Indecent work and child or slave labour: human rights in the sustainable workplace

How is denying worker rights a barrier to sustainable development? What are the key international instruments for Core Labour Standards and how successfully are they implemented? This report looks at the role of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), tracing the development of its various conventions and making recommendations as to how more effective use can be made of them.

Core labour standards define a range of human rights at work that provide a guide to a civilised, dignified and sustainable workplace. They are universally applicable regardless of stage or nature of national development, and as such provide an important focus on the workplace and the conditions of work in the process of sustainable development. In particular, the standards are considered fundamental to workers’ abilities to engage in concrete workplace actions to implement sustainable development targets.

This report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looks at the International Labour Code and suggests that the Eight Conventions of the ILO address the most fundamental rights of workers. These encompass: (1) freedom of association and the right to engage in collective bargaining, (2) equality at work and (3) the abolition of child and forced labour.

As well as being important in their own right, core labour standards serve as ‘enabling rights’. They create conditions that allow access to other important workers’ rights. The study shows that the Freedom of Association Convention, for example, protects the right of workers to form trade unions to counteract the arbitrary rule of the employer. This alters the balance of power in the workplace and makes a crucial contribution to democracy. Other findings of the study include the following:

• The freedom of workers to protect themselves gives them the power to ensure that other abuses like child and forced labour, discrimination and unsafe conditions do not exist at the workplace.
• The purpose of laws governing pay, working time, health and safety, and human rights is to take human labour out of the realm of competition. Unfortunately, globalisation is putting workers back into competition and eroding many of these gains.
• The WTO and other international organisations have been urged to work with the ILO to devise appropriate measures necessary to deal with regimes that clearly and outrageously violate core labour rights.
• Core labour standards have been incorporated in a number of framework agreements between multinational companies and the international trade union organisations that represent workers in specific sectors.
• The Global Compact invites companies to support nine principles in the area of human rights, worker rights and the environment based on existing international standards.

In order to ensure that the rights enshrined in these international instruments are successfully upheld, the report makes the following key recommendations to governments and organisations:

• Recognise core labour standards as internationally accepted guides to a civilised, dignified and sustainable workplace, regardless of stage or nature of national development.
• Understand that they are crucial to worker participation in action towards sustainable development targets in the workplace.
• Encourage countries to ratify and apply key conventions and recommendations of the ILO that address the most fundamental rights of workers.
• Place particular emphasis on the eight ILO Conventions.
• Recognise the additional contribution that core labour standards make as ‘enabling rights’ to take conditions of employment out of the realm of international economic competition.

Source(s):
‘Core Labour Standards and Human Rights in the Workplace’, Opinion: World Summit on Sustainable Development, IIED in collaboration with the Regional and International Networking Group (RING), by James Howard and Winston Gereluk, 2001 Full document.

Funded by: Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA)

id21 Research Highlight: 25 November 2002

Further Information:
Tom Bigg
WSSD Co-ordinator
International Institute for Environment and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H ODD, UK

Tel: + 44 (0)207 388 2117
Fax: + 44 (0)207 388 2836
Contact the contributor: wssd@iied.org

IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development), UK

Other related links:
'All work and no play: economic liberalisation and child labour'

'Do child rights travel well? Evidence from Bangladesh'

'Reality check – has the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child made a difference?'

'Earning a life: working children in Zimbabwe'

Understanding Child's Work provides data on child labour

ILO’s Programme on Promoting the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work

Child Rights Information Network features research on child labour