The creation of issue-oriented private societies, against slavery or poverty, from the mid-

eighteenth century onwards began with small groups of citizens becoming aware of ethical and
social problems. They assumed that part of the solution was to form societies and associations.
Before the industrial era forms of collective action by lower classes were riots, insurrections and
uproars, often as a result of deprivation, such as hunger and unfair treatment, and sometimes
inspired by religious or political ideas. Actions were mostly spontaneous and impulsive and often
violent, but also included petitions addressed to authorities. Leadership remained restricted and,
given the personal repercussions, dangerous. Collective action during the industrial era included
both actions by workers and ideas about labour’s desired position in society, with organizations
as instruments to create change. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the democratic
movements in favour of workers’ rights and women’s rights did not grow into transnational
advocacy networks. National developments included publications (e.g. favouring women’s
rights), Saint-Simonist experiments, reform movements (such as Chartism), early forms of trade
unionism and revolts (e.g. in 1848), but there were no societies cooperating across borders with
shared values, a common discourse and an exchange of information.

While NGOs had used the term ‘international’ since the 1830s (Davies 2013: 30), the
First International succeeded in bringing the word ‘International’ into the dictionary, in the sense
both of joining together internationally and of a political threat (due to its support of the Paris
Commune uprising of 1871). It distinguished itself from transnational advocacy networks, such
as the anti-slavery and peace movements, which urged people at grassroots level to establish
transnational relations to exchange ideas and to learn from each other’s experience. All such
bottom-up elements were lacking in the International, which was dominated by a few leaders.
Unlike the International, both the peace movement and the women’s movement developed into
transnational and international actors (Reinalda 2009: 148–153).

The International League for Peace and Freedom (ILPF) of 1867, which also attracted
many workers, relied primarily on an enlightened middle class and favoured Liberal reforms of
the economy and the separation of church and state. The Second International of 1889 did not
develop into a transnational advocacy network either and remained a fairly slight Socialist actor.
It showed itself by organizing international congresses every few years, had no secretariat or
executive body and the resolutions adopted at congresses were not binding. The Second
International’s main characteristic was that it internationalized the internal controversies of its
member parties, rather than affecting its member parties through common policies or bringing
about joint action against governments or at inter-governmental level. This made the Second
International a reflection of the development of its individual member parties, as was painfully
demonstrated in August 1914.

The resulting International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL) of 1900 had
national sections and an office in Basel. The IALL decided to limit its immediate objectives
regarding international conventions to two widely recognized issues (night work for women and
the use of industrial poisons), enabling the Office to investigate them and make
recommendations to governments. Governments appreciated the IALL’s expert work and sent
more official observers to its conferences. The adoption of the first two international labour
conventions at a diplomatic conference in 1906 (and the preparation of more conventions)
resulted from both Swiss diplomatic expediency and changes in domestic politics in several
countries as a result of election outcomes. Other government-oriented international NGOs in the
field of labour concerned social insurance (1889), occupational diseases (1906) and
unemployment (1910). The new relations forged in 1919 did not leave any room for the IALL.
Governmental representatives and trade unionists engaged in the Versailles negotiations simply
took over the workings and expertise of the IALL, without thanking this predecessor very
explicitly.

The ILO was enabled to take over the libraries of both the IALL and the international
association on unemployment, so from the start the ILO had a significant database at its disposal.
The significance of the IALL as an ‘epistemic community’ was continued by another, differently
composed group of experts, now located within and around the ILO. International w The first
ILO conference in Washington DC in 1919 was attended by delegations from thirtynine
countries. All European states were represented, with the exception of the Central Powers,
Communist Russia and the hitherto unrecognized Baltic states. Most Latin American states were
represented. Asia had delegates from China, India, Japan and Siam; the Middle East from Persia.
In addition to India two British dominions, Canada and South Africa, were represented. Given
the entry of several states during the 1920s, the ILO gained a fairly universal membership NGOs
had been successful in lobbying the Versailles negotiations, because, as a result of their pressure,
all positions under or in connection with the League of Nations would be open equally to men
and women.

Labour, regarded as one of the oldest classic social movements, was fairly political, in the
sense of raising issues concerning state power with the intention of changing the balance
between powerholders and powerless through mass mobilization, organization and public
pressure. The movement was radical, extensive and persisting and, in certain parts of the world,
succeeded in being incorporated into national systems. Its main interpretation referred to
processes of ‘proletarization’ (with capitalism encouraging polarization between bourgeoisie and
proletariat) and ‘emancipation’ (as a struggle of being set free from social, political and legal
restrictions). Late-twentieth-century social scientists changed the interpretation when they noted
that the increase in participants in social movements did not come from the workers, but from
social and professional groups that had more discretionary time available.