Conference on “Labour and the Challenges of Development” Global Labour University 1-3 APRIL 2007 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Labour, Growth and Development Title: DECENT WORK ENTERPRISE INDEX: A METHODOLOGY TO ANALYSE THE RELATION BETWEEN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH Authors: Ana Yara Paulino, Maria Lúcia Vilmar, Ronaldo Baltar * , Instituto Observatório Social (IOS) - Brasil Introduction T he eco no mic gro wth is no t a g ua rantee for huma n or social development. One way of discussing the relation between social developm ent a nd e co nom icgrowth is to bring the real labour conditions into the analysis of this phenomenon. The concept of decent work prom oted by International Labour Organization (ILO) is an im p ortan t approach for this purpose. This concept differs from various other approaches that address the problem o f so cia l de velo pm en t strictly to the balance b etwee n g o ve rnm ent and business actions that result on employment or improve the employability. Based on th e concept of decent work, this paper aims to present the current methodological discussion carried out by Social O bservatory Institute (IO S) 1 to develop a Decent Work Index with the purpose of verifying and monitoring the q ua lity an d co nd itio n s o f wo rk at en terp ris e le vel in Brazil. Behind the methodology, the objective of Social O bservatory is to raise a discussion about how Brazilian trade unions and labour organizations can interfere with the business and government policies, using the decent work dim ensions. T he intention is to build a reflection if and how decent work dim ensions can be used as a parameter that is able to keep the social development connected to economic growth. The Social Observatory Institute is an organization that studies and analyzes the behavior of multina tion al, national and state com panies in relation to the fundam ental rights of workers, according to ILO conventions. Information about whether companies respect internationally recognized rights is of publicinterest. Therefore, it is not enough for the com pa n ie s them s elves to present their reports. O th e r o rga niz atio ns m u st con d uct in s pe ctio ns a nd pu blicize the inform ation. This is * Sociologists, Instituto O bservatório Social (IOS) – Brazil. E-mails of the authors: anayara@os.org.br ; marilu@os.org.br ; ronaldo@os.org.br . 1 Th e So cia l Ob se rva tory In s titu te (IO S) is a n in itia tive of CUT Brasil in cooperation with CEDEC (Center of Studies of Contem porary Culture), DIEESE (Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Econom ic Studies) and UNITRABALHO (Inter- University Network of Studies and Researches on Work).