Quick Win No. 3
Empower all workers to ensure a fair, equitable and sustainable trade policy
Workers are the backbone of international trade. They provide global services, the labor for tradable goods, and the means to ship exports and imports. Despite their unique importance to trade, not all workers are treated equally, and many groups are excluded from the design, implementation, and enforcement of trade policies. Countries should offer a seat at the trade policy table not only to advantaged trade union representatives but also to vulnerable workers who lack union representation.
Countries and multilateral institutions must step up their efforts to protect workers rendered vulnerable in global supply chains. Studies suggest that trade liberalization has increased informality along the global supply chains in many countries, leaving billions of workers to operate outside the formal employment sector. Notably, these workers are rarely, if ever, unionized. Laws that permit employers to fire workers for various reasons based on management’s prerogative, worsen workers’ working conditions by rendering it easier for employers to fire union organizers. The inadequate or lack of enforcement of national laws prohibiting discrimination against union organizers further compounds this issue.
The WTO has yet to reconcile its sustainability agenda with the gap in protections for non-union workers. Negotiations aiming to mainstream labor rights in trade agreements have been on the WTO agenda since the organization’s inception. In 1996, however, WTO members decided to restrain the organization’s mandate in the area of labor rights and defer the issue of labor standards to the International Labour Organization (ILO), leaving multilateral trade and labor governance bifurcated. That decision permits WTO members to determine whether and how to regulate labor rights in trade in light of their trade priorities, domestic laws, and regional trade agreements, leaving non-union workers in the trade sector without uniform protections.
Members such as the United States, the European Union, Chile, the United Kingdom, and Canada embrace trade policies that purport to level the playing field in trade by including binding and enforceable commitments to labor rights in their trade agreements to protect all trade sector workers. Some members have established Domestic Advisory Groups (DAGs), Labor Advisory Committees (LAC), or bilateral trade councils, which offer key domestic organizations, including unions, a platform to engage on trade policy. Those policies presuppose that all workers whose labor is critical to trade are represented by unions. The inclusion of unionized workers marks progress in trade policy. Nevertheless, the aperture for workers’ voices only extends to an elite category of global workers, represented by unions, who benefit from solidarity and its attendant rights and privileges.
To address the gaps in an inclusive trade agenda, WTO members should take three immediate steps. First, a formal working group on trade and labor comprised ofILO and WTO officials should be constituted to assist members in aligning their trade and international labor rights commitments, with publicized meetings and deliberations. Second, new trade agreements should establish joint committees of workers,regardless of their union status, and employers in trade sectors. Third, the trade advisory committees of members should offer union and non-union workers the opportunity to deliberate over proposed trade agendas and meaningfully contribute to the negotiation, implementation, and enforcement of trade agreements. The inclusion of all workers’ voices, including those who lack union representation, will help to ensure a fair, equitable, and sustainable trade policy that protects all workers who contribute to trade.
