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The history of the International Labour Organization has been in- vestigated in increasing depth over time. With recourse to selected historiography and press and periodical sources, this article reflects on a specific period, the 1950s, to highlight the ideals and methods of the ILO in carrying out its institutional task, operating during a functionalist phase in the construction of a European Community that has been studied in varying ways by different scholars from a social and labour perspective.
Drawing on its own aspirations and expertise, and dealing with its own internal institutional dynamics, the ILO accompanied the be- ginning of the process by highlighting potential problems while con- stantly favouring the logic of market enlargement and economic integration, in the awareness that the model of development being pursued could constitute an invention unprecedented in the history of the European continent and crucial to its future. The Organiza- tion’s cooperation with the nascent European community was for- malized by agreements with the Council of Europe in 1951 and the European Coal and Steel Community in 1953, by which the ILO guaranteed extensive advice and technical assistance over time that would focus particularly on working conditions, labour mobility, so- cial security, labour reintegration, vocational training and workplace health and safet
