Soviet Russia and the ILO
MARTIN, PHILIP
The Soviet decision to re-enter the International Labor Organization reflects the new Communist desire to exploit the prestige of all UN bodies Soviet Russia and the ILO By Philip Martin On...
...Second defeat...
...Of the ten seals filled by each group, not one was in the Communist camp: as one of the permanent members, the USSR will sit in loneliness...
...During the Chinese hassle, the conference groups elected their Governing Body members for the next three years...
...In most of these instances, Russia was followed by assorted satellites...
...There was some opposition, but statistics carried the day...
...Made a big East-West trade effort in the Economic Council for Europe, a UN subsidiary...
...June 22: Conference accepts Iron Curtain employers and workers as bona fide delegates...
...As a UN member, Russia needed nothing more...
...The question remains: Why did the Communists take this step...
...This coincided with action by Congress reducing the U.S...
...Certain political questions are removed from consideration in UN meeting rooms and lobbies...
...The sole Russian victory came in the conference's rejection of protests against credentials presented by Iron Curtain employer and worker delegates...
...June 10: ILO general conference refuses to give Eastern European employers voting rights on conference committees, pending a decision on their credentials...
...The conference's entire employer group objected to seating in their ranks "a whole series of Communist agents and puppets...
...Third defeat...
...The ILO gives representation not only to governments, but also to employers (obviously anti-Communist) and workers (whose representatives are for the most part affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions or the Christian trade unions...
...contribution...
...The ILO customarily regards the Red-ws.-Nationalist China representation question as political, and passes the buck to the UN...
...The fourth paragraph reserved the USSR position with regard to all ILO decisions taken prior to Soviet membership...
...The second renewed old demands for "broadening of the representation of the workers and other categories of toilers...
...The issue of workers' credentials was raised when the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions challenged the USSR and Czech delegates on the grounds that freedom of association did not exist in those countries and that the worker delegates were not independent...
...Bulgaria and Hungary showed up for the first time in several years...
...June 16: Full non-Communist slate is elected to the Governing Body, making line-up 39 to 1. (USSR holds a permanent seat...
...First Communist defeat...
...Even then, so-called employers from Eastern Europe were denied voting rights on conference committees, pending the report of the credentials committee...
...The sentiments of those who supported the admission of Iron Curtain employers and workers could not have delighted the Communists...
...In his reply, Director General Morse, who took the responsibility for rejection himself, noted that the ILO constitution makes no provision for partial acceptance of membership obligations...
...technical leadership in underdeveloped countries...
...It showed signs of having gained paragraphs as it went the rounds of Soviet bureaucracy...
...At the same time, the U.S...
...In the ILO, it tries to demote labor standards embodied as conventions to the less effective form of "recommendations...
...In technical assistance, the U.S...
...However, the last three did not scratch up enough U.S...
...At the end of May, the ILO's Governing Body had to decide whether Russia was entitled to one of the ten permanent government seats on the tri-partite Governing Body as a state "of chief industrial importance...
...The third rejected constitutional provisions requiring that disputes arising from interpretation of the constitution or ILO conventions should be referred to the World Court for decision...
...The battle really began June 2, when the annual conference opened...
...are creating a vacuum in the UN...
...Poland and Czechoslovakia had always been in good standing...
...In India, it stands for freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively...
...dollars to achieve the right to vote...
...Ironically, while Morse was achieving this modest victory he was under attack in Congress as "soft" toward Communists...
...The committee was overruled when the conference passed a U.S.sponsored motion by the necessary two-thirds vote—a Russian defeat that became more significant when the conference later denied Hungary voting rights under similar circumstances...
...But the communication did not stop there...
...Many anti-Communist workers at the conference would have failed the same test...
...The first paragraph was a simple acceptance of the ILO's constitutional obligations...
...The Indian worker K. P. Tripathi, General Secretary of the Indian National Trade Union Congress, expressed another point of view when he said: "It was only when I came here . . that I realized that the Communist party did not take the same attitude everywhere...
...The U.S., which sponsored it, has announced that it will not ratify...
...Jane 23: Conference refuses to permit Hungary to vote, owing to arrears in contributions...
...Soviet victory...
...In April, the Communists withdrew their conditions with a proper letter that was signed by none other than Molotov...
...It caused some surprise when the ILO last fall received a communication from the Russian Minister in Berne "accepting the obligations of membership"—the ILO constitutional formula...
...But Formosa is seriously in arrears with its ILO dues, and this year the conference finance committee refused to recommend that Nationalist China be given voting rights regardless of its financial position...
...Strings were attached that are still being debated...
...The Soviet decision to re-enter the International Labor Organization reflects the new Communist desire to exploit the prestige of all UN bodies Soviet Russia and the ILO By Philip Martin On November 4, 1953, the Soviet Union applied for admission to the International Labor Organization...
...Jane 23: Rumania withdraws membership application in the face of a probable adverse vote...
...is seeking to "stabilize" the budgets of all UN agencies...
...To date, Russia's return to the ILO has not given the Kremlin much cause for self-congratulation...
...Actually, much recent Russian activity has been designed to capitalize on the prestige of international organizations...
...November 16: ILO Director General David A. Morse rejects the application...
...The Red employers had triumphed by 105 to 79...
...All these actions by the U.S...
...Deposited a million dollars (in rubles) to the account of the UN's" technical-assistance program...
...These were the key Russian encounters with the ILO: November 4, 1953: Soviet Government applies for admission—with reservations...
...dollar contribution has been reduced by Congress, while delays caused by loyalty-clearance procedures force the program's administrators to rely on more easily hired experts of other nationalities—with a consequent deterioration of U.S...
...A solid bloc of underdeveloped countries—where capital, by necessity, is formed and directed by the Government—joined socialist governments and unionists in voting to seat the director of the Russian Dynamo plant and his associates...
...Fifth defeat...
...But the issue that presented itself to the conference, rightly or wrongly, was whether "employers" by definition meant private employers, or whether the managers of nationalized industries also were employers...
...but, as a non-UN member, this "people's democracy" would have required a two-thirds vote for admission...
...A possible answer to this new Communist policy is for the United States to concretely reassert the leadership that originally inspired so much that is fruitful in the world today...
...The sophistry of these arguments is reflected in the reduced majority achieved for seating Communist workers: 93 to 83...
...Before the ILO conference, it was generally assumed, and substantiated by the November communication, that the Russians were out to sabotage the ILO's work in the field of forced labor and trade-union rights...
...Thus, George Meany this spring saw them as anxious to "thwart and obstruct" investigations "which expose the hypocrisy of Communist intentions for all workers to see...
...Starting with the rejection of that application (which was later followed by an acceptable one), the Communists have suffered six clearcut defeats in the ILO and have achieved only one clouded victory...
...As to participation in the conference itself, the Russian application had a foreseeable sequel: Byelorussia and the Ukraine, those creations of Yalta, became ILO members by virtue of their UN membership...
...May 29: ILO Governing Body grants USSR a permanent seat as one of the top ten industrial nations in the world...
...here it is against freedom of association...
...Withdrawal of its application was the final Red defeat...
...The USSR, which has so long been aloof from the constructive side of the UN, is rushing in to fill that vacuum...
...Generally speaking, those who favored seating these delegates maintained that "freedom of association" was an ILO objective and not a condition of participation, and that certainly the delegates in question were "representative" of the only trade unions in their countries, if not independent of their governments...
...At the conference, however, Morse pledged that the ILO will continue to press forward in the fields of trade-union rights and forced labor...
...Shortly before the conference, too, Rumania submitted a membership application...
...Ratified (with reservations) the Genocide Convention...
...This marked the first time that the USSR has ever agreed to the World Court's jurisdiction without its prior consent in each case...
...The Soviets may lose in the UN voting, but they still crave the privileges of the UN floor...
...In addition to entering the ILO, Russia has, since Stalin's death, done the following: ?Ended the deadlock on Trygve Lie's successor by accepting Dag Hammarskjold...
...Even Albania, which had not attended since its absorption by Mussolini, exported a precious delegation...
...Unconditionally joined UNESCO by virtue of its rights as a UN member...
...April 26, 1954: Acceptable application is received and Russians are automatically admitted, thanks to prior UN membership...
...June 17: Conference overrules its finance committee and permits Nationalist China to vote despite arrears in contributions...
...Fourth defeat...
...Sixth defeat...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 28
