International Labour Organization

“ On 21 June 1946, the Economic and Social Council, during its second session, unanimously recommended the Agreement between the United Nations and the International Labour Organization to the General Assembly for its approval. ”

“ But apart from home labour administration, we shall get into most serious international complications, and very great domestic difficulty, if proper touch is not maintained with, and the interests of the country properly voiced in, the International Labour Organization which exercises now very considerable influence over labour legislation and administration in every country, party to the League of Nations. That cannot possibly be managed if the responsibility is to be scattered over half a dozen partially interested and wholly unco-ordinated Government departments. ”

“ The labour unions tried to form international unions even in time of peace, because during strikes the capitalists used to invite workers from other countries, as strike-breakers. But the International of the labour unions had only a secondary importance before the war. It made one union support another when needful, it organized social statistics, but it did nothing for the organization of a joint struggle, because the labour unions, under the leadership of opportunists, strove to avoid all revolutionary collisions on an international scale. ”

“ It cannot be dispensed with so long as the present system of production lasts. On the contrary, it must be generalised by the formation and combination of Trades' Unions throughout all countries. On the other hand, unconsciously to themselves, the Trades' Unions were forming centres of organization of the working class, as the mediæval municipalities and communes did for the middle class. If the Trades' Unions are required for the guerilla fights between capital and labour, they are still more important as organized agencies for superseding the very system of wages labour. ”

“ Labour proposes to use for purposes of international trade, an organization on a world-wide basis of the different national Co-operative movements. So long as foreign trade remains under the control of the competitive and capitalistic system, Labour asserts that its general international aims can never be attained. ”

“ Each organization wishing to join the Communist International shall be bound to remove systematically and regularly· from all the responsible posts in the Labour movement (Party organizations, editor's office, labour unions, parliamentary faction, cooperatives, municipalities, etc.) all reformists and partisans of the "centre", and to replace them by Communists without troubling about the fact that in the beginning it might be necessary to replace "experienced" men by rank-and-file workmen. ”

“ That strikes are not a means to the complete emancipation of the working classes, but are frequently a necessity in the actual situation of the struggle between labour and capital.
2. That it is requisite to subject them to certain rules of organization, opportunity, and legitimacy.
3. In such trades where no unions and benefit societies exist as yet, it is necessary to create them. The unions of all trades and countries must combine. In each local federation of trade societies a fund destined to support strikes ought to be established. ”

“ Working families around the world must be able to exercise core labor rights, benefits from legal standards for fair pay and reasonable hours and safe working conditions, and improve their lives through unions, just as generations of Americans have done through the UAW. The United States supports the International Labor Organization in its efforts to advance core labor rights, rights that are crucial to building a strong and stable global economy. ”

“ In no case shall the adoption of any Convention or Recommendation by the Conference, or the ratification of any Convention by any Member, be deemed to affect any law, award, custom or agreement which ensures more favourable conditions to the workers concerned than those provided for in the Convention or Recommendation. ”

“ On the other hand, it was felt that the international unity of interest among the workers, the growth of Labour's favourite doctrine that there is no conflict between nations, but only between classes, and even the actual international organisation and bonds of the workers' associations, would interpose a serious menace to the plans of war-makers. ”

“ The idea of international labour legislation was in the air, and voluntary societies composed of social reformers were beginning not only to discuss but to support it. The international meetings of organized workmen, such as the miners and cotton operatives, in different countries had familiarized the continental mind with the possibility of common action between peoples in respect of labour questions. ”

“ Each Member undertakes to take steps, according to its national circumstances, individually and through international cooperation, to achieve progressively comprehensive social security protection for seafarers. ”

“ That all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labour in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries;
That the emancipation of labour is neither a local, nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries ”

“ The populations that are not able to stand alone should be taken in trust by the whole League of Nations, which should appoint a particular Power in each particular case to carry out the trust. Again, the great stirring of discontent among the labouring classes in almost all parts of the world led to the formation of a special International Commission on Labour, which has so far met with great success. It will in general have the effect of raising the conditions of the most backward peoples to something like the level of the best. ”

“ Similarly, policies and laws that encourage the peaceful resolution of labour conflicts within the framework of international norms and standards, and that protect collective bargaining opportunities, are needed. ”

“ His plea for more international exchange of opinions and international uniformity of practice is one which must be echoed by all who have the cause of Labour at heart. To that larger sense of brotherhood which extends beyond the bounds of country we must look for the accomplishment of the Social Revolution which is surely on the way. On a task so large, and involving such far-reaching issues to the progress of the world, the nations must take hands and step together if the results are to be of permanent value. ”

“ The countries whose administration was best and most complete would be the very ones that would be most handicapped: seeing that they could expect only a very minimum of real reciprocity from those other contracting powers whose administration was faulty, and where a strong national sentiment was lacking in the workers, owing to their miserable and penurious condition in the absence of effective protection for labour. Accurately to supervise the observance of such an international agreement we should require an amount of organisation which it is quite beyond our power to supply. ”

“ An allusion to the attempts to establish international relations between the Unions of English workmen and those of foreign countries is important, more as indicating the probable line of future labour movement, than as indicating the early probability of effective international union of labour. ”

“ This is, indeed, possible, even very probable; but it remains to be proved what may be effected by international labour-agitation in an age of universal suffrages and of world congresses, and especially in England, which has already become so really democratic; an advance made by this country towards a reasonable experiment would be decisive. The possibility of attaining a sufficiently uniform, shortened, international working-day will always be conceivable. ”