Memorandum submitted by the Trades Union
Congress (TUC)
FAIR TRADE AND ETHICAL TRADE
INTRODUCTION
1. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) welcomes
the opportunity to submit evidence to the Committee. While the
TUC will make references to the fair trade movement in this submission,
it will concentrate on the relevance of the campaign for global
trade justice and for ethical trade and attempt to explore the
interlinkages between the three elements and the relationship
between the local, the national and global levels of trade in
consumer products—particularly food and garments.
2. The TUC was a founder member of the Ethical
Trading Initiative in 1998 and, with the International Trade Union
Confederation (formerly the ICFTU), and the two Global Union Federations
most relevant to the ETI's work—the International Textile,
Garment, Leatherworkers Federation (ITGLWF) and the International
Union of International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant,
Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)—has
been represented on its Board since then. We wish to register
our thanks to DfID for its continued financial support for the
Ethical Trading Initiative, which was essential for its development
and remains essential for its functioning.
3. The TUC supports the fair trade movement,
has regular contact with the Fairtrade Foundation, and believes
it is important to understand the relationships, similarities
and distinctions between:
— the campaign for a just, internationally
agreed, rules-based global trading system which will promote equitable,
sustainable, employment-creating development, decent work for
all, and fundamental human rights at work—the global trade
justice agenda;
— the fair trade movement with its
emphasis on stable, and possibly premium, prices paid to producers—the
fair trade agenda; and
— the ethical trading movement which
is an element of the corporate social responsibility movement
the purpose of which (when undertaken in good faith) is to promote
compliance in global supply chains with international labour standards
and, at its best, mature systems of industrial relations which
can ensure equitable distribution of the fruits of globalisation—the
ethical trade agenda.
The Ethical Trading Initiative, supply chain management
and social auditing
4. Consumers make choices about what they
buy. For many, especially the the low-paid, price is the key factor.
For other, the price/quality relationship is key. Some consumers
make choices on the basis of what they know, or believe they know
about the environmental, social or human rights content of the
product. The ethical trade movement originated in large part in
the recognition by retailers and brands that trade unions, non-governmental
organisations and consumers were demanding more information about
the rights and conditions of workers producing the products they
sold and greater certainty that those enterprises knew what was
happening in their global supply chains. The need to measure what
was happening against an agreed set of standards, rather than
privately invented ones, led the ETI to develop a code of labour
practice based unequivocally on the already internationally agreed—and
public, not private—standards of the ILO. Increasingly,
there is convergence in the content of codes among various multistakeholder
initiatives in the field. Codes which do not incorporate the fundamental
human rights at work proclaimed in the ILO's eight core Conventions
are no longer considered credible.
5. The ETI has become a leader in the ethical
trading field and has attracted the attention of the ILO, which
is eager to learn from ETI's experience. ETI has a unique governance
and membership structure involving numerous retailers and brands
(including supermarkets which retail most of the food sold in
Britain), the British and international trade union movement and
a groups of development non-governmental organisations. The member
companies, accounting for annual turnover of over £120 billion,
have the potential to exert major influence on global supply chain
practice. The ETI takes a rights-based approach and understands
that sustained and sustainable improvement in labour practice
requires a rights-based (and not paternalistic or charity-based)
approach which must be anchored in mature systems of industrial
relations. As such, it understands that workers in supply chains
are not individual recipients of unilateral largesse, but are
collective agents of sustainable progress.
6. One of the key contributions of the ETI
to the global debate on ethical trading—and, we would suggest,
to fair trade too—has been the collaborative development
of credible systems of workplace social auditing. Its expertise
in this area is another reason why its practice is of such interest
to the ILO, which agreed, in its Governing Body session in November
2006, a coherent programme of work (in which the ETI is specifically
mentioned) on corporate social responsibility, including, inter
alia (and in line with the ICFTU 2004 Miyazaki Congress Resolution
on CSR), work towards development agreed benchmarks against which
the comptence of private social auditors might be measured.
Labelling
7. Social auditing leads into the debate
on labelling of products and badging of companies. The trade union
movement has been reluctant to endorse labelling of products which
attests to respect for labour standards because social auditing
globally is not yet capable of making such assertions credibly—either
auditing methodology is not yet adequate or because auditors are
not suffciently competent. It is common, for example, for social
auditors to claim that workplaces in China are compliant with
code requirements on freedom of association—in a country
where free trade unions are forbidden to organise. Few social
auditors yet have the skill to detect indirect discrimination,
many do not understand what does and does not constitute child
labour. The ETI's recently published impact assessment noted that
significant progress had been made in audited workplaces in matters
such as safety and health and working hours, but on fundamental
rights progress was far less evident.
8. Some labels may be credible—the
Rugmark label on carpets made free from child labour is widely
respected and has led to signifcant increases in the export of
carpets from Pakistan; the American trade union movement has made
wide use of its "union-made in the USA" label, attesting
to products made under the auspices of a collective agreement.
It is possible to tell consumers, as does fair trade labelling,
that a particular price has been paid to the producer for the
raw materials. It is possible to make verifiable statements about
the chemical content of a foodstuff. In general however, in the
absence of a trade union and a collective agreement in the workplace,
labelling the "human rights content" of goods as having
been produced in conditions of respect for workers' rights is
unreliable. Only the presence of a free trade union and a collective
agreement can offer such guarantees—the annual external
social audit may fail to uncover violations and, even if the producer
was code compliant at the time on an inspection, it might not
be so by the time the product reaches the retailer's shelf and
is presented to the consumer as an "ethical" choice.
9. So while the trade union movement supports
the fair trade movement's labelling with regard to price, it believes
that labelling against labour standards on fair trade products
is as premature there as it is in ETI member companies. We do
recognise that there is a demand from companies for recognition
of what they are doing. Unfortunately, in the absence of collective
agreements and mature industrial relations systems throughout
their operations, the best that can be said is that companies
have made a public commitment to work towards achievement of the
code. The ETI's annual reporting mechanism—which we believe
provides a template for the introduction of a national social
reporting system required by law—demonstrates the varying
rates of progress. And without doubt, there are companies which
make public claims about their "ethical" credentials
which cannot be substantiated and are contradicted by their business
practice in the global market.
Voluntary initiatives and regulation—global
rules for a global economy
10. It is important to state at the outset
that the TUC does not believe that voluntary action by enterprises
or not-for-profit organisations is a substitute for the rule of
international law or for the rule of good national law which is
compliant with internationally agreed standards. It is the responsibility
of states to negotiate binding global rules for world trade and
to ensure that citizens are protected under the rule of law, that
national law complies with international treaty obligations, and
that national law protects effectively the rights of working people
to freedom of association, to bargain collectively and to work
free from forced labour, child labour and discrimination. And
it is the responsibility of well-functioning, well-resourced labour
inspectorates to ensure that the rule of law applies in workplaces.
Social auditing by companies and associated code-compliance mechanisms
may help promote employer compliance with the law, but they are
no substitute for the role of the state.
11. The 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work commits all 179 Member States of
the International Labour Organisation, as a consitutional obligation
arising from the simple fact of membership of the Organisation,
and regardless of ratification of the eight core Conventions concerned,
to respect, promote and realize, in good faith, those fundamental
human rights at work. The World Commission on the Social Dimensions
of Globalisation and its follow up by the tripartite constituents
of the ILO Governing Body have made clear that a key pre-condition
for the construction of a sustainable social dimension to globalisation
is the establishment of global policy coherence among and between
the institutions of the UN common family, the international financial
institutions and the WTO, so that all promote and do not undermine
the aim of decent work for all and the universal realisation of
fundamental human rights at work. That view has been endorsed
not only by regional meetings of labour ministers but also by
the UN General Assembly at the September 2005 and the UN Ecosoc
in July 2006. The challenge now is to ensure that policy coherence
becomes a reality.
Multinational Enterprises
12. While it is governments and states which
have the responsibility to ensure and enforce the rule of good
law, multinational enterprises are guided by a number of promotional
instruments, notably the OECD Guidelines—a regional instrument
which needs reinforcing; and the sole international instrument
in the field, the ILO Tripartite Declarartion on Multinational
Enetrprises and Social Policy, which dates from 1977 and needs
more active support. The ILO will be marking the 30th anniversary
of the Declaration during 2007 and the anniversary offers Her
Majesty's Government also an opportunity to support more actively
the effective implementation of the Declaration. Other initiatives,
such as the UN Secretary General's Global Compact, may provide
a forum for debate, but they remain a statement of principle without
obligations or mechanisms for implementation.
13. So while there are no comprehensive
set of binding and enforceable global regulation of the behaviour
of multinational enterprises, MNEs have had, nonetheless, an overwhelming
influence in the shaping of the current, grossly inequitable and
unsustainable "jobless growth" model of globalisation,
which has seen disparities in wealth and poverty in and between
nations not decrease but grow. While some developing country economies,
most obviously the world's biggest dictatorship, China, and its
largest democracy, India, have experienced substantial economic
growth, in neither case have the fruits been equitably distributed
and Africa, with the exception of a handful of countries, has
been largely excluded.
14. Britain's food retailing is the most
concentrated in Europe, with the top five supermarket chains—Asda,
Morrison, Safeway, Sainsbury and Tesco—controlling 70% of
all food purchased. It is estimated that £1 in every £8
spent in shops by British consumers passes through the cash registers
of Tesco. That is huge power in the global and national market.
The UK also enjoys a pre-eminent position in European food manufacturing,
with 13 of the top 20 continental food manufacturers being British-based.
15. The inequality between the power of
multinational enterprises and brands, in whose favour existing
global trading rules operate, and the de facto position of choiceless
supplicants or willing collaborators experienced by the elites
that govern numerous developing countries does indeed mean that,
particularly in the agricultural and textile, garment and leather
sectors, the good are being undercut by the bad and the bad by
the worst. There are, of course, companies which are demonstrating
considerable commitment to promoting respect for workers' rights
in their global supply chains, and which would be prepared to
do more if thye were not constantly confronted with the short-termism
which undermines a more progressive approach to their purchasing
practice. We have repeatedly called for a national debate to counter
the short-termism of city analysts who value shares on the basis
solely of quarterly returns. Such pressures hinder the development
of a common agenda for long-term investment in stable supply chains,
training in skills, investment in plant and technology, greater
productivity and competitiveness—and the development of
mature systems of industrial relations which underpin such approaches.
The current model of globalisation is not protecting
rights at work: rights and price, where ethical and fair trade
meet
16. For all the efforts of the fair trade
movement and the ethical trade movement, which have had marginal
effects in global terms, for many poor working people in many
developing economies their working lives are more precarious and
the real value of their wages are lower than before. Some of the
key reasons for the lack of progress towards fairer trade terms
in the global market and towards universal realisation of fundamental
rights at work in global supply chains can be located at that
point where the fair trade and ethical trade agendas most obviously
cross: the relationship between price and rights. The TUC does
not demur from its position—and the fundamental position
which lies at the heart of the ILO's 1998 Declaration—that
fundamental human rights at work cannot be dependent on levels
of economic development. Indeed, were they dependent, they could
not be described as universal, inalienable human rights. In an
interdependent global economy there can be no global excuses
for the persistence of slavery, of child labour, of discrimination
at work, nor for the denail of trade union freedoms. The global
economy and the international community do not lack the resources
to ensure these rights are upheld. What they lack—and to
an extent which makes them key drivers of globalisation and its
rules and complicit in gross violations of the fundamental rights
at work of the majority of the world's working people—is
a lack of political will.
17. The nexus of the two agendas—fair
trade and ethical trade—can be summed up in the following
anecdote: there is little purpose in the ethical trading manager
of a multinational retailer, importer or brand visiting a producer
on Monday, to demand that violations of the sourcing company's
code on wage levels, safety and health, discrimination, working
hours, wages and collective bargaining are remedied as a condition
of continued business if, on Wednesday, the buyer arrives to demand
400,000 t-shirts or pairs of sports shoes by the following week,
for which, incidentally, the multinational intends to pay the
producer 30% less per pair than last time. The result of such
incongruity is that the local employer, in a desperate attempt
to secure that and future contracts, and even if it is a breach
of national law, will force workers, with the threat of dismissal,
to perform excessive, probably unpaid, overtime—perhaps
including the back-to-back shifts which have caused workers to
collapse and die in Bangladesh; work may be outsourced to sub
and sub-sub-contractors and homeworkers, underpinning the need
for a mostly under-employed, precarious, unprotected and impoversished
workforce to meet demand peaks and increasing risks to safety
and health, of the employment of child labour, of underpayment
of wages and of tax evasion. Underpinning all this, in the view
of such employers (an example is the current and continuing anti-union
violence in the Bangladesh garment sector) is the need to exclude
from the workplace trade unions which would enable workers to
defend themselves against such exploitation and abuse. And in
numerous countries, governments are complicit in that repression—either
through anti-union legislation on through an obdurate failure
to enforce legislation which, on paper, protects workers' rights.
18. For the ethical trade agenda to succeed,
there must be coherence between the demands of codes of labour
practice for respect for workers' rights and retailer/brand policy
on price and lead times. Of course, many local producer employers
continue to make a good profit from their workforces—sometimes
as a result of good management, industrial relations and business
practice, often, in the labour-intensive, low value-added sectors,
as a result of exploitative practices and denial of workers' rights.
But there are many whose margins are low. The fair trade movement
has done much to publicise the threats facing small farmers and
cooperatives in the face of falling coffee, tea, cocoa and banana
prices. In the case of coffee, for example, processers and retailers
have driven an expansion of coffee production into new countries,
increasing competition and causing coffee prices to fall below
subsistence levels. In the case of tea, what appears to Indian
tea workers to have been an agreement among tea buyers to suppress
auction prices has led to the collapse of the tea garden sector,
especially in West Bengal, where the suffering has been immense,
but also in Kerala.
19. In this debate it is proper to ask what
percentage of retail price is labour cost, and what is the relationship
between the constant competition to reduce retail prices (the
"Walmart effect"), the vast and growing profits of multinational
enterprises (including, for the purpose of this enquiry, British
supermarkets—Tesco's profits for example, rose from £1
billion in 2001 to £2.2 billion in 2006 while it claims its
retail prices fell by 15% during the same period), downward pressure
on producer prices and the poverty wages of workers in global
supply chains.
20. That is a key question too for the Ethical
Trading Initiative, which numbers amongs its corporate members
the majority of Britain's major supermarket food retailers. Some
among them have engaged with the fairtrade movement (for example,
the Coop sources all its own-brand chocolate from the FairTrade
certified Day Chocolate Company, part-owned by Ghana's major Kuapa
Kokoo cocoa cooperative; Sainsbury have decided to source all
bananas it sells from fair trade suppliers) and other multinational
enterprises such as Starbucks and Nestlé have increased
susbtantially their purchasing of fairly traded coffee. Nonetheless,
the fundamental question remains: are British retailers paying
producers, in general, a fair price for the product, a fair price
being one which permits—and indeed promotes—decent
work and compliance with the ETI base code, or is fair pricing
restricted to a few, beneficial but limited niches?
21. A central question therefore, is whether
it is possible, and if so how, for the stable pricing mechanisms
employed by the fair trade movement (for example, guaranteeing
a cocoa price of £1,225 per tonne, even when the price falls
as low as £500) to become mainstream pricing policies. And
if retailers and brands can be persuaded to increase prices paid
to producers—and maintain price stability—in the interest
of social justice, sustainable development and economic growth
and a fair globalisation, will they accept a slowdown or reduction
in current rates of profit growth, or will they insist on passing
on the cost to consumers? The TUC strongly supports investment,
training and mature industrial relations which can lead to increased
productivity and competitiveness—the paradigm of the world
class workforce, in a world-class company, producing world-class
goods in world-class working conditions. But we do not believe
that the constant drive for cheaper produce, to which the Committee
refers in its question is sustainable or coherent with the promotion
of decent work for all. Poverty is not a route to development
and there is, of course, little consolation for a now unemployed
British garment worker in being able to buy a very cheap pair
of jeans produced by impoverished and oppressed workers elsewhere
if the consumer used to have a job making the jeans herself.
Linking trade and labour standards
22. Those concerns should not be interpreted
as arguments for protectionism. The TUC accepts that, in a global
economy, democracies which protect workers' rights may have legitimate
low-wage competitive advantage, especially in labour intensive,
low-value added manufacturing or agriculture. We support increased
access to global markets for goods produced in such countries.
However, we remain profoundly concerned by the unfair competitive
advantage presented by those states which deny their working people
their fundamental rights at work, thus artificially suppressing
wage-costs below levels which the national economy can sustain.
So we are just as concerned when jobs move from democratic Brazil,
South Africa or India to China, for example, as we are when they
move from Europe. And while, we recognise that China's position
in the global economy has become central, we do not believe that
making workers redundant in developing country democracies in
order to shift production to China, where workers rights are not
respected and where they are unable to organise and bargain freely,
can be described as ethical or fair. What the TUC wants to see
protected are the fundamental rights at work of all working people
everywhere—only that is the basis for fair competition in
a global economy.
23. China, however, does demonstrate that
protection of infant industry and significant investment in infrastructure
are also key elements of global competitiveness. The protection
of nascent industry against unfair international competition in
countries such as South Korea and Malaysia were essential to kick-starting
their rapid economic growth and development. Other developing
countries also need both those in order to achieve fair access
and competitiveness. So, for example, DFID's support for the Ghana
feeder-roads project (in which respect for the rights of the construction
workers who built them was a central tenet) has helped farmers
in outlying areas get their goods to market more quickly.
The crisis in world agriculture
24. Increased liberalization of trade in
agricultural products over the past decade was supposed to bring
benefits to all, but WTO negotiations have still failed to provide
an acceptable way forward for justice in global agricultural trade.The
only winners have been the global agri-food transnational corporations.
These TNCs are driving the overproduction and export of staple
crops from a handful of producer countries, driving down prices
and eliminating millions of jobs. Subsidized overproduction has
failed to provide decent work even for the agricultural workers
in some of the world's richest economies. For developing countries,
"diversification" into flowers and "niche"
products is being promoted as a solution to the collapse of agricultural
commodity prices. It is in this context that increased market
access for developing country exports does not address the fundamental
problem.
25. The vast majority of agriculture workers
worldwide are in poor countries that have been further impoverished
under the impact of liberalized agricultural trade. Subsidies
for agriculture have never been an option in these countries,
and the few fiscal and policy tools for agricultural support they
once possessed have been dismantled under pressure from the international
financial institutions or are being eliminated to conform with
WTO rules. Domestic support for rebuilding agriculture in developing
countries requires, at a minimum, the rehabilitation of tariffs,
taxes (national and international) and trade management tools
as legitimate policy measures. At the same time, sustained resources
must be mobilized internationally to facilitate and support recovery
measures to reverse the social and environmental damage arising
from export-oriented intensive production methods and the rebuilding
of agriculture to serve its primary function in fulfilling the
right to safe, adequate and nutritious food under decent work
conditions.
26. There must be an end to the system of
export dumping. A concrete timetable must be established for the
phasing out and elimination of export subsidies. Subsidies must
instead be redirected towards support for socially and environmentally
sustainable agriculture based on decent work.
Cheaper goods, higher profits, lower wages
27. Sir John Vickers, OFT Chairman, in the
context of the findings of the enquiry into supermarket dominance
of UK food retailing said that supermarkets had a clear responsibility
to deal fairly with their suppliers and to honour the terms of
their contracts and a continuing obligation to ensure that they
comply fully with the OFT Code. But wider concerns about the growth
of supermarkets and the effects on the rural economy, diversity
of the local high street including planning, and the viability
of overseas suppliers were not issues addressed by the Code or
which fell within the competition and consumer remit of the OFT.
Sir John's view was that natural justice and common sense did
not allow regulatory intervention in markets without proper evidence
and that the OFT review has not yielded substantive evidence to
show that the Code was being breached or that competition was
being restricted. He believed that "Competition and straight
dealing are the keys to the market working well for consumers."
(cf: OFT Press Release 3 August 2005: http://www.oft.gov.uk/News/Press+releases/2005/146-05.htm).
28. Whatever the perceived benefits to UK
consumers of cheaper goods in the shops, the TUC believes it is
evident that, nationally and internationally, it is workers who
produce the goods (or used to produce them) who are paying the
real price in inadequate wages. In Britain, recognition of the
unacceptabe exploitation of mainly migrant workers in the agricultural
sector—and the damage it threatened to the reputation of
the major retailers—led to the passing of the Gangmaster
Licensing Act. The ETI played a key role in that development by
acting as the meeting point of the trade unions, government, retailers
and gangmasters. The UK should extend the benefits of that Act
to all sectors by ratifying and implementing ILO Convention 181
(1997) on private employment agencies.
29. The Fair Trade Foundation in Britain
has helped to draw public attention to the injustice of global
commodity pricing. It has thus far, however, restricted itself
to around 200 products (most notably coffee—worth £100
million per annum in the UK, tea, chocolate—worth £3.6
billion—and bananas) and to a small number of producers:
the Fair Trade Foundation in the UK inspects a total of 200 producer
sites worldwide. It seeks to target disadvantaged communities
and organisations working with them and the TUC indeed believes
that fair trade principles can be especially helpful for working
people in genuine cooperatives. We welcome the success it has
had in maintaining imports of APC bananas into Britain and applaud
the decision of Sainsbury's to purchase all its bananas from fairtrade
producers. At the same time, we recognise that Chiquita is the
only banana multinational to have signed a global framework agreement
with the IUF, and The Fair Trade Foundation has only recently
adopted a "hired-labour" standard. While we agree that
there is immediate benefit in chosing to spend premiums, for example,
on community schools and clinics, it is not clear to us the extent
of choice which workers in the relevant enterprises have about
how premiums are spent. For example, can workers elect simply
to have the premium distributed as higher wages? For most agricultural
workers worldwide, increasing their appallingly low wages—very
often below legal minima and regularly too low to be considered
a living wage—remain their first priority. The international
trade union movement would also argue that essential services—notably
universal, free and quality basic education and health care, which
are linked to the Millennium Development Goals—must be provided
by the state as public services if they are to reach all citizens.
Tax matters
30. That in turn goes to the issue of formalisation
of the economy and extending the national tax base—both
of which are required for the development of infrastructure and
public services, good governance and the rule of law. It is wholly
inimical to any claim to support equitable development if MNEs
prevent states from accruing the taxes required to fulfil their
repsonsibioities towards their citizens. Enterprises should pay
their taxes in full and on time and MNEs should not seek tax-breaks
as a condition of investment in developing countries. There is
nothing fair about poor people in poor countries subsidising through
their direct or indirect taxes the business activities of the
world's richest companies—indeed poor people in global supply
chains do that already through the contribution of their low wages
to the profits of those MNEs.
31. The TUC and its affiliates, and the
IUF are involved in discussions with the Fair Trade Foundation
in order to seek a greater understanding in the fair trade movement
of labour market and industrial relations matters. A significant
contribution to development would be made if value-added processing
of raw materials took place in the country of production. We recognise
also that current market demands (for example the type of chocolate
confectionery preferred by European consumers and the problems
of production in tropical climates) means that much processing
will take place in industrialised countries, and trade union support
for the fair trade movement would undoubtedly be even greater
if all processing of fair trade products (including that which
takes place in the industrialised countries in which fair trade
products find their main market) were to take place in unionised
workplaces. It is hard for trade unions to encourage members to
purchase fairtrade products made in non-union workplaces, rather
than non-fairtrade products made in large enterprises by their
own members.
32. There may be genuine reasons why some
products are processed in SMEs without collective agreements with
unions than in larger, unionised plants: notably the relatively
small production runs. We should, of course, like to see strong
encouragement by the Fairtrade Foundation for a positive attitude
by such employers towards social dialogue and mature industrial
relations and continued efforts to organise all in the industry.
At the same time, it should be possible for the major unionised
processors to agree contracts to process fairtrade products.
The rule of law and public procurement
33. The private sector is not the only player
in global markets. States play a major role through their procurement
policies. There has been some confusion in Whitehall about the
ability of the Government to include requirements for respect
for workers' rights in procurement contracts. EU rules clearly
permit such conditionalities for sourcing within the EU and ILO
Convention 94 on labour clauses in public contracts provides a
global benchmark. In 1950, the UK became the first ILO Member
State to ratify Convention 94; in 1982 it became the only Member
State ever to denounce its ratification.
34. HMG buys £13 billion worth of goods
and services annually, the wider public sector £125 billion.
The NHS in England alone makes purchases of £15 billion per
annum, its Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) accounting for
£6.2 billion of that total. It is not sufficient for national
and local government to purchase fair trade products for used
in coffee machines and works canteens. Every public contract should
require—as a condition of the contract itself—that
the fundamental rights of workers producing the goods or providing
the service are fully respected. The NHS, for example, purchases
surgical instruments from suppliers in Sialkot in Pakistan, where
the ILO has been engaged in supporting the removal of children
from -highly hazardous—production to school. The British
Government is a major contributor to the ILO's International Programme
for the Elimination of Child Labour, but what is PASA doing directly
to ensure, as the client, that its contractors respect fundamental
rights? We urge public procurement agencies to explore their supply
chains and to join, where appropriate, the Ethical Trading Inititative
so that they can develop good parctice in supply chain management.
The TUC's recommendations for action by HMG
Internationally:
— Support global policy coherence by
ensuring that the UK's binding treaty obligations arising from
ratification of ILO Conventions -notably the eight core Conventions
and the priority Conventions on employment policy and labour inspection—are
promoted consistently by all UK ministries in the international
institutions in which they lead: including the Bretton Woods Institutions,
the WTO, the United Nations and its specialised agencies.
— Enhance its support for coherence
in ILO work on corporate social responsibility.
— Give far greater support to ILO work
on labour inspection and the development of well-functioning national
labour inspectorates.
— Reinvigorate the debate on the Tobin
tax to encourage the fiscal stability required for long-term investment
and sustainable, employment-creating growth.
— Support reinvigoration of the WTO
round with a recognition that the current structure of global
agriculture is a key driver in the unsustainability and injustice
of the current model of globalisation.
— Coherent use of EU GSP. Seek to extend
GSP to all countries which fulfil their obligations under the
ILO Declaration and where ratified, under the relevant Conventions.
Seek withdrawal or denial of GSP to countries which do the opposite.
Nationally:
— Ban trade in goods made by forced
labour (notably imports from the Lao Gai in China and all imports
from Burma)—to be coherent that will also require a reconsideration
of the current prison labour regime in the UK in line with the
recommendations of the ILO Committee of Experts.
— Recognise that the UK remains the
largest single source of foreign investment in Burma and forbid
such investment which can only be used in jopint ventures with
the militaryt junta, which uses forced labour as a pillar of its
economic policy.
— Ratify and implement ILO Convention
94 of labour clauses in public contracts and use rigorously UK
government purchasing power to promote fundamental rights at work.
All public contracts should include compliance requirements on
those points and they must be effeciively monitored.
— Continue to support the ETI.
— Initiate a national debate on long-termism—perhaps
including a national tripartite plus event to mark the 30th anniversary
of the ILO MNE's Declaration, linked to a national debate on respect
for fundamental rights at work and fair global pricing as pillars
of a fair globalisation.
March 2007
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