scholarly journals The United States’ Withdrawal from the International Labor Organization

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Beigbeder

After a brief description of the I.L.O., this article summarizes the main events which led to the U.S. withdrawal, reviews precedents, then tries to explain the reasons for the U.S. withdrawal and lists its consequences.

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson

Though representatives of the United States participated very actively in the drafting of the Constitution of the International Labor Organization in 1919, and though the first International Labor Conference was held in Washington under the presidency of the Secretary of Labor, the Government of the United States had no part in the work of the International Labor Organization during its first fifteen years. In consequence, the United States has hitherto held aloof from one of the most significant of the modern developments of international law. Fortunately, this situation has now been changed. On August 20,1934, the United States became the fifty-ninth member of the International Labor Organization. The steps by which this result has been achieved, and the problems growing out of it, present some interesting legal questions which ought not to escape attention.


1935 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 866-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Steinbicker

When the United States last year became a member of the International Labor Organization, many people deplored the decision as being the first covert step toward full membership in the League of Nations. Those whose outlook was more sympathetic to international cooperation replied, in defense, that the Labor Organization is independent of the League, having its own buildings, its own separate organs, its own secretariat, and so on; that its membership is not identical with that of the League; and that therefore a state, by becoming a member of the Labor Organization assumed no connection whatever with the League.


1955 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 546-551

International Labor ConferenceThe 38th session of the Conference of the International Labor Organization (ILOs) was held in Geneva from June 1 to 23, 1955, under the presidency of Mr. García Odini (Chile). The Conference had before it the annual report of the Director-General (Morse), the main theme of which was labor-management relations in the developing industrial society. After the selection committee had submitted its proposals on the composition of committees, a spokesman for the employers' delegations of Albania, Bulgaria, Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stated that the majority of the employers' group had discriminated against them and violated their rights as delegates by not including them in the lists of prospective members of committees which the employers' group had furnished the selection committee. On the request of the spokesman, a vote was taken on the lists in question; the lists were adopted by votes ranging from 124 to 139 in favor, 26 to 31 opposed, and 25 to 37 abstentions. It was later proposed by the selection committee that the eight employers' delegates who had not been chosen to sit on committees be given seats as deputy members. However, Mr. Chajn (government delegate, Poland) moved that the selection committee's proposals be amended so as to give the delegates seats as full members. Mr. McGrath (employers' delegate, United States) stated “…that no member of the United States Employers' delegation would sit on any committee with a so-called Employers' delegate or adviser from an Iron Curtain country.


1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-446

The sixth report of the International Labor Organization to the United Nations noted that, in the preparation of the 1953 program of ILO, the organization had found itself faced with the necessity of distinguishing between what was essential and what was desirable. “The criteria for this distinction have been the financial capacity of Governments to pay.’ Two general objectives toward which all ILO activities were directed were methods of increasing labor productivity and action to secure and maintain full employment. However, it was emphasized that these were long-range objectives which could not be measured in the “arbitrary time limit” of a single year. Shifts in emphasis in ILO's program were more apparent in different types of activity within these general fields rather than in the adoption of a different program. For example, the report continued, in 1950 when there appeared that a threat of recession in the United States and Europe existed, ILO placed particular emphasis on problems of full employment; since that time, ILO had placed increasing emphasis on problems of underemployment in underdeveloped countries.


1935 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 870-871
Author(s):  
James A. Gathings

In 1934, Congress passed a joint resolution providing for American membership in the International Labor Organization which stated: “The President is hereby authorized to accept membership for the government of the United States in the International Labor Organization, which through its general conference of representatives of its members and through its International Labor Office, collects information concerning labor throughout the world and prepares conventions for the consideration of member governments with a view to improving conditions of labor.”


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