| The International Labor Organization (ILO) functions today as a specialized agency of the UN Economic and Social Council. It brings together representatives of governments, workers, and employers from 183 member countries to debate international standards relating to work and employment. Founded long before the UN itself, the ILO began as a bold experiment, incorporating non-governmental actors into a system meant to encourage legislative standard setting through the League of Nations. Years of fighting the Great War had brought harsh conditions, especially to Europe, stimulating a wave of labor uprisings. Allied leaders with their eyes on the outcome of the Bolshevik Revolution feared the unrest would continue. Thus, they came together to realize, through the ILO, a mechanism to both protect workers and calm transnational social relations.;Once the United States joined the ILO in the depths of the Great Depression, the country quickly exerted a strong influence on the agency. U.S. New Deal labor policy experts worked ensure that the ILO support fundamental rights of workers---including the right to a decent standard of living. During WWII, the ILO came out in support of social security and full employment programs, to be initiated on an international scale. The ILO's 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia extended the objectives of the agency to include such social policies in its ongoing agenda, now backed by the idea of universal human rights. The importance of labor and production rose considerably during both of the world wars of the twentieth century. This study considers how war, reconstruction, but also the crisis of a grave depression recalibrated capitalist relations in light of the necessities of business set against the drive for greater workers' welfare. |
