Editorial

In 1919 the first specialised committee at the Paris Peace Conference was formed by international labour organisations. It was widely felt that the contribution of working people in the First World War should be acknowledged. Now that peace among the nations had been achieved it was time to promote peace among the classes. The International Labour Organisation was created as part of the Treaty of Versailles.

After the Second World War, steps were begun to establish labour rights in the ‘Third World’. For this the International Labour Organisation (ILO) received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969, its Golden Jubilee. The ILO has 187 members. Its office in Geneva has a staff of 2,700 with 40 field offices and over 450 world wide programmes. It is unusual in comprising governments, employers and employees on its committees.

Everybody can see the changing nature of work caused by globalisation, technology and the gig economy. ‘Gig’ was a term originally used of musicians to denote a temporary job. Now it is applied widely to all sorts of employment opportunities. The USA has worked hard to restrict the ILO only to employment matters and not to address wider issues of inequality. In the UK the influence of trade unions has been similarly restricted. Not the least concerns about Brexit is employment legislation if EU laws no longer apply.

As part of its centenary celebrations the ILO published a report in May on The Future of Work: Work for a Brighter Future. This calls for people to be placed first in determining the kind of work a country needs. It addresses the need for universal life long learning, job guarantees, gender equity, climate change and the rural economy.

It is hard to conceive of anything more important concerning the lives of ordinary people. The ILO is rightly praised for its work overseas on child labour and nearer home on the rights of migrant workers. But our whole society depends on the rights of people at work being consistently maintained through dialogue between governments, employers and the employed.