This new report provides a framework within which to assess compliance with core international labor standards and succeeds in taking an enormous step toward interpreting all relevant information into one central database. At the request of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Research Council's Committee on Monitoring International Labor Standards was charged with identifying relevant and useful sources of country-level data, assessing the quality of such data, identifying innovative measures to monitor compliance, exploring the relationship between labor standards and human capital, and making recommendations on reporting procedures to monitor compliance. The result of the committee's work is in two partsâ€"this report and a database structure. Together, they offer a first step toward the goal of providing an empirical foundation to monitor compliance with core labor standards. The report provides a comprehensive review of extant data sources, with emphasis on their relevance to defined labor standards, their utility to decision makers in charge of assessing or monitoring compliance, and the cautions necessary to understand and use the quantitative information.

This book is the first comprehensive account of the International Labour Organization’s 100-year history. At its heart is the concept of global social policy, which encompasses not only social policy in its national and international dimensions, but also development policy, world trade, international migration and human rights. The book focuses on the ILO’s roles as a key player in debates on poverty, social justice, wealth distribution and social mobility subjects and as a global forum for addressing these issues. The study puts in perspective the manifold ways in which the ILO has helped structure these debates and has made – through its standard-setting, technical cooperation and myriad other activities – practical contributions to the world of work and to global social policy.

The book's breadth and grounding in labor law make it most accessible and useful to a professional audience, but even nonspecialists and lay readers will appreciate Blackett's insights about law and domestic work and provocative issues such as social stratification and immigration.― Choice Adelle Blackett tells the story behind the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention No. 189, and its accompanying Recommendation No. 201 which in 2011 created the first comprehensive international standards to extend fundamental protections and rights to the millions of domestic workers laboring in other peoples' homes throughout the world. As the principal legal architect, Blackett is able to take us behind the scenes to show us how Convention No. 189 transgresses the everyday law of the household workplace to embrace domestic workers' human rights claim to be both workers like any other, and workers like no other. In doing so, she discusses the importance of understanding historical forms of invisibility, recognizes the influence of the domestic workers themselves, and weaves in poignant experiences, infusing the discussion of laws and standards with intimate examples and sophisticated analyses. Looking to the future, she ponders how international institutions such as the ILO will address labor market informality alongside national and regional law reform. Regardless of what comes next, Everyday Transgressions establishes that domestic workers' victory is a victory for the ILO and for all those who struggle for an inclusive, transnational vision of labor law, rooted in social justice.

In this study, the authors move beyond the debate on the relative merits and risks of a social clause in trade agreements and focus on practical approaches for improving labour standards in a more intergrated global economy.

The NRC has convened the Committee on Monitoring International Labor Standards to provide expert, science-based advice on monitoring compliance with international labor standards. The committee held a workshop in July 2002 to assess the quality of information and measures of progress towards compliance with international labor standards. This document summarizes the workshop. Reflecting the workshop agenda, this report focuses primarily on the availability and quality of information to measure compliance with four core international labor standards that were identified in 1998 by the ILO. The goal of this workshop summary is to communicate the key ideas and themes that emerged from the workshop presentations and discussions.

Labour law has long been upheld by the ILO as an essential pillar of development and peace, within member States, as well as between States. This book offers valuable insight on the application of the ILO's international labour standards.

It has become commonplace to think that globalization has produced a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards and quality of life: the cheaper the labor and the lower the benefits afforded workers, the more competitively a country can participate on the global stage. But in this book the distinguished economic historian Michael Huberman demonstrates that globalization has in fact been very good for workers’ quality of life, and that improved labor conditions have promoted globalization.

Progressive governments in poor countries fear that if they undertake measures to enhance real wages and working conditions, rising labor costs would cause wealthier countries to import from and invest elsewhere. Yet if the world trading system were designed to facilitate or even reward measures to promote labor standards, poor countries could undertake them without fear. In this book, Christian Barry and Sanjay G. Reddy propose ways in which the international trading system can support poor countries in promoting the well-being of their peoples. Reforms to the trading system can lessen the collective-action problem among poor countries, increasing their freedom to pursue policy that better serves the interests of their people. Incorporating the right kind of linkage between trading opportunities and the promotion of labor standards could empower countries, allowing them greater effective sovereignty and enabling them to improve the circumstances of the less advantaged. Barry and Reddy demonstrate how linkage can be made acceptable to all players, and they carefully defend these ideas against those who might initially disagree. Their volume is accessible to general readers but draws on sophisticated economic and philosophical arguments and includes responses from leading labor activists, economists, and philosophers, including Kyle Bagwell, Robert Goodin, Rohini Hensman, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger.