A second look at the ILO

By Emil Shaw

It was suggested by Fred Gaboury in his article, "A modest proposal on world trade" (April 8), that the International Labor Organization (ILO) might become the tool for enforcing international labor rights, rather than simply have a "social clause" written into the World Trade Organization's (WTO) rules and regulations.

There seems to be a few problems with this idea. One of them is a full understanding of the nature of the International Labor Organization.

The ILO was founded in 1919 at the request of the Paris/Versailles Peace Conference with the political purpose, as noted in their Preamble, that social injustice produces "unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperiled." The ILO Constitution was written by a labor commission composed of representatives from nine countries and headed by Samuel Gompers, then president of the American Federation of Labor. One should take note that these events took place with the Soviet Revolution of 1917 hovering in the background.

From the very beginning, the ILO was designed to be a conference and research organization, one in which representatives of capital and labor within each country were to meet and exchange their views. Despite noble sentiments expressed in their resolutions, it was never meant to be an enforcement agency.

Between the two world wars, the leadership of this organization was always in the hands of the West through direct connections either with the British or American government. At the end of World War II, the ILO became a special branch of the United Nations organization. At a point in its history, 1977-1980, when this organization took a position contrary to the interests of the United States government, the U.S. withdrew from the organization, triggering a budget crisis.

At the beginning of the Reagan administration, the U.S. returned to the ILO, and using the weapon of "the struggle for human rights," played a major role in the downfall of socialism in Poland by recognizing the Polish Solidarity Union, utilizing the infamous Convention No. 87, which referred to freedom of association, and which the Poles had ratified in 1957.

In all this time, underdeveloped countries never had a controlling role within this organization, and therefore the question arises whether even in the best of situations this organization would be suitable for the enforcement of a world Labor Bill of Rights.

Haswsan Summonu of the Organization of African Trade Union Unity is right when he says that a "social clause," simply written into WTO rules without means of enforcement, would become nothing but a neoliberal cover to fool workers around the world into accepting WTO dominance. At the same time, the position of ICFTU of having such a social clause placed within the WTO rules makes some sense.

While a social clause could simply be a vaguely worded statement on labor's rights, it could also be a strongly worded statement of a labor's bill of rights, guaranteeing the right of workers to organize without the threat of death squad interference.

The logic seems to parallel the struggles of workers in the organization of a shop. First demands, then a struggle for a contract, and then means of contract enforcement. It also appears to have its logic within the history of the United States - first the revolution of 1776, then the constitution, then the Bill of Rights and then a continuous struggle for enforcement and expansion of this Bill of Rights.

It would seem that, rather than these two views being in contradiction with each other, they are really two sides of the same situation. The problem is that sometimes it is difficult to see the whole process of development when one is in the middle of struggle. It is clear that a labor bill of rights must be placed within the rules and regulations of the WTO, just as workers in a factory need a contract to formally regulate wages, hours and working conditions.

Without such a written document, any type of enforcement would be useless. Once a contract has been fought for, then enforcement becomes the next question. That means that labor has to be able to negotiate with the company and is backed up by the united might of the union.

In a similar fashion, it would seem that, first, there has to be formal recognition of labor's rights within the WTO (at this moment not such an easy task), and then an enforcement of this labor code by international labor struggling both in the world courts and on the world's streets for its enforcement.

Emil Shaw is a reader in New Mexico.