World Trade and Decent Work
Article published on 16 December 2005 in Le Monde (French newspaper)
Written by:
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the Party of European Socialists
Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Giampiero Alhadeff, Secretary General of Solidar
Willy Thys, General Secretary of the World Confederation of Labour
Whatever happens at the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong, one thing is clear. People’s confidence in globalisation has suffered. Popular support amongst citizens for free trade is at a low ebb and the tide could turn towards protectionism. While most people do not follow the details of WTO negotiations, what they fear is the impact of untamed liberalisation on their everyday lives. The danger is that this fear could lead to a popular backlash against the multilateral, regulated trade system which would be a backward step for us all.
The great promise of liberalised trade is to create prosperity and jobs. But that promise is far from being fulfilled, and seems to have disappeared altogether from the WTO agenda where negotiations have descended into power plays and blame games. Meanwhile millions of workers are living with the uncertainty that an unregulated global trading system brings.
Throughout the world, workers fear for their jobs. In the developed world, workers watch the number of manufacturing jobs shrink with inadequate re-training and re-employment programmes for those who lose out. In the textile and clothing sector one million jobs have vanished in the EU alone over the last decade, with that many again expected to be lost in the next 5 years.
Many workers in developing countries also watch their badly-paid jobs either disappearing or are being asked to accept even lower wages and worse working conditions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the conditions experienced by workers in Economic Processing Zones, 80% of whom are women often working long hours with no right to form a union or represent themselves. Set up as tax and labour standard free havens, they are the most extreme example of the pressure workers are being asked to bear for the price of having a job. Workers in China are getting few, if any, of the benefits of their country’s ‘economic miracle’.
This highlights one of globalisation’s key challenges. Creating more jobs is a part of the answer to lift people out of poverty and deliver a better standard of living for all - but it is not enough. Simply having a job does not guarantee a living income. Many of the world’s workers are ‘underemployed’, sometimes working a number of jobs on an irregular or casual basis, with no job security. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in Asia alone, one billion people work to earn less than $US2 per day. They are called the ‘working poor’ because despite having a job, they don’t have enough to live off.
As well as not earning enough to live off, workers often have to work in unsafe conditions, are discriminated against or in worst case scenarios, are forced into slavery or child labour. According to ILO figures, over 2 million workers die every year of work-related diseases and accidents. At least 12.3 million people are trapped in forced labour worldwide. There are 250 million child labourers, and this figure only includes children who are paid for their work. It is workers in developing countries that bear the brunt of these cruel work practices as their poverty gives them little or no choice.
It is no wonder that in the face of all this, ordinary people fear increasing trade liberalisation. The question that countries negotiating at the WTO must resolve is how to achieve popular support for a fair, multilateral trade system. This can only be achieved by making decent work a clearly stated objective of trade policy. Decent work is a concept that work has to include respect for workers’ rights and core labour standards as well as equality between women and men, social protection and social dialogue.
The WTO must encourage its members to ratify and implement core labour standards. As defined by the ILO these fundamental workers’ rights are the minimum that any worker should be entitled to. They include the abolition of forced or child labour, the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining and the right not to be discriminated against. It cannot be too much to ask of the global trading system to respect and encourage these basic human rights. Similarly, international environmental and health standards must be respected by trade agreements.
Decent work and social standards are not a northern protectionist instrument against the poor south: they are a legitimate claim for human dignity, social progress and justice. Trade combined with a real commitment to decent work world wide - with people gaining new skills, basic social protection and the chance to send their children to school – is the route to a sustainable future for all. Trade has the potential to create more and better jobs if underpinned by basic workers rights. It is up to our governments to fulfill that potential or face an even greater backlash against globalisation.
