Asia Europe People’s Forum – 7
Cluster 2: Social and Economic Rights and Environmental Justice
Workshop 7: Decent work and Labour rights and protection
By Alain Baron – French trade unionist at Sud-Ptt / Solidaires
Decent work, and Labour rights and protections are presented as a key issue by the UNO, ILO, governments, employers associations, trade unions, NGO, etc. But everybody must recognize that wages and working conditions are worsening in most countries.
In my opinion, the main reason for this situation is the deterioration of the balance of forces between the Labour movement and the Capital.
This paper will try to analyse some aspects of this phenomenon, and then propose to find out some tracks to change this situation.
1) The weakening of the labour movement in the last 30 years made easier an increase in exploitation of the workforce, in order to make more profit.
In developed countries, employers succeeded in regaining a lot of social concessions they granted after World War II.
A growing number of multinationals moved to the developing countries to lower labour costs and used the threat of this mobility as a lever to drive down wages and working conditions in their mother country.
Global corporations often argue that they are raising human and labour standards abroad. The reality is that the ability of companies to shift jobs from one country to another undermines labour rights and the ability of workers around the world to improve their economic lives.
In a lot of countries, western corporations have aggressively demanded a reduced role for trade unions, weaker protections for contingent workers, more stringent non-compete agreements, and other restrictions on workers rights. These demands all too closely echo those they have made to policymakers throughout the world.
The past two decades have seen a radical restructuring of corporations worldwide. The big corporations which dominate the global economy have moved away from horizontal and horizontal integration, common in the 20th century, in which they sought to keep all aspects of production and distribution in house and toward a new “core/ring” structure in which they retain a small core of essential functions within the company, while contracting out the rest of suppliers around the world. The result is what might be called the “dis-integrated” corporation [1].
“As economist Bennet Harrison wrote, global corporations”...create all manner of networks, alliances, short and long-term financial and technology deals with at all levels, and with legions of generally (although not invariably) smaller firms who act as their suppliers and subcontractors.“But the locus ultimate power and control”remains concentrated within the largest institutions.“The result is what Harrison describes as an”emerging paradigm of networked production“based on concentration of control combined with decentralization of production.”
These complex corporate structures re-organized to minimize the financial risks associated with owning factories and avoid the blame for low wages, bad working conditions, or unsafe products.
Global corporations create complex and secretive supply chains, making it difficult to trace how, where, and under what conditions products are made.
The result of such a policy is a worldwide growth of “indecent work” with:
– low wages,
– long duration of work time,
– casual jobs,
– child labour,
– discriminations against women and undocumented workers.
2) However, more or less rapidly, such a short time policy can only lead to a dead end, because of the gap between the global purchasing power and the total production. That had been the main cause of the economic crisis in 1929.
A long-term economic growth needs a parallel increase of demand and supply. And the only way is to increase wages and salaries, as it was in developed countries after the second world-war. More money in the pockets of billions of workers in the world, could translate into more total jobs in the global economy.
Nowadays, because of the globalisation of economy, such a policy needs to be put in force at a worldwide scale to become effective.
3) Poor wages and labour conditions in one’s own country are sometimes presented as a “competitive advantage” on the global market. But, in my opinion, it’s a short-sighted policy for two reasons
– that makes one’s country dependant of the others,
– that paves the way to the revival of protectionist measures.
4) To put in force decent work and labour rights and protection at a worldwide scale is a difficult challenge. At a national level the background of such policies in developed countries had been huge social struggles like in the UK in the 19th century, or in France and the US in the 1930’s. . Pressure from workers and concerns about social unrest led to new employment laws and policies designed to stabilize labour markets and blunt some of the sharp edges of the industrial system. These included: steadier jobs, better working conditions, higher pay, access to more benefits, and long term employment. In other words: decent work.
It is not easy to transpose this framework to a worldwide scale today, because of the asymmetrical situation of Capital and Labour:
– on the one hand Capital has powerful tools as multinationals headquarters, OECD, IMF, World Bank, etc.
– on the other hand, the working class is mostly organised at the national level.
On the one hand, the WTO can dictate its rules to the national states; on the other hand, the ILO can only express recommendations in some limited areas.
5) For a long time, the trade union movement had been unable to face the challenge of globalization. Most the western labour movement supported protectionism against the growth of globalization. Such a policy was a dead end. Its only result was to enhance competition within the world working class.
In the last ten years, a growing sector of the labour movement and its allies tried to develop an alternative to this simplistic “free trade versus protectionism” debate.
The western labour movement has begun to support the common interests of workers and oppressed groups worldwide. Such a focus makes it possible for the developed countries’ labour unions to act in the interest of its members and of workers everywhere by challenging the behaviour of corporations whose headquarters are near at hand.
6) Several tracks can be proposed to promote decent work and labour rights and protection:
– Government in countries around the world should oblige their national based corporation not to lobby against social laws in the countries where they have subsidiaries. Governments, political organizations, trade unions and civil society groups could charge corporations with violations of OECD guidelines for “improper involvement in local political activities”. The time of colonialism is over!
– Governments should take steps to insure that multinational headquartered in their jurisdictions comply fully with the laws in the foreign countries—not only in their subsidiaries, but also by subcontractors and suppliers. The same could be done with the “Codes of conducts” issued by global corporations.
The freedom of association and the right to independent unions are needed to investigate these issues..
– Governments and the UNO should make binding the ILO standards, and improve them in order to reduce the worldwide social gap.
– Corporate transparency could benefit workers both in developing and developed countries. Corporations should be required to reveal the identity of contractors in their supplier chains and other details of their business practices abroad. The secrecy with which corporations act is at odds with the transparency needed for the rule of law and social accountability. If labour laws, product safety standards, and environmental regulations are to be enforced, public access to a wide range of information is required.
Multinationals should be obliged to make public:
– the templates of the contracts that they are offering to their employees,
– copies of company policies and procedures handbooks,
– any instructions that they have issued to their suppliers and the measures that they are taking to insure compliance by their suppliers.
Put in force these proposals need the construction of a counter power of the workforce and its allies. Having trade unions independent from both employers and states is a key way to do it.