Pro globalisation

The growth in trade between nations has contributed to lifting 3 billion people out of poverty over the past 50 years. Reducing tariff barriers, which makes it easier for nations to trade with each other, lifts the wealth of all nations by allowing them to concentrate on those where they have greatest expertise.

Poor countries that have lowered their tariff barriers have gained increases in employment and national income because labour and capital shifts from import-competing industries to expanding, newly competitive export industries. In addition to providing jobs, companies moving to developing countries often export higher wages and working conditions compared with those in domestic companies operating in the country. While wages are often lower in developing countries than those in developed countries they reflect lower levels of education and productivity. The experience in countries like Korea is that as countries develop their wage levels rise and the focus shifts from labour intensive to more capital and knowledge intensive industries.

It is true that there has been some contraction in employment in labour intensive industries such as textiles and footwear in rich countries over the past 20 years as production has moved to countries in which labour is cheaper. However this is part of the process of development. It would be condemning less developed countries to even greater poverty to ban restrict their ability to compete in industries like textiles in rich markets.

The campaigns by the unions are allied to those of textile manufacturers in rich countries. They are less concerned with supporting worker rights in poor countries than they are with protecting declining industries in rich ones.

Links

A number of summaries of the history of labour standards and trade debates within the WTO are available from the WTO Website www.wto.org

In a paper from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Governing Multinationals: The Role of Foreign Direct Liability, Halina Ward addresses the need for tougher transnational regulation of multinational corporations.
http://www.riia.org/briefingpapers/BP%2018.pdf

Global Alliance, of which Nike and the World Bank are members, monitors labour rights, but is generally supportive of globalisation - http://www.theglobalalliance.com

The clearest response to the union arguments about trade and wage inequality is contained in the OECD document, Open Markets Matter. There is a summary http://www.oecd.org//ech/special.htm while the full report may also be downloaded from the OECD Policy Brief index page.
http://www.oecd.org//publications/pol_brief/index.htm

A paper demonstrating that globalisation neither lowers wages nor leads to the export of jobs has been compiled by the economist, Michael Slaughter, for the IMF.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues11/

In a speech to an Australian APEC Study Center conference, the Australian Labor Party trade spokesman presents a view that the Seattle WTO meeting came close to agreeing to establish a working forum to bring labor, trade and development issues together. The forum would involve the WTO, UNCTAD, the ILO and the World Bank.
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/TradeLabourC/cookted.htm

Anti-globalisation

Globalisation results in the exploitation of millions of workers in countries that do not give workers rights to organise. For example, a woman who sows a $200 Liz Claiborne jacket sown in El Salvador is paid just 74 cents – less than half of one per cent. In the US, the labour cost to sew a garment is typically 10 per cent of the retail price.

Workers in poor countries may have to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week with few protections for health and safety. In some countries, globalisation leads the exploitation of child, and prison labour.

Goods produced in such countries under these conditions undermine those produced in richer nations. The result has been a call for ‘fair trade’, as opposed to ‘free trade’.

Within richer countries, there is growing inequality as unfair competition from countries repressing workers’ rights to organise pushes down the earnings of the less skilled sections of the workforce.

The WTO is interested in defending intellectual property and investors’ rights, but not those of workers.

Links:

A web-site on globalisation by journalist John Pilger, based on his documentary 'Rulers Of The World', presents an argument for labour rights in developing countries. See
http://pilger.carlton.com/globalisation

The policy director of the US labour confederation, the AFL-CIO, contributed an article to the journal Foreign Policy, outlining the response of the union movement to globalisation.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/global/labor.htm

Clean Clothes is a campaign to improve workers conditions in the textile industries in developing countries. Its website has articles, publications and links to labour related web-sites.
http://www.cleanclothes.org/

The International Labor Organisation compiled a CD-Rom on globalisation in 1997. The material is a bit dated, but can now be accessed from its web site. http://www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/default.htm

The head of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Doug Cameron, makes available a recent speech in which he addresses the 'madness' of free trade..
http://www.amwu.asn.au/default.asp?action=PressR&Act=Full&ID=150

The argument in favour of introducing labor standards into world trade is presented by Graham Dunkley from the Victoria University of Technology.
http://www.apec.org.au/docs/citer23.htm