7:39 PM Jun 11, 1996

LABOUR: CHIRAC PUSHES WTO SOCIAL CLAUSE AGENDA

Geneva 11 June (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- French President Jacques Chirac called Tuesday for placing the issue of social dimensions of liberalization of international trade on the agenda of the First Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Singapore.

A way must be found, Chirac told the 83rd session of the International Labour Conference, to link the liberalization of international trade and fundamental labour standards -- freedom of association and collective bargaining, abolition of forced labour and prohibition of exploitation of child labour.

The French President situated his call in the context of globalization and its downside of unemployment and marginalization. But except for the idea of linking trade liberalization and labour rights linkage, Chirac's speech provided no answers or even directional suggestions on the corporate forces behind the globalization drive and marginalization effects on peoples.

While at Marrakesh, and since then, France and the United States have been supporting and pushing the ILO thrust for linking trade and workers' rights at the WTO, Chirac's speech (an English text of which was officially made available by the French Mission) puts the French Head of State formally behind the drive.

Developing countries are strongly opposed to any trade-labour rights discussions at the WTO. And there are suggestions that US and France may merely want a discussion at Singapore, and this could be accommodated.

Some developing countries also seem to think by agreeing to start a study process, without any commitment to negotiate, on investment (and thus gaining the EU support), they could head off the workers rights issue. However, there is talk that the EU (within the context of the Quad meetings) is agreeable to softening its stand on the social clause (opposed mainly by the UK within the EU) in return for the US softening its opposition to the WTO taking up the investment question before concluding the OECD negotiations.

In the result, developing countries might find themselves hit on both fronts. And an investment agreement and protecting and enforcing rights of TNCs as owners of capital through the trade organization would strengthen the hands of those seeking similar protection for rights of workers.

In presenting the demand for social clause agenda at the Singapore Ministerial, President Chirac placed it in the context of "globalization" which he said was driving the creation of wealth and prosperity in many countries, but had also its downside, both in the industrial and the developing world.

In highlighting the problem of child labour, Chirac cited ILO studies in four countries (Ghana, Seneghal, India and Indonesia) about the extent of child labour -- 25% of children under 15 at work, and in many cases for 9 hours or more a day and six or seven days a week.

"France believes," Chirac said, "we must seek a way to link respect for the social dimension as expressed in the fundamental standards I have just referred to, on the one hand, and the liberalization of international trade, on the other. I would like this question to be placed on the agenda of the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Singapore."

Earlier, Chirac called 'globalization' a major feature of our age, global in its ever-widening geographic space and global in that it touches upon every aspect of economic and social life.

As a factor of growth and progress, it is driving the creation of wealth and prosperity in many countries. Its benefits are well-knowing, ranging from an unprecedented expansion of trade and capital flows to the opening up of international trade of major population centres.

But globalization has its downside also. In the industrial nations it is imposing rapid, and consequently painful restructuring, with adverse effects on the employment situation. In the poorest countries it is liable to greater inequality and it is accentuating the risk of certain parts of the world becoming marginalised.

Chirac added: "We must therefore learn to control this process of globalization better. We must place it in the service of people, their jobs and their quality of life.

"We must ensure that its benefits reach the greatest number of people, by striving in our countries to diminish the risk of excluding individuals or sections within our own societies. In the wider world we must fight tendencies liable to lead to the marginalisation of certain nations or regions."

The French President noted that all major industrial democracies faced the problem of unemployment, insecurity and exclusion. Despite globally rising living standards, Chirac noted, everyone was witnessing the emergence of the "anxious class" as US labour secretary Robert Reich has called.

For governments, business leaders and union leaders to work together to frame and implement answers to challenges of globalization, conditions must be created for sustainable, jobs-creating growth, he said and spoke of taking full advantage of all possibilities of new technologies, developing the service sector and defining new forms of work organization.

The concept of 'job for life' must be replaced by that of 'employability' -- and governments, employers and unions must figure out ways to allow workers to move from one job to another through their working lives, and receive appropriate training while retaining their welfare protection. It was also necessary to prevent and combat exclusion of low-skilled workers - by lowering indirect labour costs and have active policies to help the most vulnerable to return to work, by adjusting the tax and welfare systems to make work pay.

Chirac stressed the need to adhere to the "cultural models" -- the European social model based on the idea of welfare to protect people against vicissitudes of life, on the tradition of social dialogue and collective bargaining and the role of the State as guardian and guarantee of national cohesion.

Chirac said the opening up of Asia's economies and Latin American decisions to liberalize their economies were having powerful and irreversible effects on society ... transforming life-styles and accelerating demographic change... Already rising living standards are bringing increased social demands and rising strains.

Little by little, Latin American and East Asian societies will close the gap with Europe and North America. This would need a profoundly new kind of dialogue and ILO was the idea host for this -- with the emerging countries coming to the ILO to work out the types of social legislation best-suited to them and gradually institute guarantees and welfare systems for their workers.

But globalization would accentuate the exclusion of the poorest countries and having access neither to capital nor markets, they would face the threat of marginalization.

There must be a new partnership founded upon solidarity with the poorest nations and this was why he wanted to make development aid as one of the main themes of the G-7 Summit in Lyon. ODA, he said, should be kept at a sufficiently high level and its effectiveness increased by reforming international institutions with developmental responsibilities, but with developing countries putting in place appropriate policies.

But to make globalization benefit all, the ILO had an essential role to play and must pursue its studies on social consequences of accelerating globalization and the social dimensions of international trade. Trade liberalization, development of employment and respect for a certain number of universal rules guaranteeing people's dignity are inseparable, and respect for fundamental ILO conventions should go hand in hand with international trade liberalization. This should be discussed at Singapore WTO ministerial, he added.