The International Labour Organization

100 Years of Global Social Policy

Daniel Maul

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783110646665
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This book is the first comprehensive account of the International Labour Organization's 100-year history. At its heart is the concept of global social policy, which encompasses not only social policy in its national and international dimensions, but also development policy, world trade, international migration and human rights. The book focuses on the ILO's roles as a key player in debates on poverty, social justice, wealth distribution and social mobility subjects and as a global forum for addressing these issues. The study puts in perspective the manifold ways in which the ILO has helped structure these debates and has made – through its standard-setting, technical cooperation and myriad other activities – practical contributions to the world of work and to global social policy.

Part I An Experiment in Social Justice: 1919–1939

Thus, inequality in labour conditions seems itself to mean a possibility of international discord, and it is our duty to try to find some solution. Both our Constitution and the nature of work therefore require us to try to introduce into the world certain of the conditions necessary for peace.

Albert Thomas in a letter to the Maison du Peuple, Brussels, 22 April 1929⁷³

1 Beginnings

After the Paris Peace Conference, the International Labour Organization (ILO) got down to work. Much of what happened during its first years was in many aspects unprecedented and unchartered territory. An international bureaucracy had to be built up from scratch, and the position of the ILO with regard to the scope of its work, and its position in the new world order emerging from the war, had yet to be defined. In order to secure the survival of the Organization in the volatile international environment of the post-war era, Albert Thomas, the ILO’s first Director, interpreted his role in a diplomatic and political, as well as in a technocratic, way. He set out to position the ILO within a broad network of social actors beyond its immediate tripartite constituents.

Despite the outwardly universal language of its Constitution, one question accompanied the ILO from the very first day: whose organization, exactly, would and could it be; and what kinds of workers and what forms of work would it represent? Both geographically and with regard to the problems it addressed, the ILO was far from being an organization that covered all the global realities of work but rather started from a clear European and industrial bias.

The Washington Conference

Events taking place in the months following the end of the Paris Peace Conference renewed the sense of urgency that had carried the foundation of the ILO. Revolution, civil strife, and the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees had left vast parts of Europe a social and political powder keg. The Bolshevik takeover in Russia and like-minded revolutionary upheavals in Hungary, Germany, and other European countries provided a tangible alternative to social and political reform, stirring up fears of a complete political and economic meltdown. The demobilization of millions of soldiers, many of them mutilated and traumatized, and the return of staggering numbers of prisoners of war added to these fears. Massive unemployment, strikes, and social unrest became almost inevitable consequences of the transition from a war to a peace economy. Against this backdrop, governments, trade unions, and employers from 42 nations now set out to implement the decisions of the peace conference and make the ILO become a reality.

The decision to hold the first Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Washington, D.C., was motivated by the desire to secure the continued American interest in, and cooperation with, the ILO; this hope, however, was soon dashed. Upon their arrival in the capital of the United States in late October 1919, the conveners quickly realized that they could hardly have found a less welcoming environment for the Organization’s constituting Conference. After his return from Paris, President Wilson had suffered a severe stroke, which further diminished his ability to influence the discussion. Only days before the meeting, the budget for the Conference was still not secure. Provisional offices could be found only after an intervention by the then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Congress, arriving European delegates were denounced as trouble-rousers, and when it was eventually decided to let the ILC take place, it did so only under the explicit condition that no US commitments as to future membership would be made.⁷⁴

Figure 1: First International Labour Conference, Washington, D.C., United States, 1919.

The meeting eventually started on 29 October, with 40 delegations present. The most urgent matter to be settled was the unresolved status of the former Central Powers, Austria and Germany. The International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), with which the majority of the Workers’ representatives at the Washington Conference were affiliated, had made it a condition of their participation that the Organization would be open to all nations. The Supreme War Council, which was consulted by the government delegates from the Allied Powers, agreed that it would be up to the Conference to decide on the question of German and Austrian membership. It eventually did so by nearly unanimous vote, although this decision came too late to actually allow German and Austrian representatives to participate in the Conference. However, it paved the way for their future membership in the ILO – in sharp contrast to the League, which would deny Germany membership for another seven years.⁷⁵

The Conference further confirmed the composition of the Governing Body as the executive organ of the ILO, with eight of the 12 government seats assigned to countries of “major industrial importance” – Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark (substituting for the United States) – and four seats allocated to Argentina, Spain, Poland, and Canada, respectively, as representatives of the “other” countries. Even though over half of the delegations came from outside Europe, the composition of the Governing Body clearly reflected the existing power relations. A strong European bias permeated all groups – governments, workers, and employers alike, which drew some critical comments already in Washington. The election of Arthur Fontaine, who embodied the traditions of the International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL) as the first Chairman of the Governing Body, in turn, reflected the strengthened position of France.⁷⁶

Once the Governing Body had been established, it decided to elect not only its Chairman but also the Director of the International Labour Office. To the surprise of many observers, the choice fell on another Frenchman: Albert Thomas. From the beginning, Harold Butler had been regarded the frontrunner; as a British citizen, he seemed to have a natural claim to the position after the French had already been given the top post in the Governing Body. However, Butler, a government official, lacked the connection to both the trade union and socialist movements, as well as to the social reformist network around the IALL, which Thomas, whose name was brought forward by the Workers’ group, had in abundance.⁷⁷

Albert Thomas had been a leading member of the French Socialist Party (SFIO) since 1905. As a representative of the party’s reformist wing, he had been a supporter of the Union Sacrée, joined the French war government under Raymond Poincaré in 1915, and became Minister for Artillery and Munitions one year later. In this position, which he held until 1917, he worked closely and mostly successfully with both industrialists and trade unions to secure wartime production. This was a valuable practical experience with tripartism. Although he had not been a member of the Labour Commission in Paris, nor in any other way involved in the creation of the ILO (he had not been present at the Washington, either), his candidacy was no coincidence. He was the very personification of class cooperation: a moderate socialist, anti-revolutionary, close to the international trade union movement and the cooperative world, and, thanks to his wartime activities and his long-standing connection with the IALL, an acceptable candidate for most governments and employers as well. Still, as the British were not prepared to concede the position, a vote had to be taken, which Thomas won after two rounds and by a very narrow margin. That way, he started his first term as the first Director of the ILO, a post he would occupy until his death in 1932, from a somewhat weak position. Few might have imagined the great imprint he would leave on the Organization.⁷⁸

An International Organization in the Making

Virtually everything was new when the International Labour Office started its work. Premises had to be found, staff had to be hired, and work had to be organized. To secure the survival of the fledgling organization, to stake out and, if possible, expand its areas of activity were the primary tasks during the ILO’s first decade.

The Governing Body confirmed Thomas as Director at its first regular meeting on 20 January 1920. Next, practical matters had to be settled. An immediate question was where the Organization would take up its headquarters. Article 7 of the Treaty of Versailles had designated Geneva as the headquarters of the League of Nations. This implied that the ILO should be in the same place. In June 1920, the ILO rented its first premises in La Châtelaine (Pregny) on the northern side of Lake Geneva, before moving into a new building at the lake shore, built for that purpose in 1926. This building would become the ILO’s official headquarters for almost 50 years (1926–1974) until the need for more space led to the construction of the current Office building in Geneva. The old premises, with their labour-themed murals, became the seat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later of the World Trade Organization (WTO).⁷⁹

Within a new post–world war order emerging from the peace conferences, the ILO found itself in a highly volatile environment. Not only had the United States declined to become a member, but an increasing group of countries in- and outside the Organization downright challenged the post-Versailles order. Consequently, it was crucial to tie the remaining allies closely to the Organization. Smaller nations appreciated the legitimacy they gained through participation in an international forum like the ILO. But neither France nor Great Britain, the two most important member countries, initially showed any enthusiasm for the new organization. On the contrary, the conservative government of Great Britain regarded the ILO with a great deal of scepticism, suspecting to compromise the sovereignty of its Empire.⁸⁰ The relationship with France was not any easier, despite the strong position French nationals occupied at all levels of the Organization and the close relationship Thomas maintained with French government circles. In fact, concerns that the ILO might encroach upon national sovereignty had grown strong in Paris, too, and the French government was initially in the forefront of countries that tried to restrict and curtail the ILO’s competences. French opposition to the ILO’s attempts to expand its standard-setting to agricultural work ultimately led Thomas to bring the case to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which, in 1922, confirmed the ILO’s competence in agricultural matters.⁸¹

This lent support to Thomas’ view that the ILO had to demonstrate its usefulness to governments in order to secure the success and even the survival of the organization. His strategy was both diplomatic and technocratic in nature. On the one hand, he continuously tried to promote the idea of international labour standards through direct contacts with political authorities, but also by creating broader networks that could help to influence public opinion and put some degree of pressure on national governments. He therefore tried to strengthen the reformist trade unions and win the support of “modern” employers who had a certain awareness of social issues. Other groups whose support he courted included the cooperative movement, social reformist networks inside and outside academia, civil society organizations, and religious groups, most prominently the Catholic trade unions and the Vatican itself.

A central issue during the extensive travels of Thomas and other ILO officials all across Europe, parts of Asia, the United States, and Latin America during the 1920s was the slow pace of ratifications of the ILO’s Conventions. Thomas himself would in 1930 refer to his own role as that of a “traveling salesman of social policy”.⁸²

Travel diplomacy alone, however, was not enough to secure the ILO’s survival. It needed to demonstrate its usefulness – not through standard-setting alone, but also in providing its members with a comprehensive pool of information and comparative analysis of social policy measures taken by different countries. In his own words, Thomas wanted the ILO to become nothing less than “the great clearing house for information on social questions world wide”.⁸³ From the IALL and its Basel Office, the Organization had inherited mechanisms to collect and process data on working conditions and labour legislation which it institutionalized and expanded during the interwar years under the umbrella of a specific Scientific (later Research) Division. It included a statistical unit, which over the years became a department. It has convened since 1923 regular International Conferences of Labour Statisticians. The ILO could thus provide to governments, trade unions, and employers’ organizations valuable statistical information, expert knowledge, and best practices, which they would not have been able to find elsewhere. This allowed for the first time a comparative analysis of international social policy practices. Research was a necessary first step for the development of new labour standards. It also had a diplomatic function since it gave an opportunity to reach out to non-members, such as the United States, Mexico (a member since 1931), and Soviet Russia (later the Soviet Union), for which a separate “Russian Section” was created as early as 1920.⁸⁴

When a deep economic crisis hit Europe and other parts of the world in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the ILO could first demonstrate its capacity to help governments to better understand the social impact of the economic downturn and to provide information on measures taken in other countries to overcome its consequences. This also raised awareness of the transnational character of the crisis and the unemployment problem.⁸⁵ One example of this kind of work was the Technical Commission on Une...