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The past half century has witnessed growing attention to the treatment of workers around the world. Increased attention to the role of labor standards in a more integrated global economy has led to a growing demand for information on compliance with core labor standards.

With a proliferation of sources of information of varying quality, there is a critical need for rigor in assessment of compliance and whether conditions are improving or deteriorating. This assessment requires careful analysis of what the core labor standards mean and imply, how to determine when a country is or is not compliant, what indicators of compliance and which sources of information to use, and limitations of the sources of information.

Recognizing these difficulties the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) of the U.S. Department of Labor requested guidance from the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies in its ongoing commitment to help improve working conditions and ensuring compliance with international labor standards. The National Academies convened the Committee on Monitoring International Labor Standards (CMILS) to respond to the request to ". . . conduct a set of connected tasks designed to provide the federal government with expert science-based information on issues pertaining to international labor standards, monitoring, and enforcement." Specifically, DOL charged the National Academies to:

• Identify relevant and useful sources of country-level data on labor standards and incorporate them into a database tailored to the current and anticipated needs of the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB);
• Assess the quality of existing and potential data that can be used to systematically monitor labor practices and effectiveness of enforcement, in order to determine compliance with national labor legislation and international standards;
• Identify innovative measures to determine compliance with international labor standards on a country-by-country basis that allows ILAB to measure progress on improved labor legislation and enforcement;
• Explore the relationship between labor standards compliance and national policies relating to human capital issues; and
• Recommend sustainable reporting procedures to monitor countries' progress toward implementation of international labor standards.

The DOL specified that the committee's work be based on the consensus core labor standards identified in the 1998 ILO "Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work" with the addition of 'acceptable conditions of work.' These are: Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining, Forced or Compulsory Labor, Child Labor, and Discrimination. Acceptable conditions of work addresses minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.

To carry out its task, CMILS commissioned papers, held workshops, convened domestic and international forums, and consulted with experts from international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations. Further information about the committee's activities may be found on the committee's website at www.nas.edu/internationallabor.

CMILS understood that the underlying rationale for its work is to inform U.S. policy as it relates to improving the lives of workers and their families around the world. The committee undertook the task of providing science-based information on the monitoring and enforcement of international labor standards while recognizing that compliance with core labor standards is one prong of what must be a multifaceted strategy toward achieving the fundamental goal of raising living standards across the globe.

The result of the committee's work is in two parts: this report and a database structure. Together, they offer a first step toward the goal of providing an empirical foundation to monitor compliance with core labor standards. The report provides a comprehensive review of extant data sources, with emphasis on their relevance to defined labor standards, their utility to decision makers in charge of assessing or monitoring compliance, and the cautions necessary to understand and use the quantitative information. Given the overwhelming range and quantity of data — both quantitative and qualitative — the committee was not expected to evaluate the accuracy of each data point for hundreds of countries; rather, it was expected to provide a macro level assessment of the overall merits — and caveats — of including diverse sources of information.

Aligned closely with the descriptions and caveats of data contained in the report, the database structure provides a tool for systematic and informed assessment of compliance. Its intent is to enable users to focus on the complexities of compliance from multiple perspectives — by country, by labor standard, and by data source. The committee intends the database methodology and contents to provide improved empirical information for assessing compliance. Users of the database are cautioned against drawing inferences that are not necessarily supported by the data, given the caveats and threats to validity described in the report.