| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 50

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Conor Foley, Global Trade, Labour and Human Rights ( London: Amnesty International United Kingdom, 2000)

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL is an independent, worldwide voluntary movement dedicated to the investigation and prevention of the gravest violations of human rights, e.g., unfair and discriminatory trials, imprisonment, execution, torture or other forms of cruelty, arbitrary killings, and "disappearances" — any serious violation of fundamental human rights by governments or others in positions of power.	1
It is therefore fitting that the organization should turn its attention to the workplace, which is where the arbitrary and discriminatory exercise of power can easily turn into abuse. It is not just that the employment relationship is so clearly one of subordination. Workplaces are the centres of production of wealth, and therefore crucial to the plans of governments and powerful individuals — and they will take quick and dirty action whenever human factors of production stand in the way of their plans.	2
The list of abuses revealed in Global Trade, Labour and Human rights shows us why any discussion of human rights is largely meaningless unless it pays attention to "worker rights," as defined by such international instruments as the Conventions and Standards of the ILO. In fact, citizens of most countries enjoy more rights on the street than they do in their places of work, even under the most democratic of regimes.	3
Columbia is the first country to be singled out, because of the growing campaign of terror the government is waging against its people, with the full backing of such democracies as the US (aka "war on drugs"). In fact, it leads the list of countries systematically killing, torturing, and harassing of trade unionists. In December 2001 (a year after this book was released), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) sent a letter to ILO Secretary-General Juan Somavia charging that in November 2001 alone, 10 trade unionists had been assassinated (some after cruel torture), 3 taken hostage, and another critically injured, bringing the total for such killings in Columbia to over 160 for the year. In one case, when members of the Andean Trade Union Commission of Municipal Workers refused an order to disaffiliate, paramilitary forces executed their president right in front of a regular union meeting.	4
Second on the list is Myanmar (Burma), which uses forced labour extensively in blatant contravention of ILO Conventions 29 (1930) and 105 (157). Amnesty International reports were confirmed by an ILO Commission of Inquiry, and could be taken before the International Court of Justice. Unfortunately, the ILO is often regarded as "toothless" in these matters because, unlike the WTO, it lacks a binding dispute settlement mechanism.	5
The 74-page booklet is subtitled "Global Trade," and it does a good job of showing that abuse of worker rights is part and parcel of development in an era of internationalization of production, privatization, deregulation, and other forms of liberalization. National leaders who make a point about the "rule of law" in other areas, have made it just as clear that they have no intention of enforcing international standards where workers are concerned. As one result, sweatshops that almost disappeared by the mid-1900's, numbered in the thousands at the close of the century.	6
Of all abuses revealed in this book, perhaps the most tragic is child labour, of which the most intolerable forms are child soldiering and prostitution. The author cites ILO estimates that over 250 million children, some as young as 5 years-old, work up to 16 hours a day, "in the face" of the 1959 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted by all countries in 1989), ILO Conventions on Minimum Age (138), and on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. (182)	7
The book provides a thumbnail guide to international law in this area, including elements of the Minimum Standards agreed to by the European Union. It also provides a useful checklist of principles for multinational enterprises, such as the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officers for company security forces that are called on to enforce abusive conditions.	8
One criticism might be that this book is far too kind to the governments involved. It not only seems rather naïve to suggest that they should take a stand against the excesses of globalized production but it perpetuates the notion that the "forces" of globalization somehow exist outside the countries in question. The reality is that the leaders — the "agents of globalization" — are not just the supranational corporate élites. They are just as likely to be government leaders themselves, who constantly make it clear where they stand in the growing conflict between rights of property and the rights of workers. They refuse to ratify ILO Conventions and other international instruments to regulate the workplace, and refuse to allow any mention of human rights or core labour standards in trade negotiations. Expressing an undying faith in "market forces," they argue that "unfair trading practices" do not apply to violations of worker rights. As a result, governments have been able to commit massive human and worker rights atrocities with little or no real consequences, while relatively minor trade disputes over property have generated high-level disputes, with sizeable economic effects and penalties.	9
As well, this book fails to do justice to the role that unions play in the fight for worker rights, decent workplaces, and democratic communities. Trade unions not only create and assert rights for their members; they do so for the working class in general by advancing an industrial relations model that challenges "free market" models. Unions seek more, not less, intervention by the state to reinforce and universalize gains achieved through collective bargaining. All of their experience tells them that progress for workers occurs through regulation, not liberation of markets. A large part of the solution to the alarming abuse of workers lies in "core labour standards" and other "enabling rights" that unions make possible. Laws governing pay, working time, health and safety, and even the protection of fundamental human rights all tend to take human labour out of the realm of competition — an effect which "globalization" is unfortunately reversing.	10
Unions have helped to draft codes and other instruments of corporate responsibility that have proliferated during the last two decades. Such international instruments as the ILO's Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises (1976), and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) newly-revised Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have brought internationally-recognized standards to multinational enterprises engaged in such globalized practices as "outsourcing." The ICFTU warns, however, that these cannot be substitutes for government action; nor should they be allowed to undermine such internationally-recognized standards as ILO Convention 87 on Freedom Association.	11
Unions have also secured core labour standards in a growing number of framework agreements between multinational companies and ITS's, the international trade union organisations that represent workers in specific sectors. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), for example, has signed a framework agreement with the German company Freudenberg, which together with its worldwide subsidiaries, employs about 30,000 people in 41 countries. All are now covered by a jointly-monitored agreement that guarantees union-company meetings, participatory approaches to health, safety, and the environment and specifically cites ILO Conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining, equal opportunities, and forced or child labour.	12
The overall value of this book is that it interrupts the "grand narrative"' of economic reform and liberalization by displaying the terror and abuse that lies just beneath the surface. Progress begins when such groups as Amnesty International direct attention to this side of the story, as they have done in a series of books, including Torture Worldwide: An Affront to Human Dignity (2000), Hidden Scandal, Secret Shame: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Children (2000), Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Women (2001), Human Rights: Is it Any of Your Business? (2001), and Business and Human Rights in a Time of Change (2000). For this reason, their publications should be promoted in universities and colleges around the world where corporate and government leaders of tomorrow are being trained. As well, they should be read by NGO's and activist groups, and concerned individuals everywhere.	13
Winston Gereluk Athabasca University

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