Failures of International Labor Organization

Khan Sarfaraz Ali

International Labor Organization (ILO) has been playing enormous roles since its inception in 1919. Available literatures and reports suggest, despite of various success stories this organization is being criticized from different corner due to its failures in some cases. Among them few are mentioned below: 1. ILO has adopted a good number of conventions with a view to protect Labor rights. Unfortunately still these conventions are controversial as many of the countries did not ratify or accepted; 2. To be specific, still there is controversy on definition of child Labor, domestic worker, and sex workers; 3. In spite of becoming a UN organization, ILO fails to impose their ideas in developed countries; 4. Countries specially in middle East Asia and Arabs like: Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq do not follow ILO conventions; 5. One of the developed countries in Asia China does not abide by ILO conventions; 6. ILO failed to stop child Labor in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri lanka; 7. ILO role is ambiguous for the sex workers. Specifically, child sex workers are overlooked in their conventions. In the whole world a group of children are in danger of sex. But ILO could not play any influential role; 8. For the domestic Labor ILO could not establish their stand. In some countries e.g. Quait, Bahrain, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, India domestic Labor issue has been focused badly. But ILO failed to handle this properly; 9. ILO has no clear cut statement for the migrant Labor. In the developed countries like: Australia, America, Canada, Italy, Britain, Singapore, Dubai, Quait, Brunei and Malaysia migrant Labor is a critical issue. But role of ILO is seems to be passive;

PhD Fellow, Universiti Utara Malaysia and CEO, LIFE ( e-mail: sarfarazbim@gmail.com, website: www.lifebangladesh.com)

10. A very recent failure of ILO is death of thousands garments worker in Bangladesh (on 24th April 2013). ILO officials in the country cannot avoid their responsibility as they are highly paid to look after the welfare of Labors. 11. Above all, still there is lacking of field based research in ILO. ILO is spending huge amount of US dollar every year and have plenty of budget for this purpose; especially for the greater welfare of world Labor. But ultimate output is not as per satisfaction. Suggestion: With a view to upholding the image of the organization, ILO should be more practical and proactive. In appointing own staff, the organization should seek help from professional experts who will be impartial, bias free and free from any influence. Recruited staff should be well oriented about present Labor situation of the whole world along with existing conventions and laws related to Labor welfare. A group of skilled, experienced researchers need to be appointed to do action research on mentioned failures. Representation from Labor groups of different countries in ILO may be another option to justify the existence of the organization. A 24 hours call centre or one stop service centre may be established in every member country for the individual or group Labor; where the Labor group will get free access to share their problems and difficulties. As a sign of open information access ILO can take initiative by adding such an option at their website. The main webpage may illustrate day to day Labor issues raised by the individual Labor across the world. In a nut shell, ILO should consult respective experts and researchers to overcome their failures.