The International Labor Organization’s Role in Colonial Labor Reform within the Portuguese and British Empires, 1945–63

The Second World War heavily impacted the policies and politics of International Labor Organization (ILO), and in particular those related to the labor conditions in the colonial world. Following the Philadelphia Conference in 1944, the ILO approach to the issue of colonial labor changed drastically. If during the interwar years the activities of the ILO focused on preventing abuses, drawing on particular standards for these territories, after 1944 the ILO adopted a broader and more universalistic social policy in the so-called “non-metropolitan territories”. This evolution had noticeable consequences in the relationship between the ILO and colonial powers in the post-1945 and was constrained by international dynamics as mounting anti-colonial pressures, cold war rivalries and diffusion of development discourses.

By comparing the relationship between the ILO and two  different colonial empires, the Portuguese and the British, this paper will address the ways the former conditioned labor legislation and policies in both empires, namely through the standard-setting procedures, in situ inspections and the circulation of experts and technical knowledge. Focusing on specific places and events (Angola and Mozambique, Kenya and Nigeria.) and stressing the ILO’s role as a site of dialogue, negotiation and dispute, this paper will assess the ways in which labor issues were entangled in broader dynamics of imperial reform and, later on, imperial demise.