"Labour is not a commodity" is the principle expressed in the preamble to the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...

's founding documents. It expresses the view that people should not be treated like inanimate

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

, another mere

factor of production In economics, factors of production, resources, or inputs are what is used in the production process to produce output (economics), output—that is, goods and service (economics), services. The utilized amounts of the various inputs determine the ...

, or

resources Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their a ...

. Instead, people who work for a living should be treated as

human being Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedality, bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex Human brain, brain. This has enabled the development of ad ...

s and accorded

dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...

and respect. Paul O'Higgins attributes the phrase to

John Kells Ingram John Kells Ingram (7 July 1823 – 1 May 1907) was an Irish mathematician, economist and poet who started his career as a mathematician. He has been co-credited, along with John William Stubbs, with introducing the geometric concept of invers ...

, who used it in 1880 during a meeting in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

of the British

Trades Union Congress The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national tra ...

.O'Higgins, P.
'Labour is not a Commodity' — an Irish Contribution to International Labour Law'
(1997) 26(3) Industrial Law Journal 225-234

Law

Clayton Act 1914 The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 (, codified at , ), is a part of United States antitrust law with the goal of adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime; the Clayton Act seeks to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipie ...

, which gave trade unions in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

the freedom from paying penalties from courts for organising and taking

collective action Collective action refers to action taken together by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences including psych ...

Versailles Treaty The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

, establishing the International Labour Organization, Article 427 *

Declaration of Philadelphia The Declaration of Philadelphia (10 May 1944) restated the traditional objectives of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and then branched out in two new directions: the centrality of human rights to social policy, and the need for interna ...

1944, reestablishing the ILO under the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

and reaffirming the first principle that labour is not a commodity

References

External links

* International Labour Organization
Declaration of Philadelphia
(1944) Human resource management Labour movement Labour law {{labor-stub

Law

See also

References

External links