CHAPTER 15—ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL
LABOR ORGANIZATION
[H)oLs minimum wage legislation develop in a particular, more
or less uniform, direction? There seems to be a marked
parallelism between the state of that development in Australasia
about 1900, in England about 1912, and on the Continent of Europe
at present. It is characterized by the gradual extension of minimum
wage legislation to all home-work trades, although not yet to unorganized
trades generally. Besides that general tendency, there are
the more universal systems in countries whose form of government
has been changed through social revolution, and the legislation in
favor of female workers in shops and stores in the United States
and Canada. Great Britain and Australasia have gradually extended
their laws, until to-day Great Britain has minimum wage legislation
for all unorganized trades, including agriculture, and Australasia
minimum wage for practically all workers, There are also some odd
laws for other groups of workers. There remain, however, many
countries without any minimum wage legislation, and they are
enabled thereby to keep their cost of production low, through low
wages paid to home workers, etc., and to obtain in that way an advantage
over their competitors in the world markets.
The International Labor Organization has for its general objective
uniformity of social legislation, thus equalizing cost of production
and enabling progressive countries to advance without fear
of being placed at a disadvantage in competition with more conservative
nations. Minimum wage seems to be one of the most important
mediums for the application of that procedure, and Albert
Thomas, director of the International Labor Office, has since 1920
favored the concluding of an international convention for establishing
minimum wage-fixing machinery in all States which are members
of the organization. Resolutions asking for an international
convention protecting home workers through minimum wage were
accepted on September 2, 1921, by an International Conference at
Geneva, called be the League for the organization of progress, and
in consequence similar resolutions were passed by institutions in
France, By Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
There was resistance from the employers’ representatives, but
as international regulation helps the nations having protection of
home work against unfair competition from countries allowing
sweating to continue, the decisive proposal came quite naturally
from Sir Malcolm Delevingne, representative of the British Government
in the International Labor Organization, Great Britain already
having efficient legislation raising the pay of home workers and
being interested in the equalization of competitive conditions. On
the proposal of the governing body, the International Labor Conference
of 1927 discussed in first reading the problem of “minimum
wage-fixing machinery in trades in which organization of employers
11]
