The Role Of International Labour Standards In A Global Economy

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Law - Civil / Private / Trade / Anti Trust Law / Business Law, King s College London (School of Law), course: International Labour Law, language: English, abstract: The phenomenon of globalisation has triggered various trends and changes world-wide, affecting almost every part of life. One of the most heavily influenced realms has been labour and its legal framework. Globalisation has transformed the nature of work as well as the organisation and way in which work is performed nowadays. Due to the technical progress, Multinational Corporations have been equipped with an immense ability to relocate their business wherever and whenever they want to any part of the world, powerful enough to dictate their demands to national governments. National governments have, simultaneously, been weakened and especially developing countries are competing with each other in order to attract MNCs, often by adopting and maintaining low labour standards with the result of a feared "race to the bottom". Additionally, the International Labour Organisation, historically the main standard-setting institution, has experienced enormous problems in the implementation process and has therefore undergone a paradigm shift. Moreover, other actors have entered the arena of "standard-setting" such as NGOs etc. This essay tries to analyse the challenges of globalisation posed to international labour standards, especially experienced by the ILO. It then continues by examining the various private measures, which have been used so far, covering both public and private measures, and reaching from e.g. codes of conducts to international framework agreements. It is argued that public and private implementation have become increasingly interdependent, and that developing and fostering this interdependency will be crucial for the prospective success and effectiveness of international labour standards in an ongoing globalising world.

The International Labour Organization was created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War, to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace can be accomplished only if it is based on social justice. As the oldest organisation in the UN system, approaching its 100th anniversary in 2019, the ILO faces unprecedented strains and challenges. Since before the financial crisis, the global economy has tested the limits of a regulatory regime which was conceived in 1919. The organisation's founders only entrusted it with balancing social progress with the constraints of an interconnected open economy, but gambled almost entirely on tools of persuasion to ensure that this would happen. Whether that gamble is still capable of paying-off is the subject of this book, by a former ILO insider with an unrivalled knowledge of its work. The book forms part of a broader inquiry into the relevance of founding institutional principles to today's context, and strives to show that the bet made on persuasion may yet pay off. In part, the text argues that there may be little alternative anyway, showing that the pathways to more binding solutions are fraught with difficulty. It also shows the ILO's considerable future potential for promoting effective, universal regulations by extending its tools of persuasion in as yet insufficiently explored directions. Starting with an examination of how the organisation's institutional context differs from 93 years ago, the author goes on to evaluate the prospects of numerous proposals put forward today, including the trade/labour linkage, but going beyond this. As a case study in how strategic choices can be made under legal, social and institutional constraints, the book should be valuable not only to those with an interest in the ILO, but to anyone who studies international organisation, labour law, law and society or political economy.

The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization was established as an independent body by the International Labour Organization in February 2002, in light of the unprecedented socio-economic changes implemented by globalisation trends. This report explores how the ILO can help promote the objective that decent work should become a global goal. It examines six broad policy themes related to: national policies to address globalisation; decent work in global production systems; growth, investment and employment; constructing a socio-economic floor; the global economy and the cross-border movement of people; and strengthening the international labour standards system. The report also discusses how the ILO can respond to the Commission's call for the multilateral system to enhance participation and accountability and to make a full contribution to the building of a social dimension for globalisation.

Focuses on the role that universal international labour standards can play in promoting social progress in the context of economic globalization.

The book examines the ways in which collective bargaining addresses a variety of workplace concerns in the context of today.s global economy. Globalization can contribute to growth and development, but as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, it also puts employment, earnings and labourstandards at risk. This book examines the role that collective bargaining plays in ensuring that workers are able to obtain a fair share of the benefits arising from participation in the global economy and in providing a measure of security against the risk to employment and wages. It focuses on a commonly neglected side of the story and demonstrates the positivecontribution that collective bargaining can make to both economic and social goals. The various contributions examine how this fundamental principle and right at work is realized in different countries and how its practice can be reinforced across borders. They highlight the numerouschallenges in this regard and the critically important role that governments play in rebalancing bargaining power in a global economy. The chapters are written in an accessible style and deal with practical subjects, including employment security, workplace change and productivity and working time.

How are national and international labour laws responding to the challenge of globalization as it re-shapes the workplaces of the world? This collection of essays by leading legal scholars and lawyers from Europe and the Americas was first published in 2006. It addresses the implications of globalization for the legal regulation of the workplace. It examines the role of international labour standards and the contribution of the International Labour Organization, and assesses the success of the European experiment with continental employment standards. It explores the prospects for hemispheric co-operation on labour standards in the Americas, and deals with the impact of international labour standards on the rights of women and migrant workers. As the nature and organization of work around the world is being decisively transformed, new regional and international institutions are emerging that may provide the platform for new labour standards, and for protecting existing ones.

This book answers the question of how to maintain effective labour regulation as the market for labour moves towards globalization. This issue is addressed from legal, economic, social and cultural perspectives. The authors consider the effects of free trade and investment, with and without labour standards, on employment, competitiveness, wages and working conditions in the global economy. Deriving and analysing policy options, they seek ways in which principles of labour regulation can operate at an international level. The work concludes with a call for a rule-based global trading system in which core labour standards play a significant part.

"The 1994 International Labor Conference, convened in Geneva in the 75th anniversary year of the International labor organization (ILO), was a watershed. As the "world labor parliament" met in June, the community of nations faced what many within the organization consider the worst employment crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Shortly before assembly opened, the ILO reported that nearly one-third of the global work force - 820 million people - were either unemployed or underemployed. With that somber jobs picture and the impact of swift economic globalization as a backdrop, a record 2,000 delegates - representing workers, employers, and governments from 158 of the ILO's 171 member nations - weighed and acted on a variety of issues influenced by seismic economic, social, and political change rocking the world."