International Labour Organisation

 

Apart from the Vatican and N Korea, almost all countries are members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was created in 1919 at the post-war Peace Conference in Paris as Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles.

 

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) moved into Cambodia within months of the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement. Since then, the ILO has been engaged in a range of activities like employment generation programmes, technical training programmes, and monitoring garment factories. This paper examines the overall activities of the ILO in Cambodia with special focus on its role in the garment industry, which is the largest non-agricultural industrial sector in Cambodia.

 

The refusal of the government to introduce laws guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining remains a fun-damental obstacle to the realisation of trade union rights in the Hong Kong SAR. Without a legal-institutional framework for union recognition and collective bargaining, the role of unions and their ability to defend the rights of their members is severely restricted. Bargaining is neither promoted nor encouraged by the authorities, and employers generally refuse to recognise unions. Collective agreements cover less than one percent of workers , and those that exist are not legally binding.

 

Mr Lee Cheuk Yan is General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU). He is also a legislator in Hong Kong's Legislative Council.

 

The international community has endorsed the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) core labour standards as fundamental building blocks of equitable, democratic, and sustainable development. Research has shown that countries that respect the core labour standards tend to have high economic growth, more equitable distribution of income, and stronger democratic institutions. These core workers' rights are qualitative human principles.

 

This article was originally published in Spring 2001 issue of China Rights Forum, the journal of New York-based Human Rights in China, after the Chinese government ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in February 2001. The reservation China entered when it ratified the covenant blocked the application of a clause of the treaty guaranteeing workers the right to form and join trade unions of their choice. At the time this was just the latest indication of the fact that China rejects some fundamental principles established by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).