Suchergebnisse

Presenting an account of the International Labour Organization, this book provides the readers with an understanding of its purpose and structure. It covers key areas such as major moments of change, leadership, membership, organizational structure, decision-making capacity, and contemporary debates in historical perspective.

In November 1994, the Governing body of the International Labour Organisation (the ILO) received the 295th Report of its Committee on Freedom of Association. Among the reports on complaints against the governments of Cameroon, Myanmar, Guatemala and others were the recommendations drawn from the Final Report on the February 1993 New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (the NZCTU) complaint against the government of New Zealand. The complaint, its processing and the Final Report have attracted great interest not only in New Zealand but also on the international stage, where the substance of the complaint and the manner of its receipt by the New Zealand government has created widespread debate. Furthermore, the legislation against which the comlplaint was lodged - the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (the ECA) - is itself of great international interest because off he ECA's commitment to a comprehensive free market model of bargaining. The progress of the NZCTU complaint through the ILO system raises a wide range of issues. Here we wish to discuss the extent to which the outcome of the complaint - in particular, the Final Report - responded to government, employer and union submissions and, consequently, the extent to which the ILO gave support to the contentions of the parties. In doing so, certain issues are raised first, about the future of New Zealand - ILO relations and, second about the expectations the parties should have about the ILO and its deliberations.

Unions are the potential but secure democratic counterforce to capital. The creation of "objective conditions" for international co‐operation has preceded but must result in "subjective conditions". This theme survives little challenged as a central tenet of the official labour movement in country after country. The pervasive complacency in other circles concerning the prospects for industrial democracy to be achieved through the internationalisation of the evolutionary, pluralistic collective bargaining model, particularly at a time when that model seems unable to cope with born again free market philosophies even at a national level.

Ideas of economic democracy within the confines of capitalism have gained wide currency in recent years. This paper compares initiatives from employers on the profit-sharing front and on capital-sharing from labour movements. It examines the theoretical and empirical case for seeing such initiatives as having the potential to transform the worker's position into one of less or zero-exploitation by sharing in the distribution of surplus value. It is concluded that such claims to this effect are non-starters for profit-sharing and misconceived for capital-sharing. The latter view is sustained by a critique of the conceptions of capitalism and of prefigurative socialism embedded in the models of capital-sharing.