International Labor Standards

11 Key excerpts on "International Labor Standards"

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  Globalization And International Trade Policies

  • Robert M Stern(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  Labor standards were again at issue in the fast-track authority that the Clinton Administration requested from Congress in November 1997 and then withdrew because of insufficient support from House Democrats. The concern of labor and social activists is that the increased imports from countries in which labor standards are ostensibly not enforced at a sufficiently high level will be detrimental to wages and working condi-tions in the industrialized importing countries. As will be noted in our discussion that follows, there is a wide disparity of views on issues of International Labor Standards. The purpose of this chapter is to explore these different views and the available options for addressing the issues involved. The chapter is structured as follows. Section II deals with the definition and scope of labor standards. Theoretical aspects of the eco-nomic effects of labor standards are considered in Section III, while Section IV summarizes the available empirical evidence. Global, regional, national/unilateral, and other arrangements for the monitor-ing and enforcement of labor standards are discussed in Section V. Conclusions and implications for policy are presented in Section VI. II. Definition and Scope of Labor Standards Labor standards are multi-faceted and may vary from country to coun-try depending on the stage of development, per capita income, and political, social, and cultural conditions and institutions. It may be dif-ficult therefore to distinguish unambiguously those labor standards that everyone would consider to be universal rights from other labor stan-dards that will depend on given national circumstances. Nonetheless, efforts have been made to identify and achieve consensus on a group of so-called core labor standards that ideally should apply universally. For example, according to OECD (1996, p. 26), core labor standards include: (1) prohibition of forced labor; (2) freedom of association; 746 R. M. Stern

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  The Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy. (Two volume set)

  • Kenneth A. Reinert, Ramkishen Rajan, Amy Joycelyn Glass, Lewis S. Davis, Kenneth A. Reinert, Ramkishen Rajan, Amy Joycelyn Glass, Lewis S. Davis, Kenneth Reinert, Ramkishen Rajan, Amy Glass, Lewis Davis(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  Currently, labor standards in international trade agreements are limited. Article XX(e) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Charter permits members to refuse imports of goods produced with prison labor. Broader labor standards have been incorporated into regional trading agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Further coordination of labor standards within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and subsequently the WTO, was proposed by the European Parliament in 1983 and 1994, by the U.S. government in 1986, and at every WTO Ministerial between 1996 and 2001. The Singapore Ministerial Declaration (December 1996), however, while acknowledging the importance of International Labor Standards, identified the International Labor Organization (ILO) as the competent body to establish and monitor labor standards.

  Labor standards commonly fall into two broad groups. Process , or core , labor standards regulate the basic function of labor markets and are considered by many to be basic human rights. Core labor standards, as identified by the ILO, are (1) rights to free association and collective bargaining, (2) prohibition against forced labor, (3) abolition of exploitative child labor, and (4) elimination of discrimination in employment. Outcome standards place limitations on aspects of the labor contract such as hours worked and wages.

  Labor Standards and International Trade Negotiations The link between domestic labor regulations and the international terms of trade has implications for international trade negotiations. A labor-scarce country that makes tariff concessions granting market access to a labor-abundant trade partner in a round of international trade negotiations can in effect offset those concessions by easing costly domestic labor standards that adversely affect import-competing producers. The ex post reduction in domestic labor protections is referred to as a race to the bottom .

  In the absence of a mechanism to restrict ex post

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  The Organisation of Employment

  An International Perspective

  • Jill Rubery, Damian Grimshaw(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Why international labour standards? The case for establishing labour standards can be made on two apparently quite sep-arate grounds. The first argument is based on issues of social justice and indeed human rights. The second argument develops an economic case for labour standards and labour institutions, on the grounds that efficient and productive labour market systems require protection against destructive competition. Further investigation reveals that these issues are interrelated, as we outline below. However, both argu-ments can be deployed to make a case for the development and enforcement of international labour standards in a context of a globalizing and integrating world economy. Where labour standards are a matter of human rights, it is argued, the case for their establishment is not dependent on the level of economic development. For example, there is fairly broad agreement that the right to be protected against forced labour should not be dependent on notions of economic affordability. The social justice argument is usually accepted as being more dependent on context or level of development; what constitutes a fair level of labour standards in one society may be regarded as unfair in another. This notion of fairness works in both directions. It may be unfair to set too low standards in a relatively rich society, such that not all citizens share in a society’s prosperity. Some may argue that it is also unfair to set too high standards in a relatively poor society, if this jeopardizes the ability of the society to engage in international trade and to use this and other means to increase its wealth and expand employment opportunities. Too high levels of protection may also encourage the growth of a completely informal and unregulated sector, outside the protected sector.

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  International Political Economy and Globalization

  • S Javed Maswood(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • WSPC

    (Publisher)

  It is interesting to note that in free trade agreements the language used does not refer to core “ILO standards” but simply “internationally recognized labor standards”, perhaps for the reasons noted above. At the same time, to make labor standards “saleable”, both in a domestic and international context, proponents of labor standards have, according to Andrew Stoler, recast the issue as a question of human rights. 2 In general, labor standards in many developing countries are either non-existent or inadequately enforced. These countries also have abun-dant supplies of low-cost labour and a competitive advantage in labor-intensive industries, such as textiles and garments manufacturing. Consequently, they are concerned that the issue of labor standards is a western “Trojan horse” to undermine the export capacity of developing countries. This is not without some justification since labor groups, such as textiles workers in the United States, have, in the past, successfully obtained protection from cheap imports. One source of the variance in labor standards is the restriction on labor mobility across borders. In a global era, where the flow of capital, merchandise and technology is relatively unrestricted, there remain exten-sive restrictions on international labor movements. Developing countries have argued for a relaxation of restrictions on short-term movement of labor that, if accepted by developed countries, would boost their available pool of savings and investment capital as a result of remittances of work-ers in foreign countries. Globally, in 1998 remittances resulted in an income flow of US$52.8 billion to developing countries, well above the US$50 billion in foreign aid given to developing countries that year, of TRADE AND International Labor Standards 189 which only about $2.3 billion was grant aid. Remittances are important because they do not have to be repaid or serviced, and there are no stings or conditions attached to these flow of funds.

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  Gender, Development and Globalization

  Economics as if All People Mattered

  • Lourdes Beneria, Günseli Berik, Maria Floro(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Since its creation in 1919, the ILO has provided international regulation of labor standards. Over the years, it has done so through the adoption of conventions and recommendations on labor standards, which has led to the introduction of national statutes, laws, measures, and guidelines regarding working conditions and labor rights, from health and safety standards to rights such as maternity leave and those applicable to domestic work. In this way, International Labor Standards have grown into a comprehensive system of measures addressed to regulating work and social policy at the national level. To be sure, the ILO conventions have to be ratified by country members and even ratification does not guarantee implementation. During the post-World War II period, ILO conventions on labor standards such as those that guarantee freedom of association (No. 87, 1948) and the right to organize and collective bargaining (No. 98, 1949), were adopted by many governments of the global South. However, as we discussed, with the international race to the bottom to achieve the lowest possible unit labor costs, labor market regulation has weakened and working conditions in many sectors have deteriorated. Moreover, informal activities that are beyond reach of regulation have grown. These key challenges have led to new initiatives and channels to explore ways in which labor might regain its bargaining power to uphold its rights. The strategies and mechanisms that we discuss below include attempts to link labor standards to rights to trade; ILO’s Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; the Decent Work Agenda of the ILO; social responsibility schemes, such as corporate codes of conduct; and initiatives to organize the informal labor force as well as traditional unionization drives.

  International Labor Standards: The Social Clause

  After its inception in 1995, particularly in the late 1990s, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meetings have served as an arena for debate on enforceable global labor standards. This, in part, was due to the instrumental role of trade liberalization policies in the race-to-the-bottom competition and in the spread of unacceptable forms of work and labor contracts. The alarming rate at which workers’ rights were being eroded and labor conditions deteriorated worldwide has resulted in pressures from labor unions, women’s organizations, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on international bodies to find ways to protect labor rights and improve working conditions.

  One proposal, pushed forward by a broad coalition of labor groups, feminists, academics, and governments, mainly from the global North, was a trade rule that would link a country’s right to trade internationally to its upholding of a common set of labor standards. These groups argued that certain minimum International Labor Standards should be observed in the production of all goods and services including those that are outsourced, subcontracted, or imported. The minimum standards were usually interpreted as the “core labor standards,” articulated in ILO’s Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (ILO 1998). If exporting countries failed to comply with these standards, then they could be subject to trade sanctions. This form of linkage of trade and working conditions, commonly referred to as the “social clause,” would thus ensure that goods and services that enter international trade are produced under conditions that comply with ILO conventions. The WTO and the ILO were to jointly administer the workings of this rule.

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  Beyond Sweatshops

  Foreign Direct Investment and Globalization in Developing Countries

  • Theodore H. Moran(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Brookings Institution Press

    (Publisher)

  Next, the focus of the chap-ter shifts to the one core standard that has been the subject of greatest 46 4 CORE STANDARDS FOR TREATMENT OF WORKERS 47 controversy for foreign investment in low-wage, low-skill operations— that is, the standard that addresses freedom of association, the right to engage in collective bargaining, and the formation of trade unions. The concluding section of the chapter considers a formula in which each country simply enforces its own labor laws—an approach that is embodied in the U.S.-Jordan free trade agreement—as a possible short-cut for determining when ILO members are in violation of core labor standards. As this chapter and the two that follow will demonstrate, any effort on the part of the international community to define and monitor com-pliance, investigate complaints, and impose penalties on violators would be a complex and difficult undertaking. Chapter 5 explores an authori-tative approach implemented through the World Trade Organization and backed by trade sanctions or fines; chapter 6 examines a volun-tary option relying on corporate codes of conduct, certification organi-zations, and compliance labeling. Defining Core Labor Standards: The ILO s Fundamental Principles The 1998 Declaration of the International Labor Organization on Fun-damental Principles and Rights at Work is the most widely accepted starting point for the discussion of core labor standards. The declaration is based on the Constitution of the International Labor Organization, as reaffirmed at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen (1995) and at the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organiza-tion in Singapore (1996).

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  Hard Choices, Soft Law

  Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance

  • John J. Kirton, Michael J. Trebilcock(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Since its inception in 1919, the ILO has served as the international organisation responsible for setting workers' rights and protections through two sets of activities: setting standards, which involves crafting international labour conventions and recommendations designed to provide a framework for national labour legislation, regulations, and policies, and providing technical assistance or conducting activities devised to assist governments in implementing ILO standards at the national and subnational levels. The history of the ILO's standard setting and technical assistance is framed by efforts to institutionalise a standard employment relationship along with the Keynesian welfare state. From the time of the Labour Charter attached to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 until the era of the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration and throughout the cold war, the ILO established a comprehensive set of international labour standards designed to strengthen the occupational welfare state through, for example, the creation of unemployment insurance and workers' compensation and to establish worker protections providing for weekly rest, minimum wages, protection from discrimination in employment, and so on. Consistent with these aims, the ILO has also pursued measures intended to extend social and labour protections to groups of workers, such as women and migrant workers, that do not conform to the male industrial norm. Through its technical assistance activities, the ILO has also devoted attention to conditions in the informal economies of industrialising and industrialised countries with the overriding aim of formalising and, more specifically, normalising the standard employment relationship.

  Given the tenor of these decades of standard setting and technical assistance, officials inside the International Labour Office, member states, and representatives of organised labour began to express concerns about the spread of nonstandard forms of employment and the concomitant rise of precarious employment in the early 1980s. These concerns and the regulatory gap at the national level led the ILO to introduce three new international labour standards directed at workers with family responsibilities, part-time workers, and homeworkers respectively. Viewed collectively, these standards broke new ground because each aimed at generating parity between workers in standard employment relationships and workers in nonstandard employment relationships, while recognising, and in many instances endorsing, the growing plurality in employment relationships.

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  Staff Studies for the World Economic Outlook, 1997

  • International Monetary Fund(Author)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

    (Publisher)

  On the other hand, the legitimacy of the global trading system is damaged by perceptions of unfair labor practices in developing countries. Also, there are a few core labor rights that are arguably universal. Efforts by both developing countries and private firms to adhere to some of these core standards are unlikely to impinge severely on trade patterns. In addition, developing countries must weigh the increased support for open markets in the North against the costs of enforcing labor standards. The South has a high stake in maintaining access to markets in the North and hence in forestalling protectionist pressures.

  Trade sanctions to enforce these labor rights are likely to be problematical, owing to lack of agreement on exactly what constitutes a violation of such labor rights and the high risk of protectionist abuse of sanctions. Although progress has been made in identifying core labor standards at the ILO and elsewhere, there are continuing disagreements about the proper means of ensuring compliance with these core standards and where to draw the line between core standards and other standards related to working conditions. Under these circumstances, reliance on voluntary adherence to labor standards, through continued efforts by the ILO, adherence to codes of conduct for multinational corporations, and increased consumer awareness of the conditions under which goods are produced are preferable to coercion. The fact that human rights activists have been increasingly successful in drawing attention to alleged abuse of labor rights, and that companies are often very concerned about their reputation, suggest that voluntary compliance is feasible.

  More fundamentally, Europe and North America must seek more effectively to implement policies that improve labor market performance for the poor and the unskilled. International trade and technological change increase national income and potential welfare, but the gains can be highly skewed. Western societies need to find ways both to improve labor market flexibility and to ensure that the gains from structural change are broadly shared. Otherwise, the calls for protection are likely to increase.

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  Labour, Globalization and the State

  Workers, Women and Migrants Confront Neoliberalism

  • Debdas Banerjee, Michael Goldfield(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Much of the popular and political debate rather drifted towards protectionism. Labour standards instead need to be viewed and analysed primarily from the feeling of great human pain in working class life – the pain that is generating violence, loneliness, family breakdown, mental illness, racism and the spoiling human relationships. Decent work with decent remuneration is a goal in its own right. It can also have a positive effect on productivity through better motivation and increased efforts, and economic growth. Thus, the issue of labour standards needs to be seen as an instrument of building human capabilities – the realization of the ways in which people are actually able to function, in a variety of areas. 10 In other words, improved labour standards constitute what is known as ‘sustainable development’. The term sustainable has greater implications than is usually conceived of in terms of developing human capabilities along with economic development. So long as the South fails to improve capabilities through improved labour standards, the ‘gulf’ with the North would continue to widen through the mechanism of unequal terms of trade, decelerating in turn the growth and development in the South. Beyond current trade: labour standards as modernization Quite often the problem of industries in the developing countries is that they cannot meet industrial standards of quality and reliability. They are therefore forced to compensate for their defects by reducing prices. Since the markets in the industrialized world set the standards, the best way of meeting them is perhaps to adopt the production practices of the industrialized world. The labour standards of the industrialized world are consistent with those production practices because they were developed simultaneously (Piore 2000)

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  International Labor Standards

  History, Theory, and Policy Options

  • Kaushik Basu, Henrik Horn, Lisa Roman, Judith Shapiro, Kaushik Basu, Henrik Horn, Lisa Roman, Judith Shapiro(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  There are, of course, further distinctions one can make in tackling this question. To what extent are we concerned about the poor in developed countries, versus in developing countries? Fur-thermore, what is the time horizon that we have in terms of the desired improvements? In earlier sections we have provided some answers to the question of the impacts of labor standards, in the context of static resource efficiency and the distribution of income. In this section, we expand on this discussion in the context of some of the institutional mechanisms discussed in the previous section. Next, we discuss some issues concerning the dynamics of investment in human capital, and problems created by subsistence or general resource constraints. We go naturally from these issues to exam-ining longer-run welfare issues in the context of models of endogenous innovation and growth. Finally, we return to some of the issues raised initially in the second section, which were touched upon at several sub-sequent points in the chapter, and discuss the role of labor standards in protecting the fundamental rights of the poor. Here we suggest what we ought to care about, and put International Labor Standards in a broader devel-opment perspective. THE IMPACT OF International Labor Standards 157 Unintended consequences? One major concern that crops up repeatedly in discussions of International Labor Standards is whether they will have the impact that is intended. For example, in 1994, the manager of the ILO’s Program on the Elimination of Child Labor stated, “Abolishing child labor in one sector alone, such as the export sector, cannot eliminate child labor in a country – it may simply push it into other activities, including some more hazardous to children.” (ILO, 1994, quoted in Freeman, 1994a). Such consequences may not be those that are intended by a policy of imposing International Labor Standards. On the other hand, there are cases where one may not care.

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  Managing Global Legal Systems

  International Employment Regulation and Competitive Advantage

  • Gary W. Florkowski(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The first WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore is a prime example, eliciting the same categorical refusal to redress labor concerns in the trade arena that had aborted previous GATT initiatives. A U.S. and Norwegian proposal to incorporate International Labor Standards in multilateral trade agreements (i.e., a “social clause”) acted as a lightning rod, drawing strong opposition from developing countries and key AIEs like the United Kingdom and Australia (Turnell 2002: 5). After much wrangling, a superficial compromise was incorporated in the ministerial declaration that framed what had been accomplished at the meeting. Pertinent text identified the ILO as the competent body to set and deal with labor standards, affirmed the intention of WTO members to observe International Labor Standards, rejected the use of labor standards for protectionist purposes, and expressed a commitment to have the WTO secretariat continue collaborating with its ILO counterpart (WTO website).

  The declaration did little, if anything, to spur real progress on the underlying issues despite its positive tone. The fact the ILO has demonstrated a longstanding aversion to acting decisively on the issues of ILS enforcement and trade questions the logic of deferring these matters to that organization. Upon closer examination, one discovers that:

  • A provision in the original ILO constitution empowering the Commission of Inquiry to recommend appropriate economic sanctions against governments defaulting on their convention-related obligations was deleted in 1946 without ever being used (Charnovitz 1987: 576).

  • The ILC similarly rejected a “social labeling” proposal in 1997 that would have committed the ILO to regular monitoring and inspections of member states with an eye toward certifying those that respected core labor standards (Turnell 2002).

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