Chapter XLVI: Section 13: International Labor Organizations--Members of the league

of nations agree to establish a permanent organization to promote international adjustment of labor conditions, to consist of an annual international labor conference and an international labor office.

The former is composed of four representatives of each state, two from the government and one each from the employers and the employed; each of them may vote individually. It will be a deliberative legislative body, its measures taking the form of draft conventions or recommendations for legislation, which if passed by two-thirds vote must be submitted to the lawmaking authority in every state participating. Each government may either enact the terms into law; approve the principles, but modify them to local needs; leave the actual legislation in case of a federal state to local legislatures; or reject the convention altogether without further obligation.

The international labor office is established at the seat of the league of nations as part of its organization. It is to collect and distribute information on labor through the world and prepare agents for the conference. It will publish a periodical in French and English and possibly other languages. Each state agrees to make to it, for presentation to the conference, an annual report of measures taken to execute accepted conventions. The governing body is its executive. It consists of twenty-four members, twelve representing the government, six the employers and six the employes, to serve for three years.

On complaint that any government has failed to carry out a convention to which it is a party the governing body may make inquiries directly to that government and in case the reply is unsatisfactory may publish the complaint with comment. A complaint by one government against another may be referred by the governing body to a commission of inquiry nominated by the secretary-general of the league. If the commission report fails to bring satisfactory action, the matter may be taken to a permanent court of international justice for final decision. The chief reliance for securing enforcement of the law will be publicity with a possibility of economic action in the background.

The first meeting of the conference will take place in October, 1919, at Washington, to discuss the eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week; prevention of unemployment; extension and application of the international conventions adopted at Bern in 1906 prohibiting night work for women and the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches; and employment of women and children at night or in unhealthful work, of women before and after childbirth, including maternity benefit, and of children as regards minimum age.

Nine principles of labor conditions are recognized on the ground that the well-being, physical and moral, of the industrial wage earners is of supreme international importance. With exceptions necessitated by differences of climate, habits and economic developments, they include: The guiding principle that labor should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce; right of association of employers and employes is granted; and a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of life; the eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week; a weekly rest of at least twenty-four hours, which should include Sunday wherever practicable; abolition of child labor and assurance of the continuation of the education and proper physical development of children; equal pay for equal work as between men and women; equitable treatment of all workers lawfully resident therein, including foreigners, and a system of inspection in which women shall take part.