Summary of Event
The Industrial Revolution, combined with the drive for profits, caused profound social change. Throughout the nineteenth century, industrialization was accompanied by dangerous working conditions, minimal wages, exhausting hours, and child labor. It spawned destitution, squalid urban settlements, and the kind of human suffering so vividly portrayed by author Charles Dickens. Workers were sometimes viewed as expendable. The social consequences of the system were disastrous for the working class.
Social reformers, clerics, academics, and philosophers (among them Karl Marx) pressed for change. Trade unions were organized. Between 1871 and 1900, socialist parties were formed in more than twenty countries, and some labor legislation was enacted to begin protecting the human rights of the working class. Change was slow and piecemeal, and it increasingly was recognized that international action was needed. The First International (1864) and the Second International (1889) were efforts by labor unionists and socialists to organize at that level.
Switzerland was anxious to bring governments together to generate some form of international regulation to protect workers and, in 1889, suggested setting up an international organization for labor legislation. An international meeting resulted, but the participating governments were against adopting any labor convention, opposed the creation of any international machinery, and even turned down recommendations to hold periodic international meetings on labor issues. Trade unions tried to establish international links. The first international conference of trade union organizations was held in 1901; subsequent meetings defined tasks to be performed, such as exchanging information and providing assistance in industrial disputes. In 1913, the organization became known as the International Federation of Trade Unions.
World War I created profound changes in industry, including vastly increased production, expanded mechanization, and enlarged numbers of women in the work force. The working class contributed greatly to the war effort, and it wanted to be remembered in the creation of the new order that would result from the peace settlement. In 1916, an international trade union congress meeting in Great Britain drew up a detailed program of labor rights to be recognized by the peace treaty. It called for the creation of an international commission to ensure that these provisions would be implemented and advocated the establishment of an international labor office to study the development of labor legislation. Labor representatives of the Central Powers held a conference of their own in 1917 to elaborate a set of counterproposals for inclusion into the peace treaty.
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was another important factor leading the Paris Peace Conference to address labor concerns. The Russian upheaval helped to dispel complacency elsewhere. As World War I drew to an end, the British Ministry of Labour began to work on a detailed plan for an international labor organization. The Allies were committed to creating a world organization to achieve collective security, and it was considered inevitable that one of its organs would be concerned with labor issues. The Labour Ministry therefore began exploring, with the support of the British cabinet, what this structure should be. The peace conference would make that decision, but the Ministry of Labour wanted to propose a practical blueprint. Harold Butler, the assistant secretary, and Edward Phelan, an expert on foreign questions in the Intelligence Department, were the main architects of this document.
The 1919 Paris Peace Conference established a fifteen-member commission to draft the provisions concerning labor to be incorporated into the peace treaty. This body was headed by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. As it turned out, none of the other national delegations had prepared any proposal as detailed and comprehensive as the British. The commission therefore decided to use that draft proposal for an international labor organization as the basis for discussion. The structure and organization developed by the commission and accepted by the peace conference became Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles. This international organization was unprecedented but was seen as indispensable if grave labor disorders were to be avoided after the war. It did not meet all the objectives sought by workers’ organizations, but it was capable of achieving progressive improvement in the condition of workers, human rights protection, and greater social justice.
The framework of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was innovative in many respects. International organizations are usually composed of delegates of governments; the ILO had an unprecedented tripartite structure in order to foster communication among labor, management, and government. Each member-state was to send four delegates, two representing government and one each representing labor and management. About 150 nations had joined the ILO by 1990. The ILO remained independent from the United Nations (as it was from the League of Nations) but linked to it by an international agreement.
The ILO has three main organs. The International Labour Conference meets annually at the ILO headquarters in Geneva. All member-states are represented. It addresses problems faced by workers, develops labor standards to be applied worldwide, approves the budget, and decides on matters pertaining to the functioning of the organization. As a major departure from nineteenth century practice, decisions are made by majority votes (instead of unanimity); some require two-thirds majorities. Government, labor, and employer representatives vote in separate groups, another innovation of the tripartite system. Appropriate committees are used to share the organization’s workload.
The second organ is the executive Governing Body, which meets three times a year to decide questions of policy and working methods. It is composed of fifty-six members, twenty-eight chosen from the government representatives and fourteen each from the employer and labor groups. The ten states of chief industrial importance (Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States) are given the privilege always to be represented on the Governing Body by one government delegate each. The other government seats, as well as the management and labor positions, are filled every three years by elections of peer groups (government, employer, and labor representatives, respectively) attending the International Labour Conference.
The third organ is the International Labour Office. It is the administrative infrastructure permitting the smooth functioning of the other organs and committees. It publishes a vast array of materials and employs a staff of about three thousand. Members of more than one hundred nationalities serve at headquarters in Geneva, in the forty field offices around the world, and in the countries in which the ILO is implementing projects. The staff is headed by the director-general, who is appointed by the Governing Body for a term of five years and who plays a crucial role in the fulfillment of the organization’s mission. Albert Thomas, a prominent French labor activist passionately involved in the international worker movement, became the first director-general and established firm precedents of dynamic leadership.
The ILO’s most important task is to develop international labor standards covering all work-related issues, such as hours of work, vacations, and social security. These standards are created by means of conventions and recommendations adopted by the International Labour Conference. Conventions require individual member-state ratification. A ratifying state undertakes the obligation of enacting whatever legislation may be needed to make the labor standards applicable as domestic law. Recommendations do not require ratification; they serve as guidelines for national labor policy. The ILO has developed procedures to monitor the implementation of its Labour Code and ensure that states fulfill their obligations.
Another important part of the ILO’s program is provision of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries in labor-related matters. The ILO trains workers to increase their productivity and chances of employment. It assists countries in establishing their own training centers, particularly by providing much-needed equipment, such as computers, software, audiovisual materials, and tools. It acts as a clearinghouse for a large amount of information about occupational safety and health, promotes full employment, provides advice to governments, and fosters planning in all these matters. Hundreds of ILO experts are sent annually on temporary assignments around the world. Furthermore, the ILO does research, collects data on a vast variety of work-related issues, and publishes many studies, reports, guides, and manuals.
Significance
The ILO has been remarkably successful in improving the condition of workers, protecting human rights, and fostering social justice in a global environment frequently hostile to social reform. The development of international labor standards implemented by the member-states’ own legislation is a major achievement. The ILO had adopted 172 conventions and 179 recommendations by the early 1990’s, covering major labor issues such as length of the workweek, the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining, equality of opportunity, just remuneration, employment security, weekly rest, occupational hazards, and social security.
The ILO programs of technical assistance to underdeveloped nations became increasingly more significant as former colonial possessions achieved full sovereignty. By the 1990’s, about eight hundred ILO experts were working in about 140 countries on projects geared to local needs. Many of the projects are funded in large measure by the United Nations Development Program, with assistance from other U.N. agencies and independent contributors. The projects received $152 million from all sources in 1990. ILO assistance is especially effective in human resources development, particularly vocational training. This is accomplished by means of fellowships given to trainees from underdeveloped countries as well as through training local instructors and establishing training centers in the new nations. The ILO also provides instruction at its International Center for Advanced Technical and Vocational Training in Turin, Italy.
Assistance is also provided for the purpose of improving management performance in many fields, such as water supply, manufacturing, and transportation. This assistance has also been aimed at broadening the social role of managers, for example, by leading them to be more concerned about environmental protection. The ILO has launched a World Employment Program intended to increase employment opportunity in its member-states and consequently to reduce poverty.
The rapidly expanding use of highly complex technology and of dangerous materials in industrial production has led to large numbers of industrial accidents, including those causing permanent disability of workers. To remedy this problem, an international information center has been established along with an occupational hazard alert system. This system is responsible for examining and analyzing all the information on occupational safety appearing around the world for the purpose of making it available to all ILO members.
Among the ILO’s many accomplishments, its extensive research and data gathering efforts stand out, together with its publication and information programs. Detailed analyses of labor problems and review of specific remedies actually developed in various parts of the world have been of enormous assistance to government and other agencies. Thousands of ILO publications are in print and distributed worldwide.
In 1969, the ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This was a fitting recognition on its fiftieth anniversary of its remarkable accomplishments and a just reward for its ceaseless effort to improve the condition of workers everywhere, protect human rights, and promote social justice.