Wheels within wheels. Harold Beresford Butler, whose The Lost Peace I just referenced with respect to the German ability to pay reparations, was a delegate to the international committee for labor organization which was part of the Versailles peace process. Part of the Versailles Treaty was this declaration with respect to the rights of labor, quoted from a speech given when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the ILO in 1969.
>>..the League of Nations has for its object the
establishment of universal peace, and such a peace can
be established only if it is based upon social justice.
And whereas conditions of labor exist involving such
injustice, hardship, and privation to large numbers of
people as to produce unrest so great that the peace
and harmony of the world are imperiled; and an
improvement of those conditions is urgently required:
as, for example, by the regulation of the hours of work,
including the establishment of a maximum working day
and week, the regulation of the labor supply, the
prevention of unemployment, the provision of an
adequate living wage, the protection of the worker
against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his
employment, the protection of children, young persons
and women, provision for old age and injury, protection
of the interests of workers when employed in countries
other than their own, recognition of the principle of
freedom of association, the organization of vocational
and technical education and other measures; the failure
of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labor is an
obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to
improve the conditions in their own countries.6
This statement is followed by the guidelines for the ILO
and the principal tasks this organization should aim to
accomplish. These are summed up in nine points, which
have often been called the "Magna Carta" of the
working class. Among other things these include: the
principle that labor is not a piece of merchandise; the
right of employees, as well as of employers, to organize
themselves; the right of workers to receive a reasonable
wage; the eight-hour day or the forty-eight-hour week;
a ban on child labor; equal pay for men and women for
the same work; and every country is furthermore to
organize a system of labor inspection in which women,
too, are to play their part in ensuring that labor
legislation is adhered to. <<
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