Monitoring International Labor Standards Techniques and Sources of Information (2004) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction and Overview
1 Introduction and Overview
Pages 11-32
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From page 11... ...
in 1998, that certain standards -- freedom of association, the abolition of forced labor and child labor, and nondiscrimination -- are fundamental rights to which workers everywhere are entitled. We refer to these as the core labor standards.
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The DOL specified that the committee's work be based on the consensus core standards identified in the 1998 Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of the ILO: · freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; · the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; 1 The ILAB carries out the international responsibilities of the DOL under the direction of the Deputy Under Secretary for International Labor Affairs. ILAB conducts research on and formulates international economic, trade, immigration, and labor policies in collaboration with other U.S.
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The first two points of the committee's charge require comment. The report and database structure constitute the committee's response to the first point -- the identification of relevant and useful data for assessing and monitoring international labor standards.
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The committee undertook the task of providing science-based information on the monitoring and enforcement of international labor standards while recognizing that compliance with core labor standards is one prong of what must be a multifaceted strategy toward achieving the fundamental goal of raising living standards across the globe. From a historical perspective, the committee is aware that it took many decades of economic, social, and political development -- including enactment and enforcement of laws on education and workers' rights and the development of trade unions -- to mostly eliminate child labor and achieve the 40-hour work week and other improvements in contemporary industrialized countries (see, e.g., Engerman, 2003)
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Report Structure Chapters 2 and 3 describe and evaluate the sources of information available to assess the indicators of compliance with the four core labor standards and acceptable conditions of work. Chapter 2 discusses the problems of finding qualitative and quantitative evidence about compliance that is objective, representative, and comparable over time.
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There is a cell for every political jurisdiction for every indicator (see Chapters 4-8) for the four core labor standards and acceptable conditions of work, divided into three areas: legal framework, government performance, and overall outcomes.
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Its unique tripartite structure also includes representatives from national organizations of workers and employers. Traditionally, the ILO has established international labor standards by formulating conventions, which are multilateral treaties that are binding on the countries that ratify them.
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The committees' starting point for interpreting the meaning of the four core international labor standards is the jurisprudence built up over the years by ILO experts as it relates to the eight fundamental conventions. The committee recognizes that elements of this jurisprudence remain controversial and unsettled, but there is no alternative consensus definition and, in general, it was not our role to rewrite the meaning of these standards.
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In developing countries, these effects are often much stronger. As noted above, a large part of the labor force is employed in agriculture and the informal sector; earnings in these sectors are not covered adequately by most statistical offices and are subject, if available, to huge sampling errors.
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Overall the task of assessing compliance may resemble a judge in a courtroom forming a judgment about what exactly a given labor standard requires in particular circumstances and evaluating performance based on a preponderance of the evidence (some of which is admissible, some of which is questionable, and some of which must be rejected) -- more than an econometrician running regressions or a physicist conducting an experiment under controlled conditions.
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Each of the chapters on the four core labor standards and acceptable conditions of work organizes these indicators into three aspects of compliance in a given country: 1. The first set of indicators focuses on assessment of the legal framework relating to the core labor standard ("A" indicators)
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. But the data must be interpreted carefully because an economically active child is not necessarily engaged in work that is defined as impermissible child labor in ILO conventions.
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One example is the report to the Council of Ministers under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation on the effects of sudden plant closings on freedom of association.3 An assessor would need to determine whether the legal framework of a country protects that core labor standard adequately, whether it protects the core right in general but is deficient in some important aspects, or whether there are serious deficiencies in several important aspects of the core right.
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At the same time, it is not very costly for a government to take steps to eliminate discrimination in its own activities or to change laws that restrict the rights of workers to organize unions. The assessment of a country's performance also needs to include an appreciation of the extent of government support for the positive agenda of educating workers and communities about rights and remedies, building capacity among labor regulators, promoting the spread of best practices associated with voluntary compliance, and encouraging the use of independent monitoring and reporting outside the government regulatory apparatus (see International Labour Organization, 2000, Parts II and III)
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Similarly, in judging how to evaluate trends in compliance for any given country at any time, assessors need to be alert to changes in regional or international stability -- political, military, or economic -- that may swamp all other determinants of working conditions from one period to the next. The committee believes that any effort to assess the level of and direction of change in compliance should provide separate and independent treatment of each of the core labor standards and not attempt to construct a composite characterization for any given country.
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Some experts with whom the committee consulted recommended devising a quantitative method for ranking countries according to their level of compliance with international labor standards. Such rankings of country performance in various areas have become popular in recent years.
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Such openness, in turn, would make it easier for foreign governments and a variety of individuals to raise questions and contest the assessments. In addition, the DOLs' charge to the committee requires it to identify "innovative measures," both of countries' current compliance with international labor standards and with changes over time.
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Given the necessarily subjective and contingent nature of these judgments, the major value of the matrix framework is to increase the transpar
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As illustrated there, the matrix framework exposes clearly where differences in emphasis or interpretation lie and presents a structure for open contestation among assessors. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The committee concludes that the informational base for assessing compliance with international labor standards is very far from ideal.
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Figure 1-2 shows how one assessor might evaluate the legal framework in the country, government performance in implementing compliance, and overall outcomes. Figure 1-3 shows how a second assessor -- or a critic of the first assessor -- evaluates the same data.
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, in the importance accorded to government interference in freedom of association by declaring martial law or "state of crisis" (B-4) , and in the importance accorded to frequency of labor inspections (B-8)
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From page 32... ...
. Monitoring international labor standards: Quality of in formation, summary of a workshop.
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