The first ILO Conventions

Since 1919 the International Labour Office (ILO) has tried to find solutions to enable women in the workforce to reconcile their professional and family responsibilities, or, in Professor van Esterik's terms, "to juggle mother work and other work". One of the first Conventions adopted by the International Labour Conference in 1919 was the Maternity Protection Convention, number 3. Women's crucial role in the workforce in the first world war no doubt spurred the ILO to give priority to protecting pregnant workers and those who had recently given birth. After the second world war, Convention number 3 was revised to take into account changes in national law and practice. The resulting Maternity Protection Convention, number 103, dating from 1952, was supplemented by Recommendation number 95. Once adopted and ratified by member states, ILO Conventions must be implemented into national legislation which is reviewed by the ILO monitoring process. This process, however, is non-enforceable and has no sanctions attached: the obligation upon a member to take legislative measures state is therefore a moral one. A Recommendation on the other hand, is purely optional and there is no obligation to translate it into national legislation.
 

Drafts and revisions of revisions

In 1997 the Governing Body of the ILO decided to place the revision of the 1952 Maternity Protection Convention and Recommendation upon the agenda of the 87th ILO Conference, in June 1999. 1919, 1952 and 1999: there is a gap of about thirty years between each revision of the Maternity Protection Convention, and involvement in the process is therefore a chance not to be missed. The involvement of breastfeeding advocates in the issue of working mothers is all the more important because of the growing body of scientific evidence on the health benefits of breastfeeding to babies and their mothers. Studies highlight the economic advantages of breastfeeding for families and also the savings for employers on reduced employee absenteeism and for governments on reduced health care costs. International public health recommendations that mothers breastfeed their babies exclusively until around six months and thereafter for up to two years and beyond will remain pure theory for most women unless their employment conditions provide for optimal breastfeeding and unless national law and practice provide for adequate leave and facilities.

IBFAN and WABA therefore decided to follow this process as closely as possible and to plan for participation in the 87th ILO Conference in June, 1999.
 

To ratify or not to ratify?

The ILO is concerned that, apart from a handful of Conventions, most labour standards are not well known and moreover, in the sixteen years since 1983, only three Conventions have received at least 20 ratifications - when the ILO counts 186 Member states. The Maternity Protection Conventions, although prior to 1983, have received only 33 and 36 ratifications, in stark contrast to the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified Convention in history, ratified by all but two countries of the world. The Secretariat's approach was therefore to propose a more easily ratifiable draft, by avoiding "inflexibility and prescription" and by formulating "general principles consistent with national laws and practice". In the context of increasing trade liberalization, governments such as the U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand and Canada as well as the majority of employers supported more balance and flexibility in the new Convention. It should be noted that the U.S. government has ratified only twelve out of a total of 180 ILO Conventions, and of these only ten are in force in the U.S. - less than in Somalia. Australia, New Zealand and the USA are also those countries which have no paid maternity leave, but instead a period of unpaid parental leave. On the other hand, 119 countries, that is 64% of ILO member countries, provide for a period of paid maternity leave of more than 12 weeks and 62 countries, including the European Union, provide at least 14 weeks. Paid leaves of 17 weeks or more are already provided by 18 countries.

Many of these countries therefore saw these "general principles" as regression since 1952 and stressed the normative role of the ILO. NGOs pointed to the role of the ILO as a moral beacon and insisted on the need to set high standards in view of the many countries with national laws which go far beyond the present ILO Maternity Protection Conventions.
 

What do working women really need?

The ILO asserts correctly that "All Women are Working Women" and that "Maternity protection is a pre-condition of genuine equality". The basic elements of maternity protection are identified as: the right to maternity leave, to protect the health of the mother and her child;

the right to cash benefits to replace earnings lost during the leave period and thus enable the woman to recuperate fully from childbirth before her return to work; the right to medical benefits, including prenatal, confinement and postnatal care. At the same time, women must be guaranteed protection against loss of employment and also retraining for reinsertion at an equivalent job level after maternity leave. However, the greatest problem to ratification by member states is the question of who bears these costs, when most countries of the world do not have adequate social security systems. The longer the period of paid maternity leave, the higher the financial costs involved and the greater the need for retraining. If the employers are legally bound to bear these costs, then they may be more reluctant to hire women workers. It can be said that breastfeeding was not exactly high on the agenda of the ILO Secretariat when they submitted the Proposed Conclusions for a revised Convention and Recommendation to government, employer and worker delegates at the 87th ILO Conference in June, 1999.
 

The Maternity Protection Committee of the 87th ILO Conference

To provide the technical background to these complex issues, the ILO Secretariat prepared a first comprehensive Report V(1) on Maternity Protection at Work for member states (governments, employers and workers). This included the health and economic advantages of breastfeeding, the BFHI and comprehensive statistics on women's participation in the labour force during their child-bearing years. A questionnaire was designed and sent to member states along with Report V(1), and replies formed the basis of the second report on Maternity Protection at Work V(2) which was submitted to the Maternity Protection Committee of the 87th ILO Conference. However, this questionnaire showed serious flaws in design, especially in those questions pertaining to breastfeeding breaks and facilities to breastfeed or to express breastmilk. Although over 80 countries have such provisions in their national laws, the ILO Secretariat analysed the replies received and proposed in Report V(2) that provision for breastfeeding breaks and facilities be removed from the new Convention under discussion to the optional recommendation. This have would meant that breastfeeding and provisions for lactating mothers were absent from the new revision of the Convention.
 

Friends and allies

It was therefore extremely important to prepare convincing arguments in favour of the rights of breastfeeding mothers. The ILO is unlike the World Health Organisation in that it has a tripartite structure composed of governments, employers and workers. NGOs are present as observers and are not involved in discussions, so IBFAN and WABA needed to seek out other allies. The trade unions represent the workers at the ILO; they proved to be willing and even eager to learn about the advantages of breastfeeding. The International Council of Nurses made a strong opening statement to the discussions of the Committee: the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative has certainly raised awareness of the importance of breastfeeding among the many unionised employees in the health care sector. WHO and UNICEF provided technical clarification on breastfeeding issues in their several statements to the Committee.

A second strategy was for IBFAN and WABA to contact national IBFAN groups and WABA members to contact government, employer and worker delegates before the 87th ILO Conference and to prepare materials explaining why breastfeeding is central to maternal health and wellbeing and to child health and development. We aimed to create links between Ministries of Health, which were not involved in the discussions about the proposed revised Convention and Ministries of Labour. Unfortunately, even Ministries of Labour now have narrow areas of responsibility and are often assimilated into other ministries dealing with competitiveness, enterprise development or gender equity.
 

Outcomes

The twin friends or foes of globalization and liberalization dominated discussions, with employers and certain governments pushing for the lowest common denominator and the strict minimum of enforceable obligations. The Maternity Protection Committee decided that the extension of the period of remunerated maternity leave in the 1952 Convention was impossible because of the costs involved. Thus the period of remunerated maternity leave remained at 12 weeks in the proposed draft Convention but was raised to 16 weeks in the proposed Recommendation. Likewise, remunerated breastfeeding breaks, as stipulated in the 1952 Convention, were identified as an obstacle to ratification and strongly contested.

Despite this, major improvements were made to the revisions of the Convention as proposed by the ILO Secretariat by delegates to the Maternity Protection Committee. Delegates from governments, workers and even the employers welcomed information about the advantages of breastfeeding and were keen to discuss and find out more. Paid breastfeeding breaks were reinstated in the proposed Convention by a very narrow majority, but the provision of "adequate hygienic conditions" for breastfeeding and breastmilk expression remained in the draft Recommendation. The new proposed Convention includes extending the scope to all women, a woman being defined as "a female person without discrimination whatsoever". It also proved possible to prevent certain provisions from being undermined, such as the period of compulsory leave after childbirth, the length of which is still to be defined, as well as additional leave for complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth.
 

The 88th ILO Conference in June, 2000

Breastfeeding advocacy activities during this year's ILO Conference may, at best, have prevented the provisions for lactating women from being removed to an optional Recommendation. But with a period of still only twelve paid weeks maternity leave, to be taken before and after delivery, breastfeeding for many mothers and babies remains a minimal possibility. Now that the "Proposed Conclusions with a view to a Convention and Recommendation" have been sent out to all member states of the ILO, along with the report of the deliberations of the Maternity Protection Committee and a second questionnaire, there is much time to change and weaken the measures proposed - or to strengthen them. Member States will comment on the Proposed Conclusions in the light of their national laws and practice. It is therefore important for IBFAN groups and WABA members to contact their government, employer and worker representatives at the ILO to discuss with them and educate them about the importance of breastfeeding. We have seen that this information is not only necessary; it is also welcomed. Through the process of reports, questionnaires, comments and discussions, the ILO is fostering a series of consultative mechanisms to involve all parties as well as, possibly, other Ministries and NGOs, in the discussions about maternity protection.

By June 2000 it will be too late. The opposition to paid maternity leave and breastfeeding breaks is very strong. Many employers and friendly governments stress the principle of free choice: women should be able to choose whether to breastfeed or bottle-feed. This ignores the fact that current provisions for maternity leave allow women no choice at all, other than to bottle-feed. Indeed, having children at all is a matter of private choice, and the costs must not be borne by the state. For many employers, breastfeeding breaks are seen as pure recreation, much like smoking breaks for male workers. Indeed, the President of the Swiss Employers' Confederation, shares this attitude. In opposing the use of excess insurance funds for military service to finance maternity protection, he states : "It is normal for women to pay for their own social protection. You cannot compare child-bearing and military service. It is not as if men were paid a wage to play football".