Introduction
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is the United Nations (UN) organization for the world of work. It has 185 member States and it is the oldest UN agency. The headquarters of ILO’s Secretariat is located at Geneva, Switzerland and they have offices more than 40 countries. The primary goal of the creator of ILO was to produce a standard producing society. There are several reasons of doing that but most of it is to protect the worker’s right. In this essay I will discussed about the history of ILO. Next, I will explain about the standard setting and structure of ILO. Moving on, I will described the role and function of ILO and assess whether it should deem to be effective in protecting worker’s right or not.
History
ILO STANDARD SETTING AND STRUCTURE
The ILO is the main tripartite UN organization with government, employers, and employees delegates. This tripartite structure makes the ILO a one of a kind discussion in which the legislatures and the social accomplices of the economy of its Member States can uninhibitedly and transparently face off and explain labour standards and policies.
Since its creation, the ILO has primarily set international labour standards by adopting conventions and recommendations, both of which may be thought of as forms of ILO “legislation” (Blanpain et al, 2007). Conventions and recommendations of the ILO’s yearly International Labour Conference (ILC) must be approved by two-thirds of the delegates. Each member nation needs to send four-person delegation which consists of two government officials, one representative of employers’ interests, and one representative of employees to the annual conference in June. In addition, the roles of Governing Body (GB) are to set the agenda for future ILCs, set up programme and financial plan, reassess a variety of ILO projects, and selecting the ILO Director-General. Other than that, the International Labour Office, or known as “the Office” is a place of ILO’s overall activities. As of October 2006, the ILO had adopted 187 conventions and 198 recommendations and the subjects covered by this international labour code include (Blanpain et al, 2007).
Since the creation of trade unions for employees’ organisations, they have considered ILO as crucial organisation for protecting employees through social dialogue and standard setting. As the key connection between ILO and employees, the Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV) manages all the performances of the Office that related to employees and organisations. Meanwhile, employers’ organisations are set up to arrange and collect the interests of employers. They are very important in maintaining competitive and sustainable enterprises that can increase the development of social and economic performance. The task of ILO’s Bureau for Employers’ Organizations is to preserve close and direct relationship with employers' organizations in member States. Finally, to make sure that ILO’s resources are accessible to them and as well as to maintain the ILO views, concerns, and priorities.
ROLE AND FUCTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION
ILO is an important agency in order to encourage social and economic progress between governments, employers, and employees. The role is to ensure that ILO develop and promote the needs of working women and men to set the universal labour standards, create policies, and develop programmes. This is also to make sure that a decent work is formed along with worldwide economic growth and expansion. The structure of the ILO shows that there has an equivalent voice of employers and employees with governments. It means in the debate, social dialog occurs between them. Furthermore, the ILO supports this tripartism inside of its constituents and member States by supporting social dialogue between trade unions and employers in formulating. If it’s suitable national policy will be implementing on social, economic, and other concerns.
The next role of the ILO is monitoring compliance of the standards by developing reports, supervising and securing conformity of their application with the ILO’s committees (Lopez, 2010). The subsequent role is to apply sanctions and solutions in the situation of non-compliance of the standards. This is the most polemic step, as there is no consensus on the nature of sanctions to be applied (Verma, 2004). All this apparatus is supported by a unique and diverse tripartite structure of governments, employers and workers, which secure representativeness and different ideologies along the three main steps (Lopez, 2010).
There are three main bodies that help ILO to perform its work which are the International Labour Conference (ILC), the Governing body, and the Office. This consists of governments’, employers’, and employees’ representatives. Tripartite helped the work of the Governing body and the Office that covering significant businesses. Moreover, it also assists on issues such as vocational training, organization expansion, occupational safety and health, industrial relations, employees’ education, and special problems of women and young employees.
Additionally, the roles of ILO are to encourage fair trade and protect the employees from exploitation. What's more, there are nine principles of special importance set by Treaty of Versailles. The list included a statement that labour should not be regarded as a commodity or article of commerce, recognition of employees’ freedom of association, endorsement of the eight-hour workday or forty-eight-hour workweek standard, and an admonition that men and women should receive equal pay for work of equal value (Blanpain et al, 2007). According to Servais (2011), the other principles are the payment of a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard life, the adoption of a weekly rest of at least twenty-four hours, the abolition of child labour, equitable economic treatment of all workers, and each State should make provision for a system of inspection in which women should take part.
The function of ILO is to promote a decent work for all workers for example, creating jobs to people. ILO helped to generate opportunities for investment, entrepreneurship, skills development, creation of job, and sustainable employment. In addition, it also guarantees rights at work such as recognition and respect from other people. This is because there are some employees who are poor workers and they need an organisation that can protect their rights as workers. Other than that, ILO proposed strategy to eliminate poverty. For instance, developing skills for sustainable income, investing in jobs and society, encourage entrepreneurship; building local development, minimize discrimination so on and so forth. Also, ILO acted as mediator in social disputes. The Director of ILO has led to the prevention of strikes, more particularly in the matter of maritime traffic (Martin, 1926). Nobody has ever heard that he has saved the world huge losses.
On top of that, ILO’s function is to extend the social protection of workers. This is to make sure that woman and men can enjoy a safe working environment, allow enough free time and rest, take into consideration of family and social values, offer for sufficient compensation in case of unpredictable situation, and provide an adequate healthcare to workers. There are two objectives of ILO when it comes to equality between men and women. First is improvement of working conditions for women. Second is equal pay for equal work which granting women to have the same rights as men employees. Under ILO Convention No. 111, discrimination includes ‘any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation (Servais, 2011).
The ILC in June 1998, the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work search for social justice with financial development. ILO Member States undertake to respect, to promote, and to realize, in good faith, the principles and rights concerning freedom of association and collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labour and the abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation (Servais, 2011). The aimed of ILO are to exclude and condemn forced labour. For examples retaining the documents of foreign workers, forbid employees from leaving the jobs, and etceteras. Children under the age of fourteen are prohibiting from working in industrial sectors. For more difficult work, the age increased to fifteen. The Declaration recognizes that ILO Member States must respect the principles relating to the fundamental rights describe in those conventions.
In June 2004, International Labour Conference (ILC) examined the report of its Director-General, Mr Juan Somavia, entitled ‘A fair globalization: The role of the ILO’. In the ILC they discussed how to promote a fair globalization for future role of the ILO. There are number of primary concerns sketched out by ILO tripartite constituents for subsequent activity by the Office to the World Commission’s suggestions. It was emphasized that there was widespread support for making decent work a global goal and that every effort should be made to advance all four or its components (Casale, 2011):
• employment generation;
• promotion of labour standards;
• protection and support for workers displaced by industrial restructuring;
• reinforcement of social dialogue as an important tool to bring about more equitable outcomes in the workplace.
ASSESS WHETHER IT SHOULD BE EFFECTIVE IN PROTECTING WORKERS’ RIGHT
ILO should be effective in protecting workers’ rights and remain valid as well as significant. This is because technical innovations have widened the inequality gap, disrupting the international division of labour, modifying its nature, and doing away with existing jobs without necessarily creating enough new ones (Servais,2011). Due to that it had caused unemployment, underemployment, and insecure employment that spare almost no country. Moreover, human right violations and living conditions in the place of work are still frequently inhuman. With the help of ILO, this discrimination at workplace can be reduced.
Additionally, the economic growth is important but it is not enough to guarantee equity, social progress, and the elimination of poverty. Due to that reason, it is confirm the need of ILO to support strong social policies, fairness, and democratic organizations. ILO should draw upon all its standard setting, technical cooperation, and research resources in all its areas of competence, in particular employment, vocational training, and working conditions, to ensure that, in the context of a global strategy for economic and social development, economic and social policies are mutually reinforcing components in order to create broad-based sustainable development (Bronstein, 2009). In addition, ILO should focus problems of workers who need special social needs, especially those who are unemployed and foreign workers. Furthermore, a right of workers is significant that it will give the persons to claim freely of their opportunity of their fair share on the income that they helped to contribute. This will help to accomplish their full human potential.
Finally, the role of ILO is not just to promote the interests of the employees alone. It is to protect workers, employers, and the public alike; it is to protect the workers of the less progressive countries by facilitating the development of social legislation, to protect the employers in the more progressive countries by safeguarding them from the competition of other countries, to protect industry from raising the standard of living among the working classes and increasing output, and to protect society by eliminating the disturbing elements among the workers (Martin, 1926). Therefore, the role and function of ILO is a must in order to protect the workers’ rights.
Conclusion
ILO has nearly 100’ years experience in addressing a lot of issues regarding the governments, employers, and employees rights. It plays a significant contribution in giving protection to working people and the support of their human and labour rights. ILO should keep up their governing structure and at the same time promote global peace through social dialogue. Without this organisation, it can affect a lot of people in a lot of ways especially those who are passive and always discriminated by others. Thus, ILO is an agency that should be maintains their presence for all time and deems it to be effective in protecting worker’s rights.