Workers of the World

On May 17, 1988 President Ronald Reagan did something that no U.S. president had done since 1953; he signed an International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention. Reagan's action was surprising in light of his administration's dismal record on labor issues. In its 70 years of existence, the ILO has formulated 168 conventions establishing basic international labor standards--in such areas as freedom of association, occupational health and safety, and social security. But the United States has only ratified nine of these conventions. In fact the United States withdrew from the ILO in 1977 after bitterly criticizing the ILO's agenda as too politicized, though it returned in 1980. It is odd that the United States, which considers itself the torch bearer in the international human rights movement, should have such a tumultuous relationship with the ILO.

What is the ILO?

The ILO was established in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles. As a specialized agency in the United Nations since 1946, its stated goal is to contribute to the establishment of universal peace through promoting social justice by improving working conditions and labor rights throughout the world.

According to Georges Minet, deputy director of the ILO's mission at the United Nations in New York City, setting international standards and supervising their observance are the two "pillars" of the ILO's function.

Minet says that its tripartite structure makes the ILO different from the other specialized U.N. agencies. "The conference is composed of representatives of governments, business and workers. That is really the backbone of the whole thing," he said. Employer and worker delegates are expected to act and vote independently of one another and, in democratic countries, delegations vote independently from their governments. The United States' employer representative is chosen by the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), and the worker delegates are chosen by the AFL-CIO. Representatives from the Departments of Labor and State make up the government delegation.

The ILO is divided into three principle bodies: the International Labor Conference (ILC), the Governing Body and the International Labor Office which runs the day-to-day operations and secretarial duties in ILO offices worldwide. The International Labor Conference is the supreme governing body of the ILO.

The principal functions of the Conference are: the preparation and adoption of international labor standards in the form of non-binding recommendations and conventions which are binding on countries that ratify them; approval of the ILO program and budget; and general discussion of major social and labor problems, based on a report submitted by the Director-General.

Membership

The ILO currently has representatives from 152 independent nations and is open to all countries that are members of the United Nations. Nations not belonging to the UN may apply to the ILC for admission as long as they are willing to abide by the ILO Constitution.

Member states pay an annual contribution based on their population and Gross National Product. In the latest budget, 1988-89, the net contribution to the ILO's coffers was $162,314,089. The United States contributed $40,607,500; Japan, the second largest contributor, gave the ILO $17,639,898; and the Soviet Union was third, contributing $16,584,103.

The ILO's total budget for 1988-89 was $324,860,000. The United Nations Development Project (UNDP) is the main funding source of the ILO's operational activities, providing 47.9 percent of total expenditures. The ILO is facing a program decrease of 2.3 percent from its 1987-88 budget. Officials at the ILO envision similar program rollbacks for the next budget, currently under consideration at its 76th annual ILO Conference in Geneva. Development projects in Africa received more than 51 percent of the total expenditures in 1988, followed by those in the Americas which received almost 13 percent; Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East got 2.4 percent each; and Europe received 1 percent.

The U.S. and the ILO

Since the end of World War II the relationship between the United States and the ILO has been strained. The United States became disenchanted when the ILO's agenda shifted away from the West in the 1960s and 1970s. David Morse, director-general of the ILO from 1948 to 1970, says the organization was simply responding to the changing world order brought on by the collapse of the colonial empires which gave rise to the newly independent Third World countries. "In the early 50s you had these countries like India, Pakistan and all the African countries except Egypt, Ethiopia and French and British West Africa which were already independent. And the first organization they joined was the ILO, not the UN," says Morse. "So, I began to gear our programs to their needs. We launched technical assistance programs, vocational training, skill training and rehabilitation for the handicapped. We taught them how to build bridges, hospitals, universities, you name it."

The United States and other Western countries used their influence, according to Morse, to expand the ILO's activities in the areas of human rights, with particular emphasis on freedom of association. In 1977 the United States pulled out of the ILO, citing its failure to pursue its mandate. The move was supported by the AFL-CIO. "We felt that certain countries were [trying] to turn the ILO away from concerns that were legitimate workers' concerns and actually turning it into a political mouthpiece," explained Steven Slezak, a member of the AFL-CIO's Department of International Affairs.

"In the United States we have true tripartite representation and we have great battles [between the three delegations]. The Czechoslovakia labor delegate is appointed by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and they do whatever the party line is. The idea is that the three legs of the triangle are independent, representing the true interests of the people whom they have been charged to represent. So, we led the walking out" and the ILO lost a lot of support in the form of money, Slezak added.

A State Department official who specializes in international organizations said that the United States walkout changed the organization a little, but that a double standard still exists. "Democratic countries should have a rigid standard of freedom of association and worker rights, freedom to organize, freedom to strike, all these things that we treasure in our tradition," he said. "Any violation should be thoroughly censured. But the communist countries were immune, because they claimed they had had a socialist revolution [and] didn't need any of these things."

Another criticism of the ILO involves its enforcement powers. "It's very unfortunate," said Walter Russel Meade, Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute, "but the fact is under the current ILO system, you can ratify a convention and it doesn't mean anything. Plenty of countries have ratified them and don't observe any of them. There is no effective force either in international public opinion or various trade organizations in the ILO itself for enforcing adherence to its conventions."

Minet's response is that there is machinery in place in the ILO to pressure countries to abide by the ratified conventions. The Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations requires member countries to submit detailed reports explaining the measures taken to comply with ILO proscriptions.

In the United States, the problem is inverted since it does not ratify the conventions even though it has minimum wage laws, social security, occupational health and safety and other ILO- like labor standards. Minet and Slezak do not believe that the ILO legislation would be superfluous. Both men say that the United States needs to ratify the basic human rights conventions, like No. 87, freedom of association, and No. 105, the abolition of forced labor, to regain its lost credibility.

"The subject matters are redundant. You have some legislation and health coverage, but how do you reconcile the fact that this is a country which has a tradition of free trade unionism, but has never ratified the basic freedom of association at the international level?," Minet asked. "Many of those conventions were not ratified by the United States because of this excuse, that's what it is really, that you have this federal system, and all the states have their own autonomy. And the federal government cannot guarantee that states will implement these instruments. That is not a valid argument." Minet believes that it is a strong, pure free-market ideology which inhibits the United States from ratifying the ILO Conventions.

Meade clarified the rationale behind the U.S. failure to ratify many of the conventions. "It's just too cumbersome of a process. The United States Constitution is awkward in its relationship between treaties and domestic laws. In the past," he said, "when Congress has passed labor legislation, it is evident from the speeches that the legislation is intended to comply with international standards as defined by a given ILO convention. The official U.S. position is that while we do not ratify that many conventions on constitutional grounds, we nevertheless intend to fully bring our domestic legislation into harmony and observe them." American labor legislation, however, does not match European standards according to Minet. He also says that public support for the ILO is lacking in the United States.

James Berge, Corporate Vice President of the Motorola Corporation and a former employer delegate, voicing a common complaint among UN critics, said that the United States overfunds the ILO and the UN. The United States should stay in the ILO, according to Berge, because "it would be dangerous not to, because the countervailing forces of the planned market communities are ever present." Berge believes employers offer an important perspective to the ILO. "As an employer I think that it is extremely important for the private sector to participate in this tripartite activity, because by [the ILO] charter they must develop compromised points of view in order to represent their very different constituents. Whereas I can go and speak as forcefully and as strongly as I feel based on my experience on a given issue." But he suggests that the ILO stick to a stricter interpretation of its role in labor standards and leave the political rhetoric to the United Nations.

Recent success

The most obvious ILO success story is the recent legalization of Poland's independent Solidarity movement. When General Jaruzelski's regime initiated martial law in 1981, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa appeared before the ILO Conference and said that Conventions 87 and 98 had given his movement some added muscle in its demand for legalization. According to the ILO, Walesa said that the ILO "played an important role [in] the restoration of trade union freedom in Poland." Walesa reportedly told the new ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne that he would welcome continued support in the fields of training and workers' education.

The ILO has achieved an excellent record with its technical programs like its National Vocational Institute in Costa Rica and its social security programs in the Ivory Coast and worldwide, said former Director-General Morse. Last year the ILO spent about $95 million on its technical programs worldwide and another $75 million on regional field programs in the Third World and Europe.

Like other international bodies involved with development issues, the ILO has reached out to multinational corporations. "There was a time when the multinationals were considered the bad guys and the ILO fed that notion," said Brian Glade, Director of International Labor Affairs for USCIB. "Since 1976 when [the ILO] put out their Tripartite Declaration on Multinational enterprises, many multinationals voluntarily instituted the recommendations and subject themselves to an ILO survey every three years. Since then, I have seen a real change in the ILO's attitude [toward multinationals]."

A State Department source said that the ILO has garnered a positive image in the governmental community too. "I think that there have been a number of accomplishments in recent years," he said. "The progress on Solidarity in Poland is evidence that we are moving toward the single standard.... I think that there is a renewed interest" in the ILO in this country he continued, "and now a growing appreciation of a growing global economy and more people realize that some of these things need to be subjected to international standardization."

A task force has been established to develop U.S. positions on ILO matters. The President's Advisory Committee on the ILO is chaired by the Secretary of Labor and includes the presidents of the USCIB and the AFL-CIO, as well as the Secretaries of State and Commerce and the National Security Advisor.

The AFL-CIO is pleased with the possibility that the United States will begin to play a more active role in the ILO. "We participate fully, because when it comes to protecting liberties, redundancies are fine and dandy,n said Slezak. "Convention 87 would be somewhat redundant, but as the air traffic controller strike showed, violations do happen."

There is still some philosophical opposition to the ratification in the business community, according to Brian Glade. "Part of the ILO's problem is what I call the Kellog-Briandism," offered Meade. The Kellog-Briand pact was established to outlaw war in the 1920s. It was signed in 1928 by 62 countries. The Versailles era diplomacy was marked by high ideals that everyone signs but no one does anything about. There is a big legacy of that in the ILO," he added. "Beginning with the Helsinki agreement in 1975, there has been a very marked trend--not just by the United States--to take seriously what had been previously regarded as meaningless boilerplate. And that movement is starting to affect the ILO," Meade explained.

The United States may have an embarrassing ratification percentage in the ILO, but that has not bothered recent administrations. A spokeperson for the Labor Department expressed the U.S. attitude clearly, saying "It's not that the United States needs the ILO's conventions; the conventions need the United States."

In the post-war era the United States has often preferred to act unilaterally. This ambivalence toward international cooperation is shifting now that the ILO is perceived to be taking business interests into account. But the real test of U.S. resolve will come when and if the ILO becomes more aggressive in pushing international labor rights in this age of globalized capital.

Geracioti is a freelance writer in New York City.