Symposium: How Should the Left Respond to Globalization?
Lee, Thea
THE LABOR movement has staked out a progressive, internationalist position on the reform of the global economy. We believe that the rules and institutions of the global economy need to be...
...But we understand that we have a long way to go to build the consensus needed even to discuss workers' rights there...
...As we work toward building that international consensus and reforming the WTO's rules and procedures to ensure more transparency and accountability, we will continue to insist that the United States incorporate enforceable workers' rights and environmental protections in all trade agreements it negotiates or legislates—unilateral, bilateral, and regional...
...Both countries also agree to effectively enforce their own labor laws, with the possibility of invoking dispute resolution in the case of failure to do so...
...The AFL-CIO looks forward to working closely with our brothers and sisters in the Jordanian trade unions to improve the enforcement of labor laws in both countries...
...Ultimately, we would like to see workers' rights universally protected under international trade rules at the WTO...
...we should aim even higher...
...It is a disgrace that the United States does not come close to meeting the UN standard of devoting seven-tenths of one percent of its gross domestic product to development aid...
...The same resources that the rich countries of the world spent to wage the cold war can and should be diverted now to strengthening and enforcing core workers' rights and meeting basic human needs...
...The bilateral trade agreement signed in October by the United States and Jordan represents a significant and constructive step for12 • DISSENT / Winter 2001 SYMPOSIUM ward in this regard, even though more remains to be done...
...It will also occur as we in the labor movement broaden our agenda to encompass issues of direct concern to developing countries, such as debt relief, in coalitions such as Jubilee 2000...
...This will come about initially through working with trade union partners and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with which they already work...
...The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) already has extensive relationships and communications with trade unions in other countries through its overseas offices in developing countries (called the Solidarity Center) and international labor groups such as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions based in Brussels...
...We should also help promote sustainable, equitable, and democratic engines of growth in both developed and developing countries...
...First, the American labor movement needs to deepen its solidarity and ties to workers, unions, religious, human rights, antipoverty, and pro-democracy organizations in developed and developing countries...
...We must shake up the balance of bargaining power in the global economy, by strengthening the voices of workers, community activists, and environmentalists...
...Third, we need to develop a broad array of tools and mechanisms to strengthen workers' rights worldwide—through trade agreements, popular campaigns, the international financial institutions, export credit agencies, and cooperative programs of technical assistance...
...DISSENT / Winter 2001 n 13...
...All of the international institutions, as well as national governments, need to take drastic steps to ensure that ordinary citizens can both understand the decisions that are made and have appropriate avenues to provide input...
...For the first time, the United States and a trading partner have agreed to enforceable protections for workers' rights in the core of a trade agreement, with the same dispute resolution available for labor and environmental provisions as for the other commercial aspects of the agreement...
...We believe that the rules and institutions of the global economy need to be dramatically transformed in order to change the dynamics of competition...
...The labor movement will also continue to pressure the IMF, the World Bank, and other international financial institutions to ensure that the conditions they impose on developing countries do not undermine the core workers' rights identified by the ILO and do not impose unnecessary and counterproductive austerity, deregulation, privatization, and trade and capital account liberalization...
...Second, the labor movement worldwide needs to pressure our governments in a coordinated fashion to increase aid to developing countries, both bilaterally and through United Nations agencies, such as the United Nations Development Program and the International Labor Organization (ILO...
...But we need to do more to broaden ties to non-labor groups and to deepen connections within our unions and rank-and-file membership...
...We must ensure that governments and corporations respect workers' and human rights and the environment, and that they face economic consequences—through loss of investment, market access, or loans—when they do not...
...Here are three practical ideas for moving this broad agenda forward...
...It reaffirms both countries' commitment to uphold the core workers' rights identified by the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work—freedom of association, right to organize and bargain collectively, and prohibitions on child labor, forced labor, and discrimination in employment...
...We need to continue our work at both the domestic and international level, with governments and with social partners, to raise issues, change rules, reform institutions, and create space for workers to build their own unions and exercise their own political voice...
...Some first steps at the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, would include timely release of documents (such as minutes of meetings or country submissions to dispute resolution proceedings), opening dispute-resolution deliberations to the public, and ensuring a balance of perspectives on dispute panels (currently limited to "trade experts," generally trade lawyers and ex-diplomats...
...THEA LEE is assistant director of public policy for the AFL-CIO...
Vol. 48 • January 2001 • No. 1
