U.S. Business Support for INTERNATIONAL WORKER RIGHTS

Abstract

At the end of the December 1996 World Trade Organization meeting in Singapore, trade ministers issued a statement recognizing the International Labor Organization as the appropriate multilateral body to set, promote, and oversee core labor standards in the international trading system.1 That statement paved the way for the ILO’s 1998 Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB), the designated U.S. business representative in the ILO, and other multilateral organizations played a leading role in development and adoption of the 1998 declaration.The idea of the declaration was initiated by the USCIB. We sold it to the International Organization of Employers (IOE), the umbrella employer association in the ILO. At the June 1996 meeting of its general council, the IOE adopted a resolution supporting the declaration as an alternative to the “social clause,” which would rely on trade sanctions to raise labor standards. The USCIB then worked at home with the Department of Labor and the AFL-CIO, and internationally with the IOE and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to bring the declaration into being. Developing countries objected throughout the negotiations that the declaration would be used for protectionist purposes to compromise their comparative cost advantage. The U.S. business community provided the employer spokesperson for the 1998 ILO conference negotiations on the declaration and continues to represent employers in the preparation of the declaration’s annual global report on fundamental worker rights.