Humane Conditions of Labour

These words in the Preamble of the ILO's Constitution were, in 1919, prescient of the concerns expressed in the ILO Director General's 1997 Report on "The ILO, Standards Setting and Globalization":

"Leaving aside the various interpretations which divide the specialists, it is highly likely that public opinion will continue to believe widely that globalization (the complex phenomenon of economic interdependency resulting from trade in goods and services and capital flows) inevitably implies a downward levelling of pay for jobs of equal (low) skills in a market in which goods and capital can freely circulate.... [T]his liberalization [of trade, as a part of globalization] carries the risk, as the Preamble to the Constitution of the ILO warns us, that international competition, by inhibiting the will of certain Members to introduce progress, might be 'an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries'."

There, the Director General observed that the effects of international competition which have been argued as tending to be an obstacle to improved conditions of labour are a target of, and reason for, international labour standards. He argued that the ILO's standard setting activities had to meet the challenge posed by globalization -- first observed by the Constitution's drafters -- by reaffirming the value of social justice and working with member States to strive for it in the context of opportunities created by a vibrant world economy.