The International Labour Organization

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes For an elaboration of this argument, see Standing (2007) Standing, G. 2007. "Labour Recommodification in the Global Transformation". In Reading Karl Polanyi for the Twenty-First Century, Edited by: Buğra, A. and Ağartan, K. 67–94. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. For the full texts of all Conventions and Recommendations, see ILO (1996 et seq ILO. 1996 et seq. International Labour Conventions and Recommendations, Geneva: International Labour Organisation. [Google Scholar].). The ILO produces an annual Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. For those involved in the efforts to resist the liberalisation agenda of the international financial agencies, it was a source of bitter irony that, in 2009, in response to the nemesis of the model they had done so much to promote, the Group of Twenty (G20) leaders gave them vastly more resources to make them more powerful. One of the policies they had spread around the world was pension privatisation, with disastrous effects. In the 1990s, the Bank took over responsibility for pension reform, without the mandate or expertise, while the ILO, previously the agency dealing with social security, was marginalised. The most conspicuous example was the multi-million dollar exercise that led to a Fair Globalisation report, ostensibly written by a 'World Commission' of prominent individuals (World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation 2004 World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation. 2004. A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All, Geneva: International Labour Organisation. [Google Scholar]). While writing this article, an ILO document came to hand that advocated workfare (ILO 2009 ILO. 2009. The Financial and Economic Crisis: A Decent Work Response, Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. [Google Scholar]: 32). There is no ILO Convention that could justify that. It also reiterated legitimacy for Convention 102 on social security (ILO 2009 ILO. 2009. The Financial and Economic Crisis: A Decent Work Response, Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. [Google Scholar]: 36). For a critique from the right, coming from a former senior official of the US Department of Labor's Bureau of International Affairs (and representative to the ILO), see Ponticelli (2009) Ponticelli, C. 2009. Can the ILO be Saved from Itself?, Heritage Foundation lecture 1106, Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation. [Google Scholar].