International Labor Organization
Introduction
The international labor organization is a UN agency dealing with labor issues. It specifically aims at ensuring decent working conditions for all laborers by implementation of the international labor standards. Currently, there are 185 member states who have subscribed to ILO. The International Labor organization has managed to make significant achievements to improve the international employment standards through its operations. It has been able to formulate widespread international labor codes by adopting and drafting various recommendations, standards and convention agreements. Since its inception in 1919, the International Labor Organization has consistently sought to guarantee and define the rights of employees in addition to improving the working conditions in the global labor market. Until now, the organization has managed to adopt several conventions and working recommendations that address several issues in the world of employment. Over 190 recommendations and 180 conventions have been adopted so far in addition to developing several codes of practice. These standards cover areas such as protection of migrants, occupational safety and health, and maternity leave. The standards have also been used by various national governments and NGOs to draw up legislations governing employment issues within their national boundaries. This paper seeks to discuss how the international labor organization operates to improve international employment standards and how effective the organization is compared to national governments and NGOs.
The international Labor Organization joins forces with other organizations to improve labor standards. This operation strategy helps the organization to achieve its main objectives. For instance, according to a 2002 ILO report, the organization joined forces with the Asian Development Bank in order to improve the labor standards within the Asian Pacific Region. Such an operation strategy is also aimed at promoting development and reducing poverty especially in poverty stricken regions. The commitment from this kind of partnership is considered essential in sustainable development within such regions because in addition to promoting decent working conditions, they also raise living standards of the workers and enhance productivity through quality growth. Asia and Africa are considered to have the highest poverty rates in the world. Working conditions within these areas do not meet the required standards. Child labor and forced labor are high within these regions. For instance, it is estimated that over 20 million laborers are bounded and an estimated 127 million laborers are children. Through partnering with organizations such as the development banks, the International Labor Organization is not only able to create decent working conditions for workers but also engages in sustainable development.
The International Labor Organization encourages multinational corporations to play a role in improving the working conditions of employees within different regions of the world. These multinational corporations are big businesses that can easily set an example to other small businesses of creating decent working conditions. The activities of multinational corporations in developing countries are in fact considered important by the International Labor organization. The companies have the potential of setting the pace for international labor standards in the developing countries. According to Habib-Mintz (2009), there are several multifaceted ways in which multinational corporation integrate with the developing world. One such way is through labor division creation in order to achieve economies of scale. The multinational corporations are able to offer cheap labor to the producer countries in developing world through outsourcing their production lines. In effect they are able to influence the standards of labor within these countries. This effort by the International Labor Organization to encourage multinational corporations into playing a leading role in improving labor standards has so far been able to help ILO achieve its objectives. It has significantly played a part in attaining its goals.
If a particular nation fails to put in place decent working condition for workers, it acts an impediment towards other nations’ effort of achieving decent working conditions for their workers within their jurisdictions. The International Labor organization therefore operates by reversing the race to the bottom. According to Herbert (2009) the constitution of the International Labor Organization is framed in such a way to reduce privation, hardship, and injustices experienced by many workers especially in developing countries. The constitution focuses on areas such as equal pay for equal value of work, freedom of association, protection of migrant workers, children, elderly workers, and workers with disability. It also seeks to protect workers from falling ill or getting any injury as result of their job. The international Labor organization therefore encourages the developing countries to conduct regular labor inspections in order to make sure that businesses and companies, both private and government corporations, comply with the provisions the conventions. It strives to ensure integrity and coherence of various aspects of employment conditions for workers in all member states.
The organization also has a system where all the ratifications done by member states are legally incorporated into their national legislations. There is a supervisory board that ensures all the member states that have ratified a convention or recommendation apply them to their legal systems. The committee that helps in this supervisory process also provides advice to the member states in drafting the provisions to their national labor laws. This committee referred to as the Committee of experts on the application of Recommendations and Conventions, oversees all application of the international labor standards. The committee achieves its responsibility through developing a comprehensive analysis of all the national government and NGOs reports pertaining to employment standards. These reports are submitted to the committee for analysis on a regular basis and the committee eventually develops a detailed report out of the analysis and presents it at the International labor conference which is held annually. ILO does not provide law to member states. Any legislation agreed upon at the international labor conference cannot be legally binding in any member state. However, looking at the ILO constitution, these recommendations and conventions adopted at the conference do not have to be mere pronouncements . But there is a way in which the organization makes sure that the conventions and recommendations are incorporated into the national legal systems of member countries especially those that ratified any of the conventions. The idea of reporting the progress and the implementation process back to the ILO has enabled the organization to monitor state of workers both worldwide and in individual nations. Through the ability to monitor the progress, the organization has been able to use the annual conferences to come up with new recommendations that seek to improve the state of employment in the world.
In a bid to making the reports to be more than just a mere formality, the International Labor Organization requires that the each government preparing the report to first submit it to committee constituting of reputable and independent lawyers and labor organizations. The committee is expected to consider the report, review it, before finally submitting it to the international labor conference. The underlying reason for this working system of supervising is to ensure that the labor conference can be able to establish the progress made in the application of the international labor standards. In certain instances, the conferences may be required to give advices to national government based on the submitted report. Sometimes there can be existing discrepancies between a government existing national laws and the provisions of a conventions. In such cases, the international labor conference usually intervenes by making suggestions on how to avoid the discrepancies. All this effort is aimed at improving the international labor and employment standards so as to provide workers with decent environments for working.
However, in order for this supervisory role played by the international labor organization to be effective, the member states have to be effective in submission of the reports on time. This implies that the effectiveness of the organization to improve labor standards depends on the member states. They have to play their part in order for the existing system to work. But, most governments have been complying with this requirement by submitting their reports in due time before holding of the annual conference. Failure to submit the reports may not be the only problems faced by the organization; some countries may submit less informative reports causing the supervisory committee to be dissatisfied. In case the reports are not forthcoming from some countries or some of the submitted reports are less informative, the organization is forced to politely express their dissatisfaction in clearly identifiable terms. The supervisory committee may also include its criticisms over country reporting in its final reports. In other occasion, the committee may decide to deliberate on these issues during the conferences. In addition, the international labor organization constitution provides other procedures that seek to ensure that the member states apply the provisions of the conventions in their legal system to improve the standards of employment. The constitution gives employees organization the privileges of approaching the international labor office and raise any noticed concerns regarding failure to enforce the provisions of the conventions as required. The employers’ or workers’ organizations can make a complaint regarding any country and are not limited to their countries. This implies that the workers’ organizations serve as a watch dog for the International Labor Organization. Once a government has been alleged by any of the employers’ or workers’ organization, it is required to make a response towards the allegations. In case of a failure to do this, the international labor office has the discretion to publish the allegations. But the obvious this, is that a government has to reply to any such allegation against it. In its response it has to provide satisfactory evidence that it is in fact applying the provisions of the convention.
The other procedure that is followed to ensure that member states apply the provisions of the conventions in the national labor policies is through individual member government. Any government may raise a complaint against another member in case of any non compliance with the provisions of a convention. When a member states files such a complaint, the international labor organizations forms a commission of inquiry to look into the case, provide a report, and give the recommendations it believe is best for the case. The organization handles numerous such cases every year, according to its annual reports. For the last three decades, the organization has had to handle more than 3000 cases. This means that it has a working machinery to examine any allegations of non compliance with the conventions and chat the way forward depending on the nature of the case.
The 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work place subjected all the member states to upholding the core international labor standards irrespective of whether or not they ratified any convention. These sets of core labor principles are simply the most fundamental and basic human rights needed for a decent work environment. The basic principles adopted by member states therefore cover four major areas including: child labor, equal treatment and opportunities, forced labor, and the rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Therefore the operations of the international labor organization have been focusing on these four areas as it seeks to improve international employment standards.
With regards to freedom of association, the world has witnessed growth in trade unions. In the past, many countries did not recognize any association in the name of trade unions. Most trade unions operated in insecure environments. Workers were also not allowed the freedom to join trade unions of their preference. There were no legal provisions that gave workers this freedom. However, ever since the convention on freedom of association was adopted by the International Labor Organization, many countries have integrated this convention in their legal systems and workers have the freedom of association. This convention aims at ensuring workers are protected from any form of discrimination resulting from union membership. This means that an employee cannot be dismissed on the grounds that he or she joined a union. Nevertheless, the international labor organization has continued to witness rising complaints relating to freedom of association. The committee on freedom of association handles many cases of complaints each year. In other cases, the victims have not even participated in the ratification of a convention but allegations are raised against them.
The other important area where the international labor organization focuses its operations on is forced labor. The fight against forced labor is one of the biggest priorities of the organization. In the past just after the First World War and before the end of the Second World War, the issue was mainly regarded a colonial phenomena. However, after the Second World War, the organization shifted its focus regarding the issues to creating awareness against forced labor borrowed from both political and economical lessons learnt during the war. According to current reports by the International Labor Organization, more than 21 million people in the world today are direct victims of forced labor. These people are literary trapped into jobs which they were forced or cheated into. In addition, these people cannot leave the jobs. The Asian pacific region holds the highest cases of forced labor with over 11 million people forced into work out of their will. This is more than 50 percent of the entire global figure. Places such as in the military and in prisons, workers end up being forced into labor without their will. The most surprising thing is that some of these workers forced into labor are below the age of 18. As they stand, these statistics imply that the effort of the organization may not be yielding much fruits as expected. These statistics indicate that there is still a lot that need to be done in improving international employment standards.
Discrimination in employment and occupation is another core area where ILO requires all its member states to apply the provisions of the convention. This convention was established in 1958 to promote equal rights of workers. The convention identified possible types of discriminations that can occur in the work environment. They include: sex, race, social origin, national extraction, political opinion, and religion. The organization identified that these areas are likely to cause impairment in the way workers are treated with a particular place of work. Based on these possible areas on discrimination, some workers may not be able to have access to specific occupations in addition to not having equal terms of employment. However, there are certain cases exempted from being considered discriminatory in nature. One such case is when a prejudicial action is aimed at state security. According to this convention, companies are also required to be considered any additional case in which discrimination may occur within their work places. Upon identification, companies are expected to make policy that prevents discrimination. For instance, it was recently established that workers infected with HIV/AIDS are facing discrimination from employers and colleagues at their places of work. Some were being dismissed on the grounds of their health status. However, because of the intervention of the NGOs, national governments, and the ILO, there has been extensive awareness and cases of discrimination based on an employee’s HIV status are reducing. This indicates that the organization has made significant effort with regards to this convention. In addition, women are generally beginning to experience equality at the places of work. Many countries have put in place measures that ensure women gain access to equal employment opportunities as the men. However, there is still a lot of discrepancy when it comes to equal pay. Generally women receive less pay for the same job as the men.
The role of national governments and NGOs in improving the international labor standards is based on soft regulation approaches. Compared to the national governments and NGOs, the international labor organization is more effective in its role to improve international standards. As mentioned earlier, in order for the organization to effectively play its part, it needs the national government and NGOs to actively play their parts. The nature of system put in place requires a collaborative effort from both sides. The organization also operates as a direct player or an agent with governments. The organization also has programs in place to tackle problems such as unemployment. Many ember state countries have placed measures to tackle the issue of unemployment through creation of jobs and establishment of vocational training. Vocational training programs have also been aimed at developing human resource. Some of the training programs develop human resource in the line of specific industries such as agriculture, tourism and hotel while some of the programs simply aim at strengthening the national human resource.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has discussed how the international labor organization operates to improve international employment standards and how effective the organization is compared to national governments and NGOs. From the discussion it has been established that ILO operates in diverse ways to achieve its goals. It partners with different organizations to improve working conditions for employees across the globe in addition to creating sustainable development in developing countries. The organization also encourages multinational corporations to play a leading role in improving employment standards. Other measures used by ILO include: encouraging member states to ratify conventions, ensuring that member states apply the conventions and recommendations from the annual international labor conference, and playing a supervisory role through guiding member states towards implementation of the conventions, and finally handling cases of allegations against non compliance with the provision of the conventions. Compared to NGOs and national governments, ILO as an organization is more effective. However, its success depends on the success of all its partners.
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