Labor Standards: National and International of public policy - Essay Example

The research document is going to discuss the labour standards with particular focus on national and international standards on public policy. Discussion We are living in an era of information age where countries and corporations are faced with immense pressure to adopt and adhere to international labour standards (Flanagan & Gould, 2012). Basically, the current international pressure to make improvements on the labour standards originates from the fundamental failure of the national governments to effectively enforce their own labour laws.

On the other hand, the failure of the national government to appropriately enforce their own legislation has resulted to the current problems that the current approaches are being used to solve (Hensman, 2004). The role of the national government with regard to national labour standards is very crucial. The national governments provide significant advantages in enhancing labor standards. The national governments have more resources and better access to attain all kinds of employees and workplaces in various industrial sectors, more than any private sector system, international agencies or NGO’s.

Therefore, the national governments take a more comprehensive approach. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has set minimum overtime pay, national minimum wage, equal pay, record keeping, and introduction of maximum 44-hour seven-day work, as well as prohibiting employment of minors ‘oppressive child labour.’ The regulation applies to all employees engaged in interstate trade or employed by an enterprise involved in commerce or in the production of goods for trade (Palley, 2004). However, when FLSA was first introduced it did not apply to local and state governments.

The Congress incorporated the local and state governments under the FLSA in1972. According to ILO (2009) view child labor as depriving children of their childhood, their dignity and potential, and that is deemed harmful to mental and physical development. ILO categorizes work done by children as follows: hazardous work, child in employment, and child labour (Freeman, 1994). Although the ILO condemns hazardous work and child labour with an aim of eliminating the vice in 2016, the Minimum Age Convention defines the minimum age that children are permitted to work.

The minimum age for child labor in countries like the US is 15 years. At the national level, the state and local governments are encouraged to take immediate to establish and eradicate the worst forms of child labour (Swinnerton et al., 1999). Workplace discrimination, covert and overt, is an example of violations of international labour standards. Workplace discrimination as defined by Verma (2003:521) as is treating individuals differently due to particular traits including color, race, gender, or social background, which as result lead to the impairment of quality and of opportunity and treatment.

An example of overt workplace discrimination is unequal pay and other benefits, particularly between men and women. Another area where