Agence France Presse | November 8, 2001
DOHA - WTO ministers due to open a meeting here Friday to boost global trade must put protection of workers' rights high on their agenda and pay attention to popular resistance to globalisation, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) insisted Thursday.
Bill Jordan, ICFTU general secretary, described references to labour standards in draft texts serving as a basis for the Doha World Trade Organisation conference as a "step backwards".
"The present text on core labour standards is a step backwards. It's a slap in the face for all working people across the world," Jordan told a public gathering. "It seems to me to be a blind determination to ignore the visible backlash that has taken place against globalisation amongst ordinary people," he added.
Ministers and delegates from the 142 members of the Geneva-based WTO are gathering in the Qatari capital to try to hammer out an agenda for a new round of negotiations to further liberalise trade.
Their last attempt -- in the US city of Seattle in 1999 -- failed.
Unless the Doha sessions produced a significant change in policy and direction, Jordan warned, the "WTO will simply be walking itself further into a cul-de-sac of its own making."
The draft declaration before ministers here states that they "take note" of work underway at the International Labour Organisation on the social dimension of globalisation.
But it adds that the ILO provides the "appropriate forum" for a substantive dialogue on the issue.
The ICFTU, which represents unions in 148 countries, wants the WTO to form a committee to address trade and labour standards with the full participation of the ILO.
Many developing countries resist inclusion of labour standards in a new round of trade negotiations, seeing such an effort as an attempt at backdoor protectionism.
WTO Director General Mike Moore, speaking to the same meeting Thursday, acknowledged that many countries were "enormously suspicious" of the issue of labour rights.
"I think it's got more difficult in the last couple of years than it was," he said.
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