Peru presents candidacy for the leadership of the ILO against Spain and the current director

The Government of Peru surprised this Monday with the presentation of a third candidacy to lead the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the period 2027-2032, a few hours before the deadline expires, which will be measured with the one presented by Spain and with the willingness of the current director general, proposed by Togo, to be re-elected.

The former Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier González-Olaechea will compete in this election with the second vice president of the Spanish government, Yolanda Díaz, and with the current director general, the Togolese Gilbert Houngbo.

The ILO is important and unique in several aspects, starting with the fact that it was the only international organization that survived after the Second World War and that since its creation, in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles, it has been a central pillar in the search for social justice and the protection of workers.

Labor rights that are considered acquired today did not always exist. It was the ILO that laid the foundations for rights that are now considered fundamental, such as the minimum wage, a concept that it raised in 1928, through its Convention 26, which was later expanded to all groups of employees in Convention 131.

The agreements are the legal instruments through which this organization - incorporated in 1946 into the United Nations system - has extended its normative mantle throughout the world and through which it was able to transform, in the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st, union aspirations - which from certain sectors were seen as "excessive" - into rights recognized today in practically the entire planet.

The ILO was, thus, the architect of the modern notion of social security and thanks to it, formalized workers around the world enjoy paid vacations.

In this context, candidate Yolanda Díaz offers to breathe new life into the leadership of the ILO, focusing her work around the achievement of social justice, while Houngbo offers a sense of continuity, and González-Olaechea's new candidacy promises to open a round of dialogue with employers and workers to agree on the priorities of a new management.

The next steps will be taken on September 23, when the three candidates will present themselves at a public event at the Geneva headquarters, and on November 9 they will offer private appearances with members of the organization's board of directors.

It will be this body that will decide the election and not the ILO Conference, its supreme body that meets once a year in June for two weeks and is made up of delegations from the 187 member states.

The board of directors is a much smaller body, with 56 members (28 government representatives, 14 employers and 14 workers), and the winner will need to receive the support of more than half of the members with voting rights, that is, 29.

While Houngbo defends that we must "guarantee stability and predictability", and "foster the sustainable growth of companies", Díaz speaks of "guaranteeing the financial sustainability (of the ILO) without undermining its independence, even exploring new forms of public-private collaboration compatible with its autonomy."