following Recommendation, which may be cited as the Dock Work Recommendation, 1973: