EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 32 of 120

Correct — C, (c) The Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention (No. 87). Of the eight conventions that the ILO's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of 1998 designated as core, India has ratified six and has not ratified two, and the two are the pair on freedom of association and collective bargaining: Convention No. 87 of 1948, on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise, and Convention No. 98 of 1949, on the right to organise and collective bargaining. Only one of that pair is offered here, so (c) is the answer. India's long-standing explanation for withholding ratification concerns government servants rather than industrial workers: Convention No. 87 would require the state to allow public employees to form and join organisations of their own choosing and to function without interference, and successive governments have taken the position that this cannot be reconciled with the conduct rules that restrict association, agitation and collective bargaining by civil servants. The other six core conventions India has accepted, at widely separated dates — the Forced Labour Convention in 1954, the Equal Remuneration Convention in 1958, the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention in 1960, the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention in 2000, and the two child labour conventions, on minimum age and on the worst forms of child labour, together in 2017. Read the stem carefully: this is a negative item, and its negation is buried in a passive verb — 'has not been ratified' — rather than in the familiar 'is not correct'. The booklet prints the 'not' in bold italic, but the construction is still the easiest to skim past on the whole paper, because the eye expects the negation in the ask and here it sits inside the predicate.

• (a)The Forced Labour Convention (No. 29) — The Forced Labour Convention, No. 29 of 1930, was ratified by India in 1954 and is one of the six core conventions India has accepted. It obliges a ratifying state to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms, with narrow exceptions for compulsory military service, normal civic obligations, work exacted as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, emergencies and minor communal services. Its domestic counterparts are Article 23 of the Constitution, which prohibits traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour, and the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. Since India is a party, it cannot be the unratified convention the question is looking for.
• (b)The Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100) — The Equal Remuneration Convention, No. 100 of 1951, was ratified by India in 1958 and requires equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value. Its domestic expression runs from Article 39(d) of the Constitution, a directive principle that the State shall secure equal pay for equal work for both men and women, through the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 to the corresponding provisions of the Code on Wages, 2019, which prohibits discrimination in wages on the ground of gender. The strength of that domestic record is itself a clue that this is not the withheld convention: the ones India has not ratified are those that would require changing the rules governing public servants, not those that align with existing constitutional policy.
• (d)The Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (No. 111) — The Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, No. 111 of 1958, was ratified by India in 1960. It requires a national policy to promote equality of opportunity and treatment in employment and occupation and to eliminate discrimination on grounds including race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction and social origin. India's constitutional scheme — Articles 14, 15 and 16 on equality, non-discrimination and equality of opportunity in public employment — made ratification straightforward, which is why it came early. Like options (a) and (b), it is a ratified core convention and therefore not the answer to a stem asking which has not been ratified.

The International Labour Organization was created in 1919 by Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles and became the first specialised agency of the United Nations; India was a founder member. Its distinguishing feature is tripartism — each member state is represented at the International Labour Conference by two government delegates, one employers' delegate and one workers' delegate, each voting independently — and its output is a body of conventions, which bind the states that ratify them, and recommendations, which do not. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, adopted in 1998, identified four principles that all members must respect by virtue of membership whether or not they have ratified the relevant instruments: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour, the abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Eight conventions embody them — Nos. 87 and 98, Nos. 29 and 105, Nos. 138 and 182, and Nos. 100 and 111 — and in 2022 the Conference added a safe and healthy working environment as a fifth principle, bringing Conventions Nos. 155 and 187 on occupational safety and health into the fundamental category. India has ratified six of the original eight and neither of the two added in 2022.

For a post in the labour and social security administration, the ILO framework is the international layer above the domestic statutes examined elsewhere in this block, and the Commission tests it in a single reliable form: which conventions are core, and which of them India has or has not ratified. The list is short, stable and worth memorising outright, because no reasoning will substitute for it. What reasoning does supply is a check: the two conventions India withholds are the two that bear on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the reason given is the position of government servants, so an option naming forced labour, child labour, equal remuneration or non-discrimination is almost certainly a ratified one. Note also the form of the ask. Seventeen questions on this paper are negative, and on all of them the booklet prints the 'not' in bold italic, but this is the item where that help is least likely to be enough: the negation is inside the verb phrase 'has not been ratified' rather than in the familiar formula 'which is not correct', and a candidate reading quickly can process the stem as asking which convention India has ratified — a question with three correct answers.

• The eight core conventions identified by the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 1998 are Nos. 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining, Nos. 29 and 105 on forced labour, Nos. 138 and 182 on child labour, and Nos. 100 and 111 on equal remuneration and non-discrimination.
• India has ratified six of them — No. 29 in 1954, No. 100 in 1958, No. 111 in 1960, No. 105 in 2000, and Nos. 138 and 182 together in 2017 — and has not ratified Nos. 87 and 98.
• The reason consistently given for withholding ratification of Nos. 87 and 98 is that they would require allowing government servants to form organisations of their own choosing and to bargain collectively, which successive governments have said is inconsistent with the conduct rules applicable to civil servants.
• In 2022 the International Labour Conference added a safe and healthy working environment to the fundamental principles, making Convention No. 155 on occupational safety and health and Convention No. 187 on its promotional framework fundamental conventions as well; India has ratified neither.
• The ILO was established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles, became the first specialised agency of the United Nations, is uniquely tripartite in representation, and adopts conventions that bind ratifying states as well as recommendations that do not; India is a founder member.

• Reading 'has not been ratified' as a positive ask; the negation on this item hides inside the verb rather than in the usual 'which is not correct' formula, which is what makes it the most missed negative stem on the paper
• Assuming India has ratified all the core conventions because it is a founder member of the ILO and an active participant; membership obliges respect for the principles, but ratification of Nos. 87 and 98 has been withheld
• Confusing the numbering pairs: 87 and 98 go together on freedom of association, 29 and 105 on forced labour, 138 and 182 on child labour, 100 and 111 on discrimination, and mixing a number from one pair into another is the commonest slip
• Still counting eight fundamental conventions after 2022; occupational safety and health was added as a fifth principle, bringing Conventions Nos. 155 and 187 into the category

ILO questions on this paper are almost always about the core conventions and about India's ratification record, occasionally about the organisation's founding, its tripartite structure or its relation to the United Nations. Expect either this negative form, asking which convention has not been ratified, or its positive twin asking which one has; the two require exactly the same knowledge and differ only in the reading. Since the answer set never varies, learning the eight numbers in their four pairs, plus the two additions of 2022 and India's status on each, converts every future question in this family into a lookup.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which pair of ILO core conventions has India not ratified?

  • (a)Nos. 29 and 105 on forced labour
  • (b)Nos. 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining
  • (c)Nos. 138 and 182 on child labour
  • (d)Nos. 100 and 111 on equal remuneration and discrimination

  Answer(b) Nos. 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining — India has ratified the other six core conventions, the forced labour pair in 1954 and 2000, the discrimination pair in 1958 and 1960, and the child labour pair in 2017, but has withheld ratification of Nos. 87 and 98 on the ground that they would require changes in the rules governing association and collective bargaining by government servants.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In 2022 the International Labour Conference added a fifth category to the fundamental principles and rights at work. Which subject was added?

  • (a)Social security for unorganised workers
  • (b)A safe and healthy working environment
  • (c)Protection of migrant workers
  • (d)Maternity protection

  Answer(b) A safe and healthy working environment — the addition brought Convention No. 155 on occupational safety and health and Convention No. 187 on its promotional framework into the category of fundamental conventions, so that ten rather than eight instruments now carry that status. India has not ratified either of the two newly added conventions.