Child labor is work that interferes with the physical and mental development of children. This work also often interferes with children's opportunities to attend school fully or requires them to dropout of school entirely. There are still 168 million children working worldwide, 85 million in hazardous work. ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor calls on the global community, as a matter of urgency, to eradicate the use of children under 18 years of age in all forms of slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, illicit activities, and hazardous work that is likely to harm their health, safety or morals. 

Our Strategy

The Bureau of International Labor Affairs has been working to eliminate the worst forms of child labor since 1993 through research, policy engagement and technical cooperation.

We have published over 30 Congressionally-mandated reports, including the Department Labor's Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor and a public list of goods from countries we have reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor. This research has informed our policy and program design to end child labor. We have funded more than 270 projects to combat child labor in over 90 countries and worked with more than 60 organizations.

In addition to working directly with children and families to provide education or financial assistance, we work with countries at the national, district and community levels to strengthen systems and services required to address child labor. Our projects have trained labor inspectors and law enforcement officials on child labor law enforcement. They have also developed community-based, child labor monitoring systems in the supply chains of key sectors.

Objectives

• Expand global knowledge on child labor, including how to better tackle the problem.
• Strengthen laws, law enforcement, coordination among government bodies, policies, and programs related to child labor, including social protection and education.
• Improve awareness of the importance of education for all children.
• Increase mobilization of a wide array of stakeholders who improve and expand economic and education opportunities for children and families.
• Increase numbers of children in school who no longer work in exploitative child labor.

Freedom of association is the right of workers and employers to organize to defend their interests, including for the purpose of negotiating salaries, benefits, and other conditions of work. It is a fundamental right that underpins democratic representation and governance.

Collective bargaining is an essential element of freedom of association. It helps to ensure that workers and employers have an equal voice in negotiations and provides workers the opportunity to seek to improve their living and working conditions.  Effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining can contribute to economic development and growth by increasing certainty and stability in the workplace and improving labor-management relations.

The ILO's recommendations and conventions help define these rights and provide guidance on how they can be most effectively protected. The ILO's fundamental convention on freedom of association (No. 87, adopted in 1948) says that workers and employers alike have the right to:

• establish and join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization;

and that these organizations have the right to:

• draw up their own rules, elect their own representatives, and organize their programs and activities freely;
• not be dissolved or suspended by administrative authority; and
• establish and join federations and confederations, which may in turn affiliate with international organizations of workers and employers.

The ILO's fundamental convention on the right to organize and collective bargaining (No. 98, adopted in 1949) says that:

• workers shall be protected against acts of anti-union discrimination;
• workers' and employers' organizations shall be protected against acts of interference by each other; and
• governments shall encourage and promote voluntary collective bargaining to regulate terms and conditions of employment.

Our Strategy

We promote freedom of association and collective bargaining through:

• participation in international organizations like the ILO;
• enforcement of labor rights provisions in U.S. free trade agreements and trade preference programs, which includes publishing public reports on the enforcement of those rights; and
• technical assistance projects aimed at improving government enforcement of labor laws or improving worker organizations' engagement with governments, employers, and society to protect worker rights. 

Additionally, ILAB is responsible for regularly reporting on the progress of the United States government in respecting and promoting freedom of association and collective bargaining domestically. ILAB compiles this information for reports, pursuant to the ILO 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, on the extent to which the U.S. government gives effect to the principles of collective bargaining and freedom of association.

Objectives

Through our work, we hope to improve government enforcement of laws and policies that protect freedom of association and collective bargaining, and expand worker influence on government, employers, and society to protect worker rights. Specific objectives include:

• governments revising or adopting laws, regulations, policies, and/or other instruments that strengthen freedom of association and collective bargaining;
• labor inspectorates improving their performance in conducting labor inspections and enforcing national labor laws;
• worker organizations expanding their collective bargaining, advocacy, and awareness-raising skills; and
• improving others' understanding of worker rights, labor commitments in trade instruments, and the benefits from enforcing those commitments.