Citizen's Committee of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and U.S. Worker Advisor

From 1957 to 1958 George L-P. Weaver Served as a member of the Citizen's Committee of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and U.S. Worker Advisor to the 40th and 41st ILO Conventions in Geneva, Switzerland. This series documents his participation at these conferences and his activities with the ILO's Technical Assistance Committee and Committee on Plantations. The ILO was ostensibly established as a world forum and international agency to address global labor issues and promote economic advancement in underdeveloped countries through research, technical assistance, and educational programs. It facilitated cooperation among labor, employers, and governmental delegates representing participating nations as an alternative to class struggle and growing division between advanced industrialized countries and their undeveloped counterparts.

Among Weaver's ILO files are correspondence, memoranda, reports, position papers, research data, and ILO Convention material and publications. This subseries contains various components of the ILO Plantation Committee Report (June 1957) on plantation ownership patterns, wage rates, and working conditions of field laborers throughout the world. The committee's questionnaire and extensive intergovernmental survey uncovered corroborative evidence of substandard wages and working conditions. In conjunction with the ILO Convention on international plantations, Weaver (as a member of the Workers' Group) participated in discussions and debate over the implementation of an international instrument to improve living standards of plantation workers. Weaver's ILO files also contain a copy of the Johnson Report (January 1957)--commissioned by the Departments of State, Commerce, and Labor to study the question of U.S. participation in the ILO.