LABOUR: ILO SOCIAL CLAUSE DEBATE SET FOR NEXT MARCH

7:50 AM Nov 26, 1996

LABOUR: ILO SOCIAL CLAUSE DEBATE SET FOR NEXT MARCH
Geneva 25 (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The international trade and social clause issue will come up for general review and renewed debate next March when the ILO's Working Party on the 'Social Dimensions of Liberalisation of International Trade' is set to take up this question in terms of ILO's means of action to assist member-States to address this issue.

This decision of the Working Party was endorsed by the Governing Body, which met last week.

The Working Party, which met along with the Governing Body, and had a long agenda, discussed the OECD report on trade, employment and labour standards, and also the International Labour Office's report on replies to its questionnaire (sent to the tripartite constituents of member states) on the impact of globalization and trade liberalisation on the attainment of social objectives.

The issue of 'core labour standards' had also been discussed at the ILO's Committee on 'Legal Issues and International Labour Standards' (LILS), and a working party of the LILS is continuing to examine the revision of international labour standards.

With the workers' groups keyed to the Singapore Ministerial Conference of the WTO -- where the workers hope the US drive to address the issue through the Ministerial Declaration will bear fruit, and provide a foot in the door -- both LILS and the Working Party on Social Dimensions of International Trade basically marked time.

But the issue will be taken for serious discussion in March by when the governments will have to make up their minds on how they will address the issue and how the ILO can be active and promote observance of the socalled "core labour standards" in member-countries.

The ILO structure and framework is such that norms and standards set by the ILO in conventions is a "voluntary" process in that members have to ratify and accept a convention, when it becomes binding on them, and the ILO's supervisory mechanism, consisting juridical experts, hear reports and assess the implementation by countries of standards to which they are a party.

But the ILO has long taken the position that whether or not a country has accepted the conventions, it is bound to observe the "core labour standards" and its social policies can be examined by the ILO's Committee, which reports to the Conference and the Governing Body.

But this committee, the 'Committee on Freedom of Association' (CFA) is only concerned with freedom of association and freedom of collective bargaining. The other 'standards' often cited by the labour movement are covered: the abolition of forced or bonded labour, child labour and discrimination.

The LILS discussions have all been about how to bring the other standards or norms under the 'core' standards that the Freedom of Association Committee examines. At this meeting of the LILS, the debate was mainly between the workers who wanted special conventions to be drawn up and binding on all, and the employers who suggested the approach of changing the ILO constitution and the Philadelphia Declaration. The governments were largely silent, but with some of the developing country governments stressing that the way forward would be through technical assistance rather than threat of sanctions.

In the subsequent discussions at the Working Party on Social Dimensions of the Liberalisation of International Trade, whose various agenda items were combined, the discussions were more wide-ranging, though difficult even for members to follow since comments overlapped on one or the other.

At its conclusion, the Chair, Ms. Hartwell of UK, presented a summing up, and provided an oral report (a copy of which has since become available) to the Governing Body which took note of it.

In the Working Party discussions, while the dialogue again was mainly between workers and employers, a few governments expressed their views, and some of these touched on the issue of labour standards and trade sanctions. But extensive comments on the last were however objected to by the workers group who underlined that the working party discussions were not on the basis of trade sanctions, which idea the workers had put aside. This view was upheld by the Chair.

While the OECD report, and its analysis by the International Institute on Labour Studies, suggested that observance of core labour standards enhanced trade performance, in comments at the working party, Egypt (one of the few governments that made detailed observations) noted that such a clear association had not been brought out in the analysis. Egypt also noted that according to the OECD report empirical evidence on the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FD) and core labour standards was scarce, and remained open to different interpretations.

Egypt however opposed the proposal for using the WTO mechanisms to foster core labour standards, stressing that this was "beyond the competence and mandate of the WTO" and remained within the ambit of the ILO. The idea of institutional changes in the trading system to deal with labour standards had been raised by some of the GATT contracting parties in relation to the Uruguay Round, but most others had opposed it -- since such a course would embed the seeds of 'neo-protectionism' and used to obstruct exports of developing countries to the developed countries.

Egypt was also strongly opposed to the idea that international financial assistance should be conditional on observance of core labour standards, and said far from enhancing conditions of labour it would increase poverty and deterioration of development in developing countries.

In her summing up, Ms.Hartwell said that while passages of the OECD report was seen as particularly helpful in supporting ILO role, mandate and means of action, views within the working party differed whether the relevant work lay purely within the ILO or also came within the ambit of other international organizations.

Views also differed "particularly sharply" on whether the WTO had a role to play or not in this area. But everyone agreed that it would continue to be important and increasingly urgent for the ILO to address these issues, taking account of the rapid pace of change in an increasingly interdependent world and the scale of global challenges faced in creating jobs and tackling poverty.

On the International Labour Office paper based on answers to its questionnaire, the working party discussions registered a number of concerns -- both on the questionnaire, its drafting and distribution, and the incomplete nature of the responses -- making the analysis of limited use.

Hartwell said that there was strong support in the Working Party for continuing with a substantive body of further ILO work.

The ILO office should continue work on developing country-studies to take a broad analytical work at impact of globalization. The working party noted a statement of the Swiss government that Switzerland could be the subject of such a study.

The Office should complete its analysis of replies to its questionnaire and, if possible, produce a summary of its main findings.

The Office should also produce a short outline of a possible research study, building on a report of the International Institute of Labour Studies about the positive economic effects of implementing core labour standards in industrialized countries. But the aim of the research should be to extend that analysis to cover developing countries.

Following up on the discussions at the LILS, the Office should also draw up a paper exploring a variety of options for strengthening the supervisory action on core standards -- including the workers suggestion for extending the mandate of the CFA and the employers suggestion for a declaration incorporating the core Conventions that might be the basis of a new supervisory mechanism.

Such a paper would be submitted to the LILS as the competent body to pursue technical discussions, but could also be made available to the Working Party, together with the outcome of the LILS discussions.

The main debate at the March meeting of the Working Party would be a general review of the ILO's means of action in assisting member-States to address the social dimensions of liberalization of international trade.

The report on work in other international organizations would include reporting on the coverage of this issue at the WTO Ministerial Conference, Ms. Hartwell added.