Talk:International labor standards

Separate article
I think it is justifiable to have a subject "international labour standards" standing alone from the International Labour Organization. It is true that ILS are tightly woven into the work of the ILO, but in recent years the idea of ILS has grown to include other sources of "international" "labour" "standards". For better or for worse, the ILO is no longer the sole owner of the term. For better or for worse.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidtajgman (talk • contribs) 08:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed additions to International labour standards stub
Issues of protection for workers’ basic rights have been the subject of much debate during the past decade and have become a prominent topic of discussion in the international policy arena. After spending some time reviewing material on International labour standards, it came to our attention that this Wikipedia stub could benefit from a more comprehensive coverage of the topic. We believe some key elements it’s lacking are: a brief historical background on the development of international labor standards, a discussion of various models of implementation, and an impartial critique of the subject. Consequently, we plan to expand it to full article status and will be contributing sections addressing each of the aforementioned aspects of the topic. Comments are appreciated. Comment: I'm interested in this topic, but I'm concerned about a possible misunderstanding. What the ILO Conventions represent are internationally agreed rights guaranteed under treaty obligations, so they are *standards* in as much as any law may be called a standard. The enforcement of these standards is something completely different. Moreoever, these rights ('standards') should not in any way be confused with or compared to voluntary corporate mechanisms such as SA8000 etc. It would be highly misleading to do so. For example, there are various different opinions on whether or not SA8000 is an attempt to whitewash corporate practices, but it uses as a baseline the ILO conventions in regard to labour conditions. It seems to me what is being suggested above is more about the application and enforcement of international labour standards.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Krisinaz (talk) 01:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Leejohnson898 (talk) 01:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Response: Thanks for the input, Goldsztajn. We recognize that there is a difference between the creation of a set of internationally agreed upon group of rights and their actual enforcement. We may not have been as clear as we should have in our posts but we will try to make this distinction apparent in our article expansion. However, we do plan on including sections addressing the enforcement and implementation of such standards as we feel that these issues are highly relevant to ILS. In our research we have found an abundance of literature debating the various methods of implementation (voluntary, enforced by trade sanctions, etc.) and we think that any article on ILS should provide some coverage of these topics. We really appreciate the criticism and we think the entry would benefit from your continued feedback.
 * Leejohnson898 (talk) 00:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Krisinaz (talk) 00:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

International labor standards expansion from stub to full article
Recently, my co-editor and myself expanded this page from a stub to a full article, increasing the amount of information available on Wikipedia regarding the issue of international labor standards. We chose to add comprehensive sections on the history of the idea of international labor standards, various suggested models for their implementation, and two common criticisms offered against their use. With the growing discussion and debate on this topic and its connection to issues of human rights, we felt it was one that merited more substantive coverage. Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.


 * Krisinaz (talk) 23:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Leejohnson898 (talk) 23:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Assessment
I assessed this article as "start" class for now. The article is a good start; it contains a lot of content, substantial research and many references. However, the prose is unclear in many places. Further, it is hard to tell what content is taken from the sources, and what is argument by the authors of this article: it appears that the article contains a lot of WP:OR and synthesis. It also appears that several of the references are not to WP:reliable sources, and even the references to reliable sources are often missing page numbers and, where available, urls to the specific web pages. The editors should add page numbers (or more specific urls) to all the references that are missing them. The article needs the attention of more editors. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions
As part of an assignment for Rice University, I hope to continue to build upon the good work that's been done with this article to make it more full, complete, and useful to readers. I hope to expand the History section by employing articles that comment on how international labor standards developed especially during the Industrial Revolution. This article has a Western-based perspective, especially in the history section, and I hope to complement the existing work by offering more regional perspectives. I plan to add a section giving examples of specific abuses of international labor standards. While the theory is very good in this article, I hope to add some specific examples to complement the theory. This article is also quite bare in graphics and images, so I hope to find images that may complement the subject matter. Addressing some of the concerns brought up by other editors, I plan to clean up some of the citations as well and ensure that there is no original resource. If there are any editors out there who have any advice or think that there are other areas of this article that should be improved, I welcome any comments! --Hihappy21 (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great expanded contributions. The article flows very well, and ideas link with good cohesiveness. You article represents both sides, and is in a neutral point-of-view. There are some phrases that you might want to rephrase, but other than that I do not find significant problems with it.

In terms of comprehensiveness, the article is very comprehensive and is very detailed. The topics go well together, and the subtopics are appropriate. The format of the sections is nicely constructed. You provided specific details, and elaborated extensively. My only criticism would be to add to the end of the challenges section.

Cristell24 (talk) 22:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review
Overall, you’ve done an awesome job so far, Timothy! I think an area that you could improve on is just proofreading a little more carefully and rewording some things for more clarity. The Data Sources and Challenges sections could benefit from more links to other pages, and as mentioned before go ahead and elaborate on some minor details that aren’t explained fully, like different ways of measuring unemployment. Good job, looking forward to talking more!

Kiarasanchez12 (talk) 05:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Russian Revolution, tripartism and competitive advantage
This article could also benefit from various insights outside of industrial relations, for example the critical and Marxist types. An example would be including somewhere in the history section the 1917 Russian Revolution which some researchers have argued inspired the creation of the ILO in 1919 (two years later) i.e. as a way to buttress the spread of Bolshevism and generally appease working class aspirations for more wages, better working conditions, etc.

One could also include something about the tri partist nature of the ILO -- employers, employees and governments. This is called class compromise in the Marxist literature, that is, the idea that because a conflict of interest exists between workers and employers (over wages, conditions, benefits, etc since these all come at a cost to employers but are protections for workers) and because this conflict has the potential to lead to acute or violent class conflict (think of all the social unrest and revolutions involving workers in the 19th and 20th centuries) then they have had to be controlled and regulated through legal channels (in the form of standards).

And standards are also legislated in order to level the playing field so to speak. Because the lack of standards gives an employer competitive advantage, companies operating in countries which do have these standards push for companies which do not have these standards to adopt them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.143.139 (talk) 01:22, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

slave trade / slavery
another topic that needs to be addressed since attempts to regulate / abolish slavery go back much further than industrial labour standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.143.139 (talk) 01:26, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

other than ILO
and last but not least, it seems the article is mostly about the ILO even though international labour standards were promoted by several organisations and people in the 19th century and early 20th century (before the formation of the ILO). Here I am thinking of activities of social reformers, socialists, trade unions, IALL is a very important one, etc.

inter-national and global
International labor standards refer to conventions agreed upon by international actors, resulting from a series of value judgments, set forth to protect basic worker rights, enhance workers’ job security, and improve their terms of employment on a global scale.

See dictionary for the difference: inter-national: existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations; global- of or relating to the whole world; worldwide.

So international and global are not synonymous, not the same thing. You can't talk about global economy and by extension standards until roughly the 1970s. Before then, you have an international system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.143.139 (talk) 04:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

initial membership
"Despite a lack of any formal means of coercion, the ILO then urged its 44 original member countries"

45 countries, not 44. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.88.181 (talk) 22:58, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

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Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2013 Fall term. Further details are available on the course page.

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