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Article

The International Labour Organization (ILO)

Germany’s role at the ILO

Within the Federal Government, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has lead responsibility for matters involving the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. Germany holds one of the ten permanent titular government seats in the Governing Body of the ILO. All important decisions regarding ILO policies are taken by the Governing Body or at the annual International Labour Conference.

The International Labour Organization was founded in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. This makes it the oldest specialized agency of the United Nations. A special feature of the ILO is its tripartite structure that includes not only representatives of the governments of its member countries but also representatives of employers’ and workers’ organisations from these countries as equal partners in its decision-making processes. Today, 187 countries belong to the ILO. Germany is the fourth-largest contributor to the regular ILO budget after the USA, Japan and China.

ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work

In 2019, the ILO celebrated its centenary together with governments and social partners from around the world with the aim of preparing for the future of work and of taking the necessary measures at the national and international levels. For this purpose, the ILO adopted a groundbreaking declaration for the future of work at the International Labour Conference in Geneva. The Centenary Declaration sets the ILO’s long-term agenda for decent work in a changing world of work and outlines the position the organisation wants to have within the multilateral system. The declaration strives to provide answers to the challenges created by the digital transformation. It should also be emphasized that since 2022, safe and healthy working conditions are now also part of the ILO framework of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

The Decent Work Agenda

In order to foster fair globalisation, the ILO developed the Decent Work Agenda and institutionalised it in 2008 in the fundamental Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. The goals of this declaration are:

  1. productive employment that pays fair wages and offers decent working conditions,
  2. social protection including social security,
  3. social dialogue and
  4. adherence to the ILO’s labour and social standards, especially to the core labour standards.

In September 2015, all UN Member States signed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which unequivocally makes decent work for all one of its goals (goal 8).

Setting international labour and social standards

The ILO’s labour and social standards are laid down in conventions and recommendations adopted by the International Labour Conference. Once they are ratified by the individual member country, conventions become binding under international law for the respective country. Germany has ratified 87 conventions and two protocols to date, 61 of which are still in force. As of February 2024). Germany is thus among the countries with the highest number of ratifications.

Among the ratified conventions are nine of the ten core labour standards, i.e. those conventions that have received special political significance through the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work from 1998 (amended in 2022). They spell out five basic principles in more detail: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of discrimination in respect to employment and occupation, the elimination of forced labour, the fight against and abolition of child labour and occupational safety and health. The basic principles contained in the core labour standards are universal, i.e. they are applicable in all ILO member countries no matter whether they ratified them.

In June 2019, the International Labour Conference of the ILO also adopted Convention 190 on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work with the support of Germany and a large majority. The convention sends a clear signal worldwide: It bans and thus ostracises any behaviour that is demeaning, humiliating, amounts to sexual harassment or constitutes a psychological and/or physical attack. In June 2023, Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil submitted Germany’s instrument of ratification for the above ILO Convention 190 to the ILO’s Director-General Gilbert Houngbo.

Finally, Germany is also participating in the global fight against child labour and forced labour as well as human trafficking in human beings in Alliance 8.7. Germany has been a Pathfinder country in Alliance 8.7 since February 2023. It is a global alliance, of which the International Labour Organization is a co-initiator, which is dedicated to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 to eradicate child labour, forced labour and human trafficking.

Technical cooperation and assistance

In addition to standard-setting, the ILO also pursues its objectives with the help of technical cooperation measures This is done first and foremost within the framework of Decent Work Country Programmes, particularly in developing countries. A prime example is the Social Protection Floor Initiative that Germany supports financially. Worldwide, 80 per cent of workers have inadequate social protection or none at all. This is particularly the case among people working in the informal sector.

Vision Zero Fund

G7 leaders launched the "Vision Zero Fund" (VZF) in 2015 at the initiative of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs as a concrete tool to improve occupational safety and health. The VZF is a global prevention fund that aims to prevent severe and especially fatal accidents at work in poorer production countries that produce goods for global supply chains. Germany followed up on its commitment to the promotion of sustainable global supply chains including internationally binding standards during its G20 Presidency in 2017 and its G7 Presidency in 2022. The ILO is implementing the fund, which is active in Colombia, Ethiopia, Honduras, Laos, Madagascar, Mexico, Myanmar and Viet Nam. Support in the amount of more than 30 million euros has been provided for the fund from six governments, the European Commission and companies. The fund complements the existing ILO occupational safety and health programmes, the Better Work Programme and initiatives of other international organisations and institutions in this field. In 2022, at the proposal of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the focus of the VZF was extended to include the topics of climate change and occupational safety in global supply chains. Among other things, pilot projects collect and evaluate data on the influence of climate change on the health of workers in agriculture.