Dag Hammarskjöld Library at Uppsala University
ILO
- © United Nations
International Labour Organization
International Labour Organization, ILO was founded in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1946 it became a specialized agency of the UN.
The ILO was designed to promote universal and lasting peace based upon social justice by protecting the rights of workers and their conditions, maintaining minimum labour standards in the workplace on an international legal basis.
The ILO has a unique tripartite structure, where member states are represented not only by governments, but include delegates of employee and employer associations.
The ILO consists of three main bodies:
- The International Labour Conference is the supreme body. Delegations from all member states meet annually in June to discuss social and labour questions, establish and approve international labour standards, adopt the working programmes and budget and elect the Governing Body;
- The Governing Body is the executive organ. It controls the International Labour Office and elects the Director-General;
- The International Labour Office is the ILO secretariat with administrative and information services.
The ILO is headquartered in Geneva and has a system of field offices around the world.
Documentation
The ILO official web site provides multilingual information about the programs and activities, full text documents and reports, labour statistics and ILO recommendations and conventions and access to relevant databases. The section Information Resources gives an overview of the most essential ILO publications.
The ILO journals World of Work and International Labour Review are posted online at the ILO offical web site.
World Employment Report has been published annually since the Copenhagen Social Summit. It provides a comprehensive analysis of global and regional labour market issues. The report is posted at the ILO official web site.
Year book of labour statistics is an annual compilation of labour statistics from over 190 countries.
Documents in print from the International Labour Conferences can be accessed from the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Uppsala, and from the UN Libraries and electronically from the ILO official web site, International Labour Conference.
A summary of the work of the International Labour Organization for a given year with references to essential documents can be accessed through the Yearbook of the United Nations, Part Six: Intergovernmental organizations to the United Nations. A complete collection of yearbooks is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva. Since October 2008 the complete full text collection of The United Nations Yearbooks is available online at http://unyearbook.un.org/.
Databases and Indexes
A number of relevant databases can be accessed through the ILO official web site, section Information Resources:
APPLIS provides information about the ratifications of ILO conventions.
Child Labour Statistics compiles web sites on national and international statistics.
e.quality@work is a database on guidelines and legislation on equal opportunities in the workplace.
ILOLEX is an extensive database on International Labour Standards. It is a compilation of full text documents in English, French and Spanish of conventions, ratifications, comments, interpretations, surveys and related documents.
Labordoc is the online catalogue of the ILO Library with an extensive collection of reference to books, articles and reports in the social and labour fields.
LABORSTA is a database for global labour statistics.
NATLEX contains references to 55.000 documents on national labour legislation and legal full text documents.