WUNRN
New WIDE Publication: "Key Feminist Concerns
Regarding Core Labor Standards, Decent Work and Corporate Social
Responsibility"
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Link to Publication:
WIDE is a European feminist network of women´s organisations, development NGOs, gender specialists and women´s rights activists.WIDE monitors and influences international economic and development policy and practice from a feminist perspective.
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Key Feminist Concerns Regarding Core Labor Standards, Decent Work and Corporate Social Responsibility
Author: Anja Franck
This
publication provides a feminist analysis of workers´ rights issues in respect of
core labor standards, the decent work paradigm and Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) in relation to trade policy, especially that of the
European Union (EU).
Reviewing the literature and discussions shows there is no unified feminist position on the inclusion of labour standards in trade policy. Feminists do, however, share common concerns around core labour standards, decent work and CSR. Those policies need to explicitly address the situations, experiences and wishes of women, and need to address the gendered nature of economic and trade policies. Gender discrimination forms an integral part of the market economy. Measures that fail to challenge the underlying causes of gender discrimination risk upholding gender divisions and oppression and spreading the perception among policymakers that gender issues are being adequately addressed.
One of the main feminist concerns regarding labour standards in trade agreements is that work in the informal sector, which covers most of women´s work, has been excluded from core labour standards and CSR schemes. Both also exclude many issues central to women workers, such as working hours, arbitrary and inhuman treatment, harassment, unhealthy working conditions, absence of contracts, prohibition of union activities, fair remuneration, respect for pregnant women, and maternity leave. And too many constraints still exist for women in getting involved in the forums that define workers´ rights. There are many questions to be raised regarding the effectiveness of self-regulatory voluntary schemes, such as CSR.
The adoption in 1998 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Works contained the four universally binding core standards for working conditions in any country: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour; effective abolition of child labour and elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. The decent work paradigm is defined by the ILO as "work taking place under conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity" and is seen as an opportunity for a more ´holistic´ approach towards rights and social conditions for the world´s working populations.
The paper also looks at how labour standards are discussed within trade policies, at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in the EU´s bilateral and regional free trade negotiations. The EU is a prominent supporter of a social clause in the multilateral framework of the WTO, which currently has many opponents. Critics of a social clause in the WTO claim that the unequal power relations within multilateral organisation make it an inappropriate forum to deal with labour rights, and that trade unions and NGOs cannot present claims of violations of labour rights to the WTO, as only governments can do this.
As a result of the opposition to a social clause in the WTO, the EU pursues the systematic inclusion of labour standards in its bilateral and regional trade negotiations through a social clause. Even if it becomes increasingly important to analyse how labour issues are being dealt with in the EU trade negotiations and the inclusion of a social clause in different geographical contexts, the lack of public information available about the negotiations makes analysis difficult.
It is crucial to continue the discussion on decent work and core labour standards in trade policy, by taking feminist concerns into account and examining the implications of the subordination of workers to the free trade agenda in the struggle for women´s rights and social justice.
For further information, please contact: Marzia Rezzin, WIDE Advocacy and Information Officer, marzia@wide-network.org.
To order or download, go to: http://www.wide-network.org/index.jsp?id=228
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