Peace and social justice

Quite rightly, for several months the nation has been marking the outbreak of war in 1914; and over the next four years, many centenaries will be commemorated, right up to the Armistice of November 1918.

In 2019, attention will turn to the peace making process and the Treaty of Versailles, which is generally regarded as a failure, laying the foundations for war again two decades later.

But a substantial part of the Treaty of Versailles still operates today. Part XIII, articles 387-427 dealt with “labour”. And I can’t do better than quote from the Treaty itself:

Whereas the League of Nations has for its object the establishment of universal peace, and such a peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice;

And whereas conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship, and privation to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperilled; and an improvement of those conditions is urgently required: as, for example, by the regulation of the hours of work, including the establishment of a maximum working day and week, the regulation of the labour supply, the prevention of unemployment, the provision of an adequate living wage, the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment, the protection of children, young persons and women, provision for old age and injury, protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other than their own recognition of the principle of freedom of association, the organisation of vocational and technical education and other measures

There is a plenty there you can find in the ETI Base Code. Back in 1919, action on these issues was regarded as essential for preventing war. And to apply these principles in practice, the Treaty went on to set up an organisation:

ARTICLE 392. The International Labour Office shall be established at the seat of the League of Nations as part of the organisation of the League.

If you were paying attention when you sat through your ETI Essentials 1 workshop, you will have learned that the ETI Base Code is drawn from the conventions draw up by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Of course, if you have forgotten, you can always sign up to do the course again! We are always revising the courses.

When the League of Nations was dissolved, the ILO carried on, and became the first specialised agency of the United Nations.

Every year, the International Labour Conference meets in June, in Geneva. Most years, it will adopt a Convention, which members states can ratify, and incorporate into national labour law, or a Recommendation which is best seen as “soft law” like the recent one on HIV/AIDS which any ETI member sourcing from southern Africa should use.

However, the ILO is much more than the definitive source of International labour law. It is a centre of knowledge and dialogue. (I had better disclose that I used to be an ILO official and still do consultancy work for it).

It is ILO research that is quoted when we discuss the numbers of child labourers, or the profits made from forced labour. It is the ILO which was turned to, to provide an independent chair of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. Because of its unique tripartite make up, it has a reach that few other agencies can match.

In fact, if you were to set up a UN agency on ethical trade, it would look a lot like the ILO.

It is far from perfect, and prone to the usual UN faults of bureaucracy. But if you were to suggest today the establishment of a new UN agency devoted to workers’ rights, and where trade unions had equal standing with governments and employers in its governance - well, you would get short shrift, to put it politely.

As we commemorated Armistice Day yesterday, and the hopes that so many had in 1919 for a better world, the idea that “peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice” is still true.