ILO & International Industrial Relations Notes | Structure, Conventions & Regional Integration | BBA/MBA Revision

1. International Labor Organization (ILO): Core Concepts

The ILO is a special group under the United Nations (UN). Its main goal is to promote social and economic justice by setting fair rules for workers worldwide. Its core belief is simple: You cannot have lasting world peace without social justice.

Key Historic Facts (High Exam Value)

• Founded: October 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles (originally part of the League of Nations).

• UN Alignment: Became the UN’s first specialized agency in 1946.

• Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

• Members: 187 countries.

• Nobel Peace Prize: Won it in 1969 for promoting peace among social classes.

The Tripartite Character (The 2:1:1 Vote)

The ILO is unique because it is the only UN agency where governments don’t make all the rules alone. Every decision involves three groups (Tripartite) with a specific voting ratio:

Direct Impact on India: Because the ILO was born in 1919, Indian workers realized they needed a common voice to send a representative to these global meetings. This is the exact reason why the AITUC (All India Trade Union Congress) was founded in 1920.

2. Three Principal Organs of the ILO

The ILO runs its global business through three main branches:

                      ┌──────────────────────────┐
                      │    ILO THREE ORGANS      │
                      └────────────┬─────────────┘
                                   │
         ┌─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┐
         ▼                         ▼                         ▼
┌──────────────────┐      ┌──────────────────┐      ┌──────────────────┐
│       ILC        │      │  GOVERNING BODY  │      │    ILO OFFICE    │
│ (Legislative)    │      │   (Executive)    │      │  (Secretariat)   │
├──────────────────┤      ├──────────────────┤      ├──────────────────┤
│ • Meets once/year│      │ • Meets 3x/year  │      │ • Day-to-day     │
│ • 4 delegates/   │      │ • 40 members     │      │   operations     │
│   country        │      │ • India has a    │      │ • Global branch  │
│ • Needs 2/3 vote │      │   permanent seat │      │   offices        │
└──────────────────┘      └──────────────────┘      └──────────────────┘

1. International Labour Conference (ILC) — The Legislative Wing

• Acts like a global parliament for labor.

• Meets once a year (usually in June).

• Each country sends 4 delegates (2{ Government}, 1 Employer}, 1{ Worker}).

• Writes the rules (Conventions and Recommendations). Needs a 2/3 rds majority vote to pass them.

2. Governing Body — The Executive Council

• The management team that runs the show.

• Meets 3 times a year (March, June, and November).

• A smaller group of 40 members (20{ Govt}, 10 Employer}, 10{ Worker}).

• India holds a permanent seat here as one of the 10 “States of Chief Industrial Importance.”

• They pick the global Director-General and plan the budget.

3. International Labour Office — The Permanent Secretariat

• The actual daily headquarters and office workers.

• Handles day-to-day paperwork, research, and global help programs.

• Runs local branch offices all over the world (including India).

3. International Labor Standards: Conventions vs. Recommendations

The ILO builds a global “International Labor Code” using two kinds of official documents:

Conventions (The Treaties)

• Nature: Legally binding.

• How they work: When a country’s government signs (ratifies) a Convention, it becomes a strict legal promise. The country must change its domestic laws to match the Convention.

• Time Rule: Once the ILO adopts a Convention, a member country must show it to their national Parliament within 18 months to decide whether to accept it.

Recommendations (The Guidelines)

• Nature: Non-binding.

• How they work: These are just helpful advice and operational guidebooks. They do not carry legal penalties. They are usually passed alongside a Convention to show countries how to implement the rules smoothly.

4. Fundamental and Governance Instruments

The 10 Fundamental Conventions

Every member country must respect these core rights. In June 2022, a safe and healthy working environment was officially added as a fundamental right, bringing the total from 8 to 10:

1. Freedom of Association (No. 87): Right to form a union.

2. Collective Bargaining (No. 98): Right to negotiate with bosses.

3. Forced Labour (No. 29): Bans slavery and forced work.

4. Abolition of Forced Labour (No. 105): Strict ban on using forced labor for political punishment.

5. Minimum Age (No. 138): Sets minimum ages for jobs to stop child labor.

6. Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182): Immediate ban on extreme child labor (like trafficking, military, or toxic work).

7. Equal Remuneration (No. 100): Equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.

8. Discrimination (No. 111): Bans job discrimination based on race, gender, or religion.

9. Occupational Safety & Health (No. 155): Right to a safe workplace.

10. Promotional Framework for OSH (No. 187): Government commitment to building a culture of workplace safety.

The 4 Governance (Priority) Conventions

The ILO begs all nations to pass these 4 specific rules to keep their systems clean:

• No. 81: Labor Inspection (Checking factories for safety).

• No. 122: Employment Policy (Creating stable jobs for the public).

• No. 129: Labor Inspection in Agriculture (Checking farms).

• No. 144: Tripartite Consultation (Making sure Govt, Bosses, and Unions talk before changing laws).

5. India and the ILO

• Status: India is a proud Founder Member (1919).

• Permanent Power: India has held a permanent, non-elective seat on the Governing Body since 1922 because of its massive industrial size.

Indian Leadership Milestones 

• Four ILC Presidents (The Global Parliament Leaders):

  1. Sir Atul Chatterjee (1927)

  2. Shri Jagjivan Ram (1950)

  3. Dr. Nagendra Singh (1970)

  4. Shri Ravindra Verma (1979)

• Four Governing Body Chairmen (The Executive Leaders):

  1. Sir Atul Chatterjee (1932-33)

  2. Shri Shamal Dharee Lall (1948-49)

  3. Shri S.T. Merani (1961-62)

  4. Shri B.G. Deshmukh (1984-85)

• Recent Feature: Shri Apurva Chandra (Labor Secretary) chaired the Governing Body recently from October 2020 to June 2021.

India’s Golden Rule for Signing: India is highly selective. It never signs an ILO convention in a hurry just for show. India only ratifies a convention after its own local Indian laws are already fully modified and verified to completely match the ILO guidelines.

6. International Industrial Relations (IIR)

This field studies how global companies (Multinational Corporations or MNCs), employees from different countries, local governments, and global unions interact across borders.

Major Challenges in IIR

• Union Weakness: If a union in India goes on strike against an MNC, the MNC doesn’t care. They can easily switch production to their automated factory in another country to keep making money.

• Power Disbalance: Capital (money and factories) can move across international borders instantly. Labor (the workers) cannot pack up and move countries easily.

• Social Dumping (Corporate Cheating): This is when a rich company closes a factory in a high-wage country and moves operations to a poor country with cheap labor, bad safety standards, and weak laws just to maximize profits.

7. Trade Union Responses and Regional Integration(NOT RECOMMENEDED TO READ 1 DAY BEFORE EXAM)

To fight back against global corporations, local trade unions use a 3-step defense: they form International Trade Secretariats (15 global groups that share cross-border strike info), lobby governments to pass laws blocking job outsourcing, and use global agencies like the ILO to pressure bad employers.

The 5 Progressive Stages of Regional Integration

When neighboring countries join together to sign trade treaties, they change the job market across 5 distinct levels:

1. Free Trade Area (Level 1): Countries remove all taxes (tariffs) on goods traded between each other (e.g., NAFTA).

2. Customs Union (Level 2): They remove internal taxes plus agree on a single, shared tax rule for any outside country trying to sell to them.

3. Common Market (Level 3): Everything above plus workers and capital can now move across borders without visas or restrictions. A worker can instantly take a job in a neighbor country.

4. Economic Union (Level 4): Everything above plus countries share a single currency (like the Euro) and harmonize their tax rates and fiscal policies.

5. Political Union (Level 5): The ultimate step. All countries give up their individual borders to form one central government that controls the collective economy, foreign policy, and social systems.

8. High-Yield Conceptual Key-Terms for MCQs

• ILO’s Lack of Teeth: The ILO monitors countries using a Committee of Experts. They can investigate and shame bad governments, but the ILO has zero power to use military or legal sanctions to punish a sovereign country.

• Global Commission on the Future of Work: A special ILO initiative focused on a “human-centered agenda”—meaning we must train and invest in human skills so workers aren’t destroyed by AI automation and climate change.

• Autonomous Recommendation: An ILO operational guideline that stands completely alone. It does not have a parent Convention linked to it.

• Check-off System: A helpful money tool where the boss automatically deducts the union fee from the worker’s salary account and transfers it directly to the union, keeping the union financially stable

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