ILO Core Labour Conventions (Nos. 87, 98, 29, 105, 138, 182, 100, 111, 155, 187) — combined core-principles summary

This record covers ten separate binding treaties rather than one instrument. They are the eight conventions the International Labour Organization designates as fundamental, plus the two governance conventions on occupational safety and health. Each is individually ratifiable, and they are held together here because they are short, closely related, and best read as a set. The ILO is a United Nations specialised agency with a tripartite structure unique among UN bodies: governments, employers' organisations and workers' organisations each hold a voting voice in setting these standards.

Three of the ten address freedom and coercion at work. Convention 29, the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, requires the suppression of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms, with narrow defined exceptions for compulsory military service, normal civic obligations, properly supervised prison labour, emergencies and minor communal services. Convention 105, the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention of 1957, is its stronger and more specific complement, prohibiting forced labour used as political coercion or as punishment for political views, as a method of labour discipline, as punishment for taking part in strikes, or as racial, social, national or religious discrimination. Convention 87 of 1948 guarantees workers and employers the right to establish and join organisations of their own choosing without prior authorisation and free from interference by public authority, and protects those organisations' right to draw up their own rules and elect their own representatives.

Two more govern bargaining and pay. Convention 98 of 1949 protects workers against anti-union discrimination in employment, protects workers' and employers' organisations against interference by one another, and promotes voluntary negotiation to regulate terms of employment through collective agreements. Convention 100 of 1951 requires equal pay for men and women for work of equal value, which is a deliberately broader test than identical work, and it applies to every element of remuneration rather than to base wages alone.

Convention 111 of 1958 requires ratifying states to pursue a national policy eliminating discrimination in employment and occupation on grounds of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, covering access to employment, access to training, and terms and conditions of work. The two child labour conventions work as a pair. Convention 138 of 1973 requires states to set a minimum age for admission to employment that is not below the age of completion of compulsory schooling, generally not less than 15, or 14 for developing countries under specified conditions, with a higher minimum of 18 for hazardous work. Convention 182 of 1999 requires immediate and effective measures to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency, defined to include slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, use in illicit activities such as drug trafficking, and any work likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children. It is among the most widely and rapidly ratified conventions in the ILO's history.

The two governance conventions deal with safety. Convention 155 of 1981 requires states to formulate, implement and periodically review a coherent national policy on occupational safety, occupational health and the working environment, aimed at preventing accidents and injury by minimising the causes of hazards at work. Convention 187 of 2006 requires states to promote continuous improvement of occupational safety and health through a national policy, a national system and a national programme, developed in consultation with the most representative organisations of employers and workers, which treats safety improvement as an ongoing institutional obligation rather than a one-time compliance exercise.

One point about the force of these instruments is worth stating exactly. The eight fundamental conventions are considered binding in principle on all 187 ILO member states through the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, whether or not a given state has individually ratified each one. A second point belongs on the record as an honesty marker: the session that built this archive could not retrieve the ILO's own convention-summary pages, which are JavaScript-rendered and returned empty, so the accounts above draw on the conventions' well-established publicly documented core content, being convention number, adoption year and central obligation. Each convention's complete text, its ratification status by country and the comments of the supervisory bodies are searchable by number in the ILO NORMLEX database.