Respect fundamental workers' rights
Core labour standards form the basic building blocks
of democracy and are crucial to the empowerment
of people, particularly those who are impoverished
and marginalised.
Freedom
of association, the right to effective collective
bargaining, freedom from forced and child
labour, and freedom from discrimination are
basic human rights that help people to break
out of the poverty trap.
These
must be respected and not violated in the
name of international trade. Consequently,
there has to be co-ordination and co-operation
between the WTO and the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) to ensure that trade rules
and policies do not continue to undermine
labour standards.
A
number of developing countries have expressed
concern about labour standards being used
for protectionist purposes i.e. to protect
jobs in industrialised countries and to reduce
the competitiveness of developing countries.
This is not our intention, nor are we promoting
trade sanctions as the means to secure respect for
these standards. We are trying to pursue respect
for labour standards in a non-protectionist way
and have promoted a joint WTO-ILO Standing Working
Forum to try to achieve this. We wish to engage
with developing countries on this issue to address
their concerns.
