The Future of the International Labour Organization in the Global Economy, by Francis Maupain. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2013, 320 pp., ISBN: 978 1 84 9465 021, £50.00, hardback.
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12093 |
| Author | Jeffrey Hilgert |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
on trade union internationalism which are by no means only relevant in the transport
sector. Perhaps a more important omission may be their relative neglect of the role of
grass-roots activists in unions in favour of a focus on key personalities among union
elites. Arguably, militant lay representatives often also act as ‘leaders’, in some cases
potentially more effectively than labour officialdom. This is perhaps somewhat harsh,
however, because when taken as a study of the way in which union officials can shape
their organizations for better or worse the book yields many insights.
CHARLES UMNEY
University of Greenwich
The Future of the International Labour Organization in the Global Economy, by Francis
Maupain. Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2013, 320 pp., ISBN: 978 1 84 9465 021,
£50.00, hardback.
One of the historical challenges faced by the International Labour Organization
(ILO) has been how to reconcile labour and social policies with the goal of economic
interdependence through trade liberalization. This book is a tour de force on this
question by an ‘inside’ expert who served under five successive directors-general.
Published seven years before its centenary, it is independent of the Office-launched
Century Project documenting ILO history. The result is a comprehensive and
thoughtful analysis of how the ILO has responded to globalization and how it might
advance into its second century.
The ‘core issue’ of concern is the ILO’s capacity to fulfil its mandate in a global-
ized world. As the Declaration of Philadelphia endorses the ‘promotion of a high
and steady volume of international trade’ to raise living standards, this means
finding ways to promote normative standards amidst trade liberalization. This
raises a dilemma, however. The social clause effort at the World Trade Organization
(WTO) has failed, and linkage remains a taboo subject at the ILO. So how can the
ILO help countries escape the prisoner’s dilemma race to the bottom with what
Maupain calls a ‘persuasive toolbox’ while a diversity of promotion and enforcement
efforts have emerged, including some that challenge ILO norms with less than coher-
ent definitions of worker rights?
The book is organized into four parts, with three chapters each. Part I is an
insightful historical overview of the ILO’s ‘normative production’ and how it was
‘orphaned’ by the end of Cold War competition. The recent efforts at renewal include
the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the ‘Decent
Work’ strategy, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization,
and the 2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization.
Part II highlights the ‘paucity of active coordination’ between international orga-
nizations and the need to ‘decompartmentalize’ global-level multilateral organiza-
tions. The World Bank’s Doing Business report is mentioned as are positive forms of
‘workers’ rights conditionality’ by the International Finance Corporation among
other investment agencies and regional development banks. Chapter 5 on the employ-
ment creation debates offers a historically rich treatment of the quantity versus
decency problem, including the role played by the recent financial crisis in challenging
‘inter-agency coherence’ between the ILO, the IMF, OECD, ECOSOC, the WTO
and other agencies. Chapter 6 focuses on the ILO’s capacity to promote coherence.
A new recommendation is suggested to help ‘mutualise’ these experiences ‘to design a
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816 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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