The World's Workers Need Solidarity, not Sanctions
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Development. Copyright © 2000 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (200006) 43:2; 31–35; 012982.
Commitments and Challenges for Social Development
The World’s Workers Need Solidarity, not Sanctions NICOLA BULLARD
ABSTRACT Nicola Bullard argues that organized labour’s call for the inclusion of core labour rights in World Trade Organization (WTO) rules will not benefit the vast majority of the world’s workers. First, they do not address the reality of labour markets in the South and second, they give legitimacy to a trade regime which, at every other turn, works against the interests of all workers. KEYWORDS corporatism; labour markets; labour unions; neoliberalism; WTO
WTO and labour standards The problem with the debate about linking labour standards to WTO trade rules is not whether the US will use them as a disguised form of protectionism (of course they will) or whether Third World governments are paying lip service to the rights of workers (of course they are) or even whether capital will exploit labour (that is the nature of capital). The real problem is that no one asks the obvious question: will linking labour rights to trade do anything to improve the conditions and wages of workers in the Third World, the vast majority of whom are in the agricultural and informal sectors? To answer this question, we need to know who are the workers and what would materially improve their wages and livelihoods. Only then can we think about the mechanisms, institutions and forums we need to ensure that the interests of all workers – whether they are organized or not – can be represented. Who are the workers? There are three billion people in the world aged between 15 and 65: this is the global workforce. Half of these people are employed in the agricultural sector, of which about 1.3 billion are engaged in direct agricultural production (ILO, forthcoming). The share of the agricultural labour force in the total economically
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Development 43(2): Commitments and Challenges for Social Development
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active population is less than 10 percent in developed countries, but accounts for 59 percent of workers in the less developed regions, with peaks of 79 percent in Kenya and 71 percent in China. By definition agricultural work is carried out in a rural environment where there is no clear-cut distinction between working and living conditions. Therefore, any improvement in working conditions must also take into account the wider social and environmental setting. Between 25 and 30 percent, or 750 and 900 million, of the world’s workers are underemployed, while a further 150 million are unemployed (the ICFTU has 125 million members, just to put things in perspective. Also see for further information). The informal sector workforce is the fastest growing group in most developing countries. Between 1990 and 1994, 80 percent of new jobs in Latin America were in the informal sector; in the cities
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