Emerging Challenges of International Labour Organization (ILO)

Abstract

International Labour Organization(ILO) was created in 1919 and is the only League of Nations institution to survive World War II. It is also the only international organization that is not purely intergovernmental in its governance structure. Unions and employer group representatives are part of each country’s delegation and have the same right to vote as government representatives at Governing Body meetings and at the International Labour Conference, where delegates make policy in plenary sessions. Thanks to the debate over labor standards and globalization, however, from the year 1998, the ILO has received more attention, political support, and resources than ever before. The organization has responded with new initiatives and a tougher attitude toward countries that violate standards. In 1998, the ILO approved a “Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work”, which provided a consensus definition of the four core labor standards that have become the centerpiece of the global standards movement. In 2002, it established a World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization to explore ways to make economic globalization more inclusive. ILO has demonstrated remarkable ability to adapt to changing conditions throughout its long history. Today, the ILO must once again respond to evolving circumstances and find new ways to engage state and private actors participating in an interconnected global economy where labour standards continue to be violated and where work itself is undergoing significant transformations. Globalization, the deepening integration of local and national activities into the global economy, and modes of thinking shifting away from the national level towards regional and global levels, presented a new set of policy problems and priorities and increased pressure on the ILO’s foundational structure to adapt. The extent to which the ILO has met those challenges as well as its role in contemporary global governance has been questioned. Some observers are of the opinion that the Organization is increasingly at the margins of influence of global economic governance. Critiques of the ILO focuses on its declining standard setting role, low ratification rates of its conventions, perceived non-representativeness, overambitious mandate and restrictive decision-making processes. Recent decades have also seen the emergence of new and diverse governance arrangements and actors outside ILO structures that are also addressing, or potentially undermining, the protection of worker rights. This paper highlights some of the important issues on the above subject.