Quality, Formality and the Evolution of International Labour Law: The New ILO Quality Apprenticeships Standard

Mccann, Deirdre; Stewart, Andrew

Abstract

In an era of sequential crises and spiralling youth unemployment, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has adopted an historic instrument: the Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation, 2023 (No 208). This article explores the Recommendation as both a landmark in the regulation of training and a site of regulatory innovation and contestation at the heart of contemporary labour law. It first traces the history of apprenticeship standards and the discursive processes that generated the new Recommendation. The article then adopts a dual analytical framework to explore key aspects of the Recommendation as driving and illuminating both the regulation of apprenticeships and the broader evolution of labour law. We highlight the Recommendation’s articulation and ascription of ‘quality,’ including as crucial to the debates on the personal scope of labour law; the evolving presence of precarious work in the international normative arena; Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) as a heightening aspiration of both apprenticeship regimes and international labour norms; the Recommendation’s exclusion of non-apprenticeship training, and traineeships as an urgent site of future international standard-setting; and the significance of the instrument’s notion of informality for the regulation of informal apprenticeships, not least in the Global South, and for the global debates on the concept, transition, and regulation of informal work.

Citation

Mccann, D., & Stewart, A. (online). Quality, Formality and the Evolution of International Labour Law: The New ILO Quality Apprenticeships Standard. Industrial Law Journal, https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwae012

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 4, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Apr 22, 2024
• Deposit Date: Apr 22, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 25, 2024
• Journal: Industrial Law Journal
• Print ISSN: 0305-9332
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-3669
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwae012
• Keywords: Apprenticeships, international labour law, ILO, Recommendation No. 208, quality, precarious, traineeships, interns, EDI, informality
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2393003