Core Labour Strategy - TUC strategy

Core Labour Standards - Progress with TUC Strategy

Background

The core labour standards (CLS) agenda is an essential part of the global unions strategy to change the direction and nature of globalisation so that it benefits workers and the public in general rather than simply meeting the interests of business and in particular large multi-national corporations.

A key part of this strategy is to ensure that fundamental workers rights/core labour standards apply and are adhered to globally in order to begin to level the playing field and to give workers the space to organise themselves.

In 1998 the ILO issued its ‘Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-Up,’ which enshrined 8 ILO conventions as core labour standards which are viewed as basic human rights and universally applicable. The core standards cover the right to freedom from forced labour, freedom from child labour, the right to non-discrimination in the workplace and the right to form and join a union and to bargain collectively.

How do we achieve this

The declaration was endorsed by governments, employers and unions represented at the ILO and is officially binding on all ILO member states. However there is as always a major gap between ratification and meaningful implementation. The TUC, like national centres in other countries and international trade union organisations, is taking steps to secure greater practical support to close this gap.

There are two ways to ensure that these standards are implemented and enforced:

· Experience in Britain has shown that trade union rights are secured by workers own actions in the workplace and the national political arena. Therefore support for trade union organisation and action on the ground is vital. Here initiatives such as the planned TUC Global Solidarity Fund to assist capacity building will be key.

· Due to the interconnectedness of today’s global economy and the global reach of multi-national corporations, international law and multi-lateral agreements also have a key role to play.

International institutions

The position and role of the ILO in relation to other international institutions needs to be strengthened. Under the current system the ILO can highlight violations, but has little real power to change them. In contrast for example the World Trade Organisation with its binding disputes settlement procedure can ensure that its agreements are followed to the letter and will thus take precedence over standards such as CLS. If an individual government decides to waive CLS nationally or in specific economic processing zones (EPZ) to attract foreign investment they can do so with virtual impunity thus gaining an unfair competitive advantage against those countries trying to provide decent standards.

Global Unions (the ICFTU and global union federations) have called for;

· Agreement from WTO members that UN treaties (including ILO conventions) have primacy over trade rules;

· An updating of WTO agreements to include core labour standards, possibly through the insertion of a ‘social’ or ‘workers rights’ clause

· The WTO and the ILO to jointly establish a formal structure to address the issues surrounding trade and labour standards linkages

· Core labour standards to be included in all WTO trade policy reviews

· An immediate clarifying statement to the effect that the weakening of internationally recognised CLS in EPZ’s is an illegitimate trade-distorting export incentive.

At the multilateral level there are a number of other institutions such as the World Bank and IMF who could and should include core labour standards as an essential pre-requisite of their funding support.

At a bilateral level the UK now conducts all trade negotiations through the EU. The EU has in the past included labour standards in bilateral agreements such as the Cotonou agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the provisions of the General System of Preferences (GSP) which offered trade incentives such as reduced tariff entry to countries who ratified ILO conventions. Last year, for example, the EU threatened Belarus with the removal of GSP status because of a complaint from the ETUC, ICFTU and WCL about state repression of the trade union movement - a major development and one which the TUC welcomed. Cotonou is now being renegotiated as a series of regionally based Economic Partnership Agreements and the GSP is under review. This presents both an opportunity to ensure that labour rights criteria are strengthened, but also the threat that they may in practice be weakened. Therefore the TUC in conjunction with our Global Union partners and the ETUC have an important lobbying role in 2005.

Multinational companies also have clear responsibilities to ensure that at minimum they adhere to CLS. A range of instruments exist which seek to ensure that they do so such as the ILO Tripartite Declaration on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations, the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Companies and newer initiatives such as the UN Global Compact. Indeed a major problem (in addition to their mainly voluntary nature) is the sheer number of such instruments that exist enabling corporations to cherry pick which they will seek to comply with. However through campaigns such as Playfair at the Olympics and bodies such as the Ethical Trading Initiative we are able to bring considerable pressure to bear on such companies to match or exceed the provisions in the ILO conventions.

Future strategy

We will provide support to trade unions in developing countries to build their capacity to organise to secure decent labour standards through the ICFTU and through a planned TUC Global Solidarity Fund (building on TUC Aid - a paper will be coming to the Executive Committee in the near future on this). The Global Union Federations have an important role to play both in direct organising support and in highlighting together with the other sections of global unions violations when they occur.

Pressure on the multilateral institutions can best be applied through the ICFTU and Global Unions, but we have an important role to play in ensuring there is a coherent union strategy in this regard with specific and measurable aims. The ICFTU Trade and Labour Standards group provides the forum for this discussion and the TUC will continue to be active within it. There is also much we can do to influence the British Government representatives to prioritise the labour standards agenda, whilst in the WTO the UK is part of the EU negotiating team both the World Bank and IMF have British Executive Directors and Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn are central figures. We also have a role in building links with NGO’s campaigning on these and related issues at an international level to build the broadest possible alliance for change.

On both the EU position at the WTO and with EU bilateral agreements we have a key role to play working in particular with the ETUC to lobby the new trade commissioner Peter Mandelson and the Commission in general whilst working with sympathetic members of the European Parliament to guarantee some level of democratic oversight and input.

However, the British Government should not be allowed to hide behind the EU on this issue and we must use all appropriate leverage to get them to adopt a proactive stance on the international labour rights agenda. A wide range of departments are involved in trade negotiations and dealing with British business abroad including DTI, FCO, DfID, DWP and No.10. All of them could take a much more proactive stance on the CLS agenda. Whilst no section of the British government is openly opposed to CLS, very few are actively advocating the need to address issues of adherence at a national level and coherence at an international level to reduce the undermining of labour standards by other global structures such as trade rules. We need to intensify work with Ministers and officials to raise the profile of CLS and with the Members of Parliament to ensure that pressure for action rather than words is applied.

Where are we now

Department for International Development: over the course of 2004 a number of positive developments have taken place at a national level. DfID published a ‘Labour Standards and Poverty Reduction’ paper (as reported to the July Executive Committee) which endorsed the view that the implementation of CLS was essential for poverty reduction. Regular contact with DfID is continuing via the formal forums that have been established and work is ongoing on training and guidelines for DfID staff (particularly field staff) on the importance of working with unions and supporting the CLS and broader decent work agenda.

Department of Trade and Industry: the DTI continues to offer broad support to the principle of CLS, but to cite the objections of some developing countries, who label any labour standards advocacy as protectionist, as a reason for not pursuing the issue proactively within the WTO and beyond. Last year’s white paper on globalisation was disappointing in this regard, with only the briefest of mentions of CLS. We will continue to seek a change in this approach and to push for more active advocacy of CLS at both a European and global level.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: institutional links have now been established with the FCO - the FCO/TUC advisory council which meets three times a year - which are enabling us to raise issues directly with the department this is particularly relevant as part of our broader approach to specific countries where violations of CLS occur along side other issues causing concern e.g. China, Colombia, Burma and Palestine. Later in the year we plan to hold a seminar for civil servants in a number of departments together with colleagues from the ICFTU and TUAC to explain exactly what the global unions position on CLS is, why it should not be seen as protectionist and what more the British Government could do. The issue of CLS and government support for it should be added to the agenda of the FCO-TUC advisory council.

We will continue to develop links with all the major British development NGOs and other groups campaigning for changes to the international governance structures. We have already gained a far higher profile for CLS within coalitions such as the Trade Justice Movement and have secured the inclusion of references to need for CLS in the manifesto of Make Poverty History. We plan to hold a roundtable for representatives of NGOs later in the year to look at remaining areas of difference and as with the planned events for civil servants to tackle directly some of the myths that exist around calls for universally implemented CLS.

Our campaigning work such as Play Fair at the Olympics has sort to highlight specific corporate violations of core labour standards and this will be continued throughout 2005 along with work directly with major British companies through the Ethical Trading Initiative which seeks to ensure that all member companies work towards the ETI base code (which takes CLS as its starting point.) Into 2006, we will be developing the Play Fair campaigning idea to address the World Cup in Germany and the Winter Olympics in Italy.

Finally, in order to build the critical mass of awareness needed for the government to prioritise this issue we will continue to develop awareness amongst affiliates of what CLS are and why their effective implantation is necessary both as protection for workers abroad and to prevent ‘unfair’ competition with British workers. To this end we will publish a background pamphlet for union officers, set up an electronic newsletter to keep affiliates updated with latest news on trade and labour standards and provide speakers for unions executives/international committees when requested.