[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6907-S6910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
______
ILO DECLARATION ON CORE LABOR STANDARDS
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to report to the Senate
that on June 18, 1998 in Geneva, at the conclusion of the 86th
International Labor Conference, the International Labor Organization
adopted by an overwhelming margin an important new ``Declaration on
Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.'' The vote was 273 in favor
of the new Declaration, zero opposed, with 43 abstentions. The adoption
of this measure is a singular achievement and holds great promise for
advancing core labor standards in the international community.
Our distinguished Secretary of Labor, the Honorable Alexis M. Herman,
deserves much credit, as does Andrew Samet, her able Deputy Under
Secretary for International Labor Affairs. Over the last three weeks,
Secretary Herman energetically pursued this agreement throughout
difficult and long negotiating sessions, and in critical corridor side-
bars. Ultimately, she succeeded.
Secretary Herman has characterized the new Declaration and its
follow-up mechanism as ``a big step forward for the ILO and its members
as we enter the 21st Century.'' In the statement that she issued on
June 18, 1998, upon the adoption of the new Declaration, she said:
With the passage of this declaration, the ILO underlined
and clarified the importance of the fundamental rights of
workers in an era of economic globalization. It firmly
demonstrates that we can and will move forward in an effort
to see trade and labor concerns as mutually supportive--not
mutually exclusive.
Another of the United States' Delegates to the International Labor
Conference, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, called the Declaration
``an historic breakthrough that dramatically underscores the importance
of basic rights for workers in the global economy.'' And to emphasize
the tripartite nature of the ILO, it should be noted for the record
that the U.S. Council for International Business, which is the United
States' employer representative to the ILO, was a principal supporter
of this new initiative, and has been from the beginning. The Council's
President, Abraham Katz, called the new Declaration ``a major
achievement for the ILO.''
In essence, the ILO has bunbled together, in a single declaration,
four sets of fundamental rights--the core labor standards embodying the
broad principles that are essential to membership in the ILO. Having
declared that those rights are fundamental, the document then provides
for a monitoring system--a ``follow-up'' mechanism, to use the ILO's
term--to determine how countries are complying with these elemental
worker rights.
The four sets of fundamental rights are: (1) Freedom of association
and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
(2) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; (3) the
effective abolition of child labor; and (4) the elimination of
discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
These rights flow directly from three sources. First, from the ILO
Constitution itself, which was drafted by a commission headed by Samuel
Gompers of the American Federation of Labor and became, in 1919, part
XIII of the Treaty of Versailles. Second, from the immensely important
Declaration of Philadelphia, which reaffirmed, at the height of World
War II, the fundamental principles of the ILO, including freedom of
expression and association and the importance of equal opportunity and
economic security. Adopted in 1944, the Declaration of Philadelphia was
formally annexed to the ILO Constitution two years later. And, not
least, these four groups of core labor standards flow from the seven
ILO conventions that are recognized as Core Human Rights Conventions.
These seven conventions are not the highly technical agreements that
make up the vast majority of the ILO's 181 conventions. Rather, they
directly address the rights of working people.
They are:
No. 29--the Forced Labor Convention of 1930;
No. 87--the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right; to
Organize Convention, 1948;
No. 98--the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention,
1949;
No. 100--the Equal Remuneration Convention of 1951;
No. 105--the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention, 1957;
No. 111--the Discrimination in Employment and Occupation Convention
of 1958; and
No. 138--the Minimum Age Convention of 1973.
They are extraordinary conventions. The Social Summit in Copenhagen
in
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1995 identified six of these ILO conventions as essential to ensuring
human rights in the workplace: Nos. 29, 87, 98, 100, 105, and 111. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has classified them
as ``International Human Rights Conventions.'' The Governing Body of
the ILO subsequently added to the list of core conventions Convention
No. 138, the minimum age convention, in recognition of the importance
of matters relating to child labor. These conventions embody the broad
principles that are basic to membership in the ILO.
But what makes this year's Declaration so significant, Mr. President,
is its second component--the monitoring mechanism, the element that
will, if implemented properly, ensure that something will come of all
this. For example, the follow-up mechanism will take a look at how
China is doing on prison labor, how Pakistan is doing on child labor,
how the United States performs with respect to freedom of association.
Yes, we will be examined, too.
I spoke to the Senate at some length about this matter during our
debate last Fall on the fast track legislation. Indeed, the fast track
bill that the Finance Committee reported to the floor contained an
explicit endorsement--which was included in the Administration's draft
proposal at this Senator's suggestion--of the ILO's efforts in this
regard. That section of the Committee's bill, S. 1269, reads as
follows:
It is the policy of the United States to reinforce the
trade agreements process by--promoting respect for worker's
rights by--(ii) seeking to establish in the International
Labor Organization . . . a mechanism for the systematic
examination of, and reporting on, the extent to which ILO
members promote and enforce the freedom of association, the
right to organize and bargain collectively, a prohibition on
the use of forced labor, a prohibition on exploitative child
labor, and a prohibition on discrimination in employment. . .
.
In January of this year, I traveled to Geneva to discuss this new
initiative with ILO Director General Michel Hansenne and his deputies.
I did so because I believe that this new Declaration has great
potential. Its monitoring mechanism could evolve into an effective tool
for upgrading global compliance with these core labor standards. I have
argued that the monitoring system ought to include inspections, an idea
that could gain acceptance over time.
The ILO is the only League of Nations organization that has survived
into the era of the United Nations. It arose at a time when the idea of
sending inspectors into a country to see whether that country was
keeping an agreement would have been thought much too radical. That all
changed in the aftermath of World War II, with the creation of the
International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957.
With the IAEA, inspections have become established practice over a
range of international concerns and international organizations,
including the ILO. Although not explicitly provided for in the ILO
Constitution, several ``inspection'' mechanisms have in fact evolved in
the organization since the early 1960's. Two are of particular note.
ILO Commissions of Inquiry, which investigate members' compliance with
ratified conventions in accordance with Article 26 of the ILO
Constitution, have conducted on-site investigations since 1961. And the
special procedures established under the ILO for examining matters
relating to freedom to association have, since 1965, included on-site
inspections. Thus it would seem reasonable to suggest that such
inspections might eventually be an effective means of reviewing
countries' compliance with core labor standards. With this Declaration
and its follow-up mechanism, we have a very good beginning.
In fact, this new Declaration and its follow-up mechanism might just
be the key to getting our international trade policy back on track.
Last November, the trade policy that has guided this country for the
past 64 years--since the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934--was
called sharply into question when the Congress considered the
reauthorization of the so-called ``fast track'' negotiating authority
for trade agreements. After a promising start in the Senate, where two
procedural votes demonstrated strong support for the measure (68 votes
in favor, including a solid majority on both sides of the aisle), the
effort foundered in the House when it became clear that there were not
enough votes to pass it.
One of the central issues that surfaced during that debate was
whether trade agreements should include provisions--in effect,
statutory requirements--concerning labor and the environment.
At first, this might should like a good idea. Upon reflection,
however, it simply will not work. Developing countries will not accept
the proposition that they must reduce their tariff and non-tariff
barriers (discriminatory product standards, import licensing
requirements, and the like) and, at the same time, willingly adopt
stricter environmental and labor standards. Their reaction is
understable: they view such proposals as putting them at a double
disadvantage--lowering their protection against foreign goods and at
the same time increasing their production costs, thus eroding their
competitive advantages.
The ILO has a role to play here. Indeed, it was created in 1919 for
the express purpose of providing an avenue for governments that wanted
to do something to improve labor standards, but were reluctant to do so
unilaterally because they feared it would put them at a competitive
disadvantage in world commerce.
For 79 years, the ILO has sought to address these matters. Certainly
both President Roosevelt and his Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins,
understood well the connection between the ILO and our trade policies,
having launched both the Reciprocal Trade Agreements program and the
United States' membership in the ILO--two parallel but distinct
measures--in the same year, 1934.
The ILO is the one League of Nations organization that we were least
likely ever to join, and the only one we did. Even so, the United
States has never been an active ratifier of international labor
conventions. Of the 181 ILO conventions agreed thus far, the United
States has ratified only 12. Indeed, until 1988, the United States had
only ratified 7 conventions--6 maritime and one technical--the seventh
convention having been ratified in 1953. Then an interval of more than
35 years with no action on the subject.
In 1988, however, a new era commenced: the United States began to
ratify substantive labor conventions. Altogether, the United States has
approved five ILO conventions since 1988:
Convention No. 144, the 1976, convention on Tripartite Consultation
on International Labor Standards, which approved by the Senate on
February 1, 1998; Convention No. 147, the Merchant Shipping Convention
on Minimum Standards, adopted in 1976, and approved by the Senate
February 1, 1988; Convention No. 160 on Labor Statistics, adopted by
the ILO in 1985 and approved by the United States Senate on February
20, 1990; Convention No. 105, the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention
of 1957, which the Senate approved on May 14, 1991; and Convention No.
150 on Labor Administration, adopted by the ILO in 1978, and approved
by the Senate on October 6, 1994.
I was the floor manager for four of these. In all five conventions,
we lost the votes of only two Senators on the floor: both on Convention
No. 144 regarding tripartite consultation. The other four conventions
passed unanimously. Most notable was the Senate's ratification in 1991,
by a vote of 97-0, of the first of the ``core'' human rights
conventions--Convention No. 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labor
(1957), an area where the ILO has made vital contributions.
As the President announced May 18th, in his historic address to the
World Trade Organization at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, he has now transmitted
to the Senate for ratification a second ``core'' convention--Convention
No. 111, the Discrimination in Employment and Occupation Convention of
1958, which calls for a national policy to eliminate discrimination in
access to employment, training and working conditions.
It may be that there is new life in the ILO, that we have entered a
period in which we can look to the ILO for leadership as the United
States and our trading partners reap the rewards--and adjust to the
challenges--of globalization. In the area of worker rights, the ILO
ought to be the place to do it. To remind the Senate, the World
[[Page S6909]]
Trade Organization, at the conclusion of its first ministerial meeting
in Singapore in December 1996, reaffirmed that the ILO was the
``competent body'' to set and deal with internationally recognized core
labor standards. The Director-General of the WTO, Renato Ruggiero, with
whom I discussed the ILO initiative at length in January, has lent his
strong support. As Ambassador Ruggiero put it in a speech in Bonn on
December 9, 1997, the WTO's members agreed at Singapore that ``the ILO
was the relevant body where the issue of labor standards should be
addressed.'' He noted:
The fact that the ILO is now making important strides in
these areas demonstrates, not only that consensus on the most
difficult issues is possible, but that consensus is
absolutely critical to real and lasting progress. Supporting
the current efforts in the ILO toward reaching a declaration
on Fundamental Workers Rights is the best way of
demonstrating that the real objective is to promote labor
standards and not to seek protectionist measures.
It is possible, Mr. President, that this new Declaration on
Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, together with its monitoring
provisions, will give new energy to the ILO at a time when new energy
and direction are sorely needed to guide us out of the muddle in which
we find ourselves with respect to trade.
I offer my great congratulations to Secretary Herman, to John J.
Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, and to Abraham Katz, President of
the U.S. Council for International Business for this singular
achievement, and I ask that the full text of the declaration and its
follow-up mechanism, as well as the text of Secretary Herman's
statement, be printed in the Record.
The material follows:
International Labour Conference--86th Session Geneva, June 1998
ilo declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work
Whereas the ILO was founded in the conviction that social
justice is essential to universal and lasting peace;
Whereas economic growth is essential but not sufficient to
ensure equity, social progress and the eradication of
poverty, confirming the need for the ILO to promote strong
policies, justice and democratic institutions;
Whereas the ILO should, now more than ever, draw upon all
its standard-setting, technical cooperation and research
resources in all its areas of competence, in particular
employment, vocational training and working conditions, to
ensure that, in the context of a global strategy for economic
and social development, economic and social policies are
mutually reinforcing components in order to create broad-
based sustainable development;
Whereas the ILO should give special attention to the
problems of persons with special social needs, particularly
the unemployed and migrant workers, and mobilize and
encourage international, regional and national efforts aimed
at resolving their problems, and promote effective policies
aimed at job creation;
Whereas, in seeking to maintain the link between social
progress and economic growth, the guarantee of fundamental
principles and rights at work is of particular significance
in that it enables the persons concerned to claim freely and
on the basis of equality of opportunity their fair share of
the wealth which they have helped to generate, and to achieve
fully their human potential;
Whereas the ILO is the constitutionally mandated
international organization and the competent body to set and
deal with international labour standards, and enjoys
universal support and acknowledgement in promoting
fundamental rights at work as the expression of its
constitutional principles;
Whereas it is urgent, in a situation of growing economic
interdependence, to reaffirm the immutable nature of the
fundamental principles and rights embodied in the
Constitution of the Organization and to promote their
universal application;
The International Labour Conference,
1. Recalls: (a) that in freely joining the ILO, all Members
have endorsed the principles and rights set out in its
Constitution and in the Declaration of Philadelphia, and have
undertaken to work towards attaining the overall objectives
of the Organization to the best of their resources and fully
in line with their specific circumstances; (b) that these
principles and rights have been expressed and developed in
the form of specific rights and obligations in Conventions
recognized as fundamental both inside and outside the
Organization.
2. Declares that all Members, even if they have not
ratified the Conventions in questions, have an obligation
arising from the very fact of membership in the Organization,
to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in
accordance with the Constitution, the principles concerning
the fundamental rights which are the subject of those
Conventions, namely: (a) freedom of association and the
effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
(b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory
labour; (c) the effective abolition of child labour; and (d)
the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment
and occupation.
3. Recognizes the obligation on the Organization to assist
its Members in response to their established and expressed
needs, in order to attain these objectives by making full use
of its constitutional, operational and budgetary resources,
including by the mobilization of external resources and
support, as well as by encouraging other international
organizations with which the ILO has established relations,
pursuant to article 12 of its Constitution, to support these
efforts: (a) by offering technical cooperation and advisory
services to promote the ratification and implementation of
the fundamental Conventions; (b) by assisting those Members
not yet in a position to ratify some or all of these
Conventions in their efforts to respect, to promote and to
realize the principles concerning fundamental rights which
are the subject of those Conventions; and (c) by helping the
Members in their efforts to create a climate for economic and
social development.
4. Decides that, to give full effect to this Declaration, a
promotional follow-up, which is meaningful and effective,
shall be implemented in accordance with the measures
specified in the annex hereto, which shall be considered as
an integral part of this Declaration.
5. Stresses that labour standards should not be used for
protectionist trade purposes, and that nothing in this
Declaration and its follow-up shall be invoked or otherwise
used for such purposes; in addition, the comparative
advantage of any country should in no way be called into
question by this Declaration and its follow-up.
Annex
Follou-up to the Declaration
i. overall purpose
1. The aim of the follow-up described below is to encourage
the efforts made by the Members of the Organization to
promote the fundamental principles and rights enshrined in
the Constitution of the ILO and the Declaration of
Philadelphia and reaffirmed in this Declaration.
2. In line with this objective, which is of a strictly
promotional nature, this follow-up will allow the
identification of areas in which the assistance of the
Organization through its technical cooperation activities may
prove useful to its Members to help them implement these
fundamental principles and rights. It is not a substitute for
the established supervisory mechanisms, nor shall it impede
their functioning; consequently, specific situations within
the purview of those mechanisms shall not be examined or re-
examined within the framework of this follow-up.
3. The two aspects of this follow-up, described below, are
based on existing procedures: the annual follow-up concerning
non-ratified fundamental Conventions will entail merely some
adaptation of the present modalities of application of
article 19, paragraph 5(e) of the Constitution; and the
global report will serve to obtain the best results from the
procedures carried out pursuant to the Constitution.
ii. annual follow-up concerning non-ratified fundamental conventions
A. Purpose and scope
1. The purpose is to provide an opportunity to review each
year, by means of simplified procedures to replace the four-
year review introduced by the Governing Body in 1995, the
efforts made in accordance with the Declaration by Members
which have not yet ratified all the fundamental Conventions.
2. The follow-up will cover each year the four areas of
fundamental principles and rights specified in the
Declaration.
B. Modalities
1. The follow-up will be based on reports requested from
Members under article 19, paragraph 5(e) of the Constitution.
The report forms will be drawn up so as to obtain information
from governments which have not ratified one or more of the
fundamental Conventions, on any changes which may have taken
place in their law and practice, taking due account of
article 23 of the Constitution and established practice.
2. These reports, as compiled by the Office, will be
reviewed by the Governing Body.
3. With a view to presenting an introduction to the reports
thus compiled, drawing attention to any aspects which might
call for a more in-depth discussion, the Office may call upon
a group of experts appointed for this purpose by the
Governing Body.
4. Adjustments to the Governing Body's existing procedures
should be examined to allow Members which are not represented
on the Governing Body to provide, in the most appropriate
way, clarifications which might prove necessary or useful
during Governing Body discussions to supplement the
information contained in their reports.
iii. global report
A. Purpose and scope
1. The purpose of this report is to provide a dynamic
global picture relating to each category of fundamental
principles and rights noted during the preceding four-year
period, and to serve as a basis for assessing the
effectiveness of the assistance provided by the Organization,
and for determining priorities for the following period, in
the form of action plans for technical cooperation designed
in particular to mobilize the internal
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and external resources necessary to carry them out.
2. The report will cover, each year, one of the four
categories of fundamental principles and rights in turn.
B. Modalities
1. The report will be drawn up under the responsibility of
the Director-General on the basis of official information, or
information gathered and assessed in accordance with
established procedures. In the case of States which have not
ratified the fundamental Conventions, it will be based in
particular on the findings of the aforementioned annual
follow-up. In the case of Members which have ratified the
Conventions concerned, the report will be based in particular
on reports as dealt with pursuant to article 22 of the
Constitution.
2. This report will be submitted to the Conference for
tripartite discussion as a report of the Director-General.
The Conference may deal with this report separately from
reports under article 12 of its Standing Orders, and may
discuss it during a sitting devoted entirely to this report,
or in any other appropriate way. It will then be for the
Governing Body, at an early session, to draw conclusions from
this discussion concerning the priorities and plans of action
for technical cooperation to be implemented for the following
four-year period.
iv. it is understood that:
1. Proposals shall be made for amendments to the Standing
Orders of the Governing Body and the Conference which are
required to implement the preceding provisions.
2. The Conference shall, in due course, review the
operation of this follow-up in the light of the experience
acquired to assess whether it has adequately fulfilled the
overall purpose articulated in Part I.
The foregoing is the ILO Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up duly adopted
by the General Conference of the International Labour
Organization during its Eighty-sixth Session which was held
at Geneva and declared closed the 18 June 1998.
IN FAITH WHEREOF we have appended our signatures this
nineteenth day of June 1998.
The President of the Conference,
The Director-General of the
International Labour Office.
____
``This is a big step forward for the ILO and its members as
we enter the 21st Century. With the passage of this
Declaration, the ILO has underlined and clarified the
importance of the fundamental rights of workers in an era of
economic globalization. It firmly demonstrates that we can
and will move forward in an effort to see trade and labor
concerns as mutually supportive--not mutually exclusive.
As we have said and as President Clinton stated in his
speech to the World Trade Organization on May 18, we must
continue to forge a working relationship between the ILO and
the WTO. We continue to see it as vitally important to a
strengthened trading system that we advance the effort to
protect basic workers rights. That remains our policy and our
commitment.
This Declaration and its follow-up procedure furthers our
abilities to pursue these objectives. Nothing in this
Declaration restricts our ability to advance together the
liberalization of international trade and the protection of
basic worker rights. As the ILO has stated, the Declaration
does not impose any restrictions in this regard on members.
It is also clear, with this recommitment to core values,
that the ILO members have accepted the need to be
accountable. And with this action, there will now be a
process within the ILO to demonstrate that accountability.
I was honored to be a part of this historic ILO meeting and
to work with my colleagues to adopt this crucial Declaration
that outlines a vision for the next century for this
organization. Clearly we proved in these weeks in Geneva,
that a consensus can be reached among governments and between
employer and worker groups.
There were long and difficult negotiations over this
Declaration, but I was always confident about the outcome
because, from the beginning, there was a consensus among us,
a shared objective and an historical obligation to do what we
have done.''
____________________