Origins, Aims, Institutions, Financing, Activities

International Labour Organization

origins, aims, institutions, financing, activities

Paper

Submitted to

Collegium of Socio-Economics

Professor EwaLatoszek

SGH Warsaw School of Economics

until

26.11.2015

by

Felix Rehbach

Student ID: 67240

Karolina Kupis
Student ID: 60764

Table of Content

Table of Content

List of Figure

1.ILOwelcomesG7measuresforsustainableglobalsupplychains

2. Origins and history of the International Labour Organization

3. Mission and objectives of the International Labour Organization

3.1 Rights at work

3.2 Employment creation

3.3 Social Protection

3.4. Social Dialogue

4. Structure

4.1. International Labour Conference

4.2. The Governing Body

4.3. ILO Director-General

4.4. International Labour Office

4.5. ILO Centres and Institutes

4.6. Membership

4.7. ILO supervision

4.8 Trade unions

4.9 Financing

5. The key issue for the ILO

Promoting Decent work for all

Sources

List of Figure

Figure 1: Selected ILO Conventions

Figure 2: Poverty headcount ratio, at $1.90 a day

Figure 3: The Conference’s meeting in Geneva

Figure 4: Guy Ryder during one of his speeches

Figure 3: International Labour Office in Geneva

1.ILOwelcomesG7measuresforsustainableglobalsupplychains

“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security
all bear the union label.[1]“

- Barack Obama, US-President,2010

On Labor Day in October 2010 the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, spoke what the Labor movement has meant to America and that the fight for America's workers continues. In fact, it is not only about American workers it is more a global fight.
As the former Director-General of the International Labour Organization mentioned, working for social justice is our assessment of the past and our mandate for the future.[2]

Thus, the G7, which is a informal bloc of industrialized democracies- the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, announced their commitments to fair trade and sustainable supply chains at the end of the two-days meeting in Berlin, which focused on Employment, Labour, Social Affairs, International Cooperation and Development. The International Labour Organization welcomed the announcement of the G7 to mobilize their joint efforts to boost labour rights, decent working conditions and environmental protection in global supply chains. The ministers agreed the creation of a multi-donor Vision Zero Fund for action in producing countries, which will support the dialogue and the utilization ILO standards on occupational safety and health and fundamental principles and rights at work in multinational companies. The ILO Director-General Guy Ryder substantiated the importance and mandatory provision of the funds, which will help prevent and reduce the unacceptable number of workplace-related deaths, injuries and diseases, because 2.3 million men and women die every year from work-related accidents and diseases.Furthermore through the access to the global supply chains it is possible to reduce the poverty in countries, which have low Labour standards and child labour. [3]In the following parts we are going to present the origins, aims, institutions, the way of financingand theactivities of the International Labour Organization,before we will round up the topic with a conclusion and a forecast in the future.

2. Origins and history of the International Labour Organization

With the end of the First World War and the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference the Allied powers, the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan and delegates from other nations prepared the Treaty of Peace. The Treaty of Versailleslaid the foundations for the International Labour Organization, an agency of the League of Nations, the former United Nations[4].

The International Labour Organization chose Geneva for their headquarters, because the city became the global centre of the peace movement and internationalism after the First world war. In addition to the League of nations (as predecessor to the Un) and the ILO, which became the first specialised agency of the United Nations in 1946, Geneva was also the location for the headquarters for the Red Cross and the International League of women. Already in 1908, the world Association of the Esperanto Language settled in Geneva. Later on, many international peace talks and disarmament conferences were held in the city.

The origins grew out of nineteenth-century labor and social movements, which culminated in widespread demands for social justice and higher living standards for the world's working people, caused through the the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Associated with this are conspicuous forms of social inequality and injustice, which contributed to the strengthening of European social democracy and trade unions. Prominent social reformers such as Robert Owens and Daniel le Grand are regarded as initiators of the ILO.[5]
Furthermore from the political and economical view, there are several factors that led to the founding of a supranational labour organisation:

Economic growth in domestic demand

Expansion of international trade and international investment

Deregulations on the labour market

Excessive use of Labour- social dumping

Increased powerful unions

One of the principal achievements of the ILO has been the formulation of an extensive international labour code through the drafting and adoption of various standard-setting conventions and recommendations.

Thus, it is no coincidence that the first ILO Convention organized by the International Labour Organization in 1919 called for the introduction of the eight-hours day and the 48 - hours week in industry.Furthermore the Conference signed an agreement about protection of workers in case of unemployment, maternity, night work by women and youth and the introduction of a minimum age of fourteen years for employment in the industrial sector.[6]
By 2002, the various sessions of the International Labour Conference had built up the edifice of the international labour code through the adoption of 184 conventions and 194 recommendations, covering such questions as the following, which are based on important ILO conventions.

Figure 1: Selected ILO Conventions

• employment and unemployment: employment services, national development programs, and provisions for unemployment
• various aspects of conditions of work: wages, hours, weekly rest periods, annual holidays with pay, and allied topics
• employment of children and young persons: minimum age of admission to employment, medical examination for fitness for employment, vocational training and apprenticeship, and night work
• employment of women: maternity protection, night work, and employment in unhealthy work
• industrial health, safety, and welfare
• social security
• industrial) relations
• labour inspection
• social policy in nonmetropolitan areas and concerning indigenous and tribal populations
• protection of migrants
• trade unionism and collective bargaining

Labour and social standards, that would be internationally valid was considered by many politicians, scientists and economists as an utopian goal, because international action used to be unkown in these areas. The unrestrictedly accepted conventions and recommendations as well as the ILO mechanism of mutual supervision has helped to improve the International Labour Code. To keep pace with advancing concepts of the social and economic welfare as well as to broaden its scope the code is being revised and extended on a continuous base.[7]

3. Mission and objectives of the International Labour Organization

“Universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice”[8]is the Preamble of the International Labour Organization. The organization is devoted to promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights, to pursue the mission. Nowadays ILO is still helping in creating decent work and giving working people a stake in lasting peace, prosperity and development, through their main aims.

3.1 Rights at work

The first aim of the ILO is to promote and realize standards and fundamental principles and rights at the work for everybody in the globalized economy, which requires enormous action at the international level. This is a challenging heterogeneous aim for the world community, which has to develop international legal instruments on trade, finance, environment, human rights and labour.

The Globalization and Digitalization has created opportunities and benefits for many, yet at the same time millions of workers and employers worldwide have had to face new challenges. The globalized economy has displaced workers and enterprises to new locations, resulted in the sudden accumulation or flight of capital, and caused financial instability in certain regions. Despite initial optimism, globalization has not ushered in an era of prosperity for all.

Figure 2: Poverty headcount ratio, at $1.90 a day

No nation is immune against the effects of the Globalization. 13% of our world population, which means 900 Million people are living with less than $1.90 a day.[9]Furthermore the inequality within many countries and between the world's richest and poorest nations has also grown exponentially over the last few decades. In 1960 the income gap between the wealthiest and the poorest fifth of the world's population was 30 to 1. By 1999, it had increased to 74 to 1. In 1995, average GDP per capita in the richest 20 countries was 37 times the average in the poorest 20 - a gap that doubled in 40 years.[10]The continuous change of the economy is neither sustainable nor desirable. Thus, the international members are establishing basic rules to ensure that globalization offers a fair chance at prosperity for everyone.

3.2 Employment creation

Persistent poverty, an increasing income inequality and a slow growth of working perspectives, aggravated by financial and environmental crisis, are critical barriers to increase the living conditions. The second main objective of the International Labour Organization is about creating greater opportunities for women and men to decent employment and income. The insufficient pace in creating decent work on a national level points to the need for greater international coordination. For that reason, the ILO identifies policies, which help governments employers and workers to create and maintain decent work and income.
The Global Employment Agenda´s main goal is to place employment at the heart of economic and social policy, which is pursuant with the eight Millennium Development Goals to lift almost a billion people out of extreme poverty.

During the period 2010–15, the strategy for promoting full, productive and freely chosen employment include the following key outcomes:[11]

coordinated and coherent policies to generate inclusive job-rich growth

skills development policies to increase the employability of workers, the competitiveness of enterprises and the inclusiveness of growth

policies and programmes to promote sustainable enterprises and entrepreneurship

3.3 Social Protection

Social Protection is recognized by the International labour standards as well as the United Nations as a basic right. Furthermore, social protection is widely considered to be instrumental in promoting human welfare and social consensus on a broad scale.
About 6 billion people, 80 per cent of the world´s population has no adequate social security coverage. They face deplorable conditions in the workplace, during their retirement and about their health care. These conditionsreflects levels of economic development and welfare, with fewer than 10 per cent of workers in least-developed countries covered by social security. In middle-income countries, coverage ranges from 20 to 60 per cent, while in most industrial nations, it is close to 100 per cent.[12]

Thus, the International Labour Organization tries to enhance the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for the world´s population in cooperation with other UN organizations. They are focusing on three main objectives:

Extending the coverage and effectiveness of social security schemes

Promoting labour protection, which comprises decent conditions of work, including wages, working time and occupational safety and health

Working through dedicated programmes and activities to protect such vulnerable groups as migrant workers and their families; and workers in the informal economy.

3.4. Social Dialogue

Strengthen tripartism and social dialogue is the fourth and last objective of the International Labour Organization, which plays a critical role in achieving advanced working opportunities for women and men, in conditions of freedom, equality, security and human dignity.

All types of social Dialogue are based on isssues of common interests between goverments´ representatives, employers and workers.

The aim of the ILO is to help governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations to establish sound labour relations, to adapt labour laws to changing economic and social circumstances and to improve labour administration. This aim is very time consuming caused by the tripartite process with the government as an official party and bipartite relations between labour and management.

To encourage an approach the ILO tries to strengthen the dialogue among the constituents and improve the effectiveness, which is based on the following declarations.[13]

Respect for the fundamental rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining

Strong, independent workers' and employers' organizations with the technical capacity and knowledge required to participate in social dialogue

Political will and commitment to engage in social dialogue on the part of all parties

Appropriate institutional support

4. Structure

The International Labour Organization (ILO)has its advantage over other organizations due to its unique structure. The ILO achieves its objectives through the cooperation of three main bodies, mainly: The International Labour Conference (which meets annually), the Governing body (which meets three times a year) and the Office. The Governing Body is composed of 28governmentrepresentatives:14workers'representatives,and14employers'representatives.Due to such division the organization is the only tripartite U.N. agency. Such distribution enables the Member States to openly and implicitly talk, debate, invent, develop and improve labour standards, policies and rules with the governments and other social partners within the economy on a daily basis. This undeniably improves the communication between the constituents. Moreover it ensures that the opinions of the social partners are closely reflected in ILO labour standards, policies and programmes. ILO emphasizes the role of social dialogue between trade unions and employers as far as any national policies and regulations on social, economic, and many other significant issues are concerned.

4.1. International Labour Conference

The major objective and task of the International Labour Conference is setting the ILO policies. Apart from that, the Conference establishes and adopts international labour standards and is a forum for discussion of key social and labour questions. It also adopts the Organization's budget and elects the Governing Body. It meets once a year in June, in Geneva, Switzerland. This annual Conference brings together governments', workers' and employer's delegates of the ILO member States.Each member State is represented by a delegation consisting of two government delegates, an employer delegate, a worker delegate, and their respective advisers. Employer and Worker delegates are nominated in agreement with the most representative national organizations of employers and workers.
What is very important, every delegate has the same rights, and all can express themselves freely and vote as they wish. Worker and employer delegates may sometimes vote against their government's representatives or against each other. Heads of State and prime ministers also take the floor at the Conference. International organizations, both governmental and others, attend as observers.

Figure 3: The Conference’s meeting in Geneva

4.2. The Governing Body

The Governing Body plays the executive role in the management of the International LabourOrganization. Its meetings take place three times a year, in March, June and November. The Governing Body is responsible for deciding on couple of issues:

taking care of the ILO policies;

deciding the agenda for International Labour Conference;

adopting the draft Programme and Budget of the Organization for submission to the Conference;

electing the Director-General.

The Governing Body is composed of 56 titular members. Ten of the titular government seats are permanently held by States of chief industrial importance (Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States).

4.3. ILO Director-General

From 1 October 2012 this seat is taken by Guy Ryder, who perceives the ILO as absolutely central to the questions of the day as far as jobs, social protection, the fight against poverty, and equality are concerned. For this reason, he wants the ILO to influence global situations – such as economic crisis – and to have impact on the national agendas of countries undergoing change.

Figure 4: Guy Ryder during one of his speeches

4.4. International Labour Office

The International Labour Office serves the role of being a secretariat of the ILO. Because of that, this is the place where all activities are conducted under the supervision of the Governing Body and under the leadership of the Director-General.

The Office employs some 2,700 officials from over 150 nations at its headquarters in Geneva, and in around 40 field offices around the world. Among these officials, 900 work in technical cooperation programmes and projects.