 In Depth
back to UNI In Depth home page
12/13/2005
Getting the Social Clause back on the Agenda
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Geneva Consensus Replaces Washington Consensus.
The Washington consensus, roughly that all the World's ills can be solved by opening up trade, should be replaced by the Geneva Consensus. That was the thrust of a speech by the Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO to a meeting of ICFTU, WCL and Solidar on the eve of the opening of the Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.
The Geneva consensus, sees free trade as a necessary condition for development and employment but is not by itself sufficient. In an important break from the Washington view Lamy says that public policies at the domestic and international levels are absolutely necessary to ensure development.
He acknowledged that there was a view that certain areas should be taken out of the competitive market. There are those who think that fair trade and growth would be best served by observing core labour standards so that child labour, forced labour, union rights etc do not become a factor in establishing any country's competitive advantage.
Others particularly in developing countries saw this as the first step to including working conditions, social security, pensions, wage levels in such exclusions which would be tantamount to protectionism. Lamy noted that the agreement at Doha had been to exclude these social issues from the discussion. As a neutral Director General he could not comment on this but if trade unions are not satisfied it is up to them to do something about it. They have to make sure that unions in developing countries have enough courage and leverage to persuade their governments to change their minds. Unions in the development countries have to influence their governments to take up the issue again.
While the DG may have to stay neutral on the issue, the pace at which the race to the bottom, characterised by the massive shift of industries such as textiles to China, does seem to be producing at least second thoughts in some governments who may have previously thought their countries immune to unfair competition by countries with lower social standards.
Though too late for the current round of talks it unions must redouble their efforts to get the social clause back onto the WTO agenda.
______________________
Union Network International
http://www.union-network.org - contact@union-network.org |