[WSF-Discuss] Decent Work Analysis - and Beyond

[Judith Blau]

Hello all,

Just to add to the chorus, the International Trade Union Confederation 
(ITUC/CSI/IGB) also embraces Decent Work.
http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?rubrique69&var_recherche=decent%20work

As a sociologist I feel fine linking Decent Work up with Decent Society 
as the framework for deeply democratic action and mobilization.

Judith

Peter Waterman wrote:
> Eddie:
>
> Delighted to have your response, the first substantial defence of Decent
> Work I have received. I think we can now at least hope for a serious
> international exchange on such.
>
> As my reference to the Peruvian situation - or speculation about it -
> suggests, I don't dismiss DW. But this was rather for its ideological
> impact than for any visible or measurable results.
>
> I don't feel the need to take issue with you over anything you say
> except for the fact that your Ministry of Labour is interested in or
> sponsoring DW or your work on measuring such. That unions and 
> government might be similarly interested (and some major employers?) 
> would only reinforce for me the understanding that the DW project is 
> intended to restore the liberal-reformist utopia of tripartism and 
> social partnership (i.e. a partnership of capital and state - with 
> union leaders in a traditionally subordinate supporting position).
>
> So even if DW is a feasible aim in SAf, Holland or China, the question
> for me remains that of whether it furthers the autonomy of labour from 
> capital and state; is relevant to the 80%+ of un-unionised/ 
> un-unionisable labourers; undermines faith in a capitalist system 
> which is currently again demonstrating - worldwide - its incapacities 
> to meet vital human and environnmental needs; and whether it helps 
> bring unionised/unionised labour together with the ecological,
> peace, gender/sexual, rural, urban, indigenous,human rights and other 
> such movements.
>
> My possibly utopian, over-theoretical or ideological/moral critique of 
> DW has been recently reinforced by the arguments of two figures you 
> know well, Guy Standing and Walden Bello. As well as a declaration by 
> a US elite think-tank, the Center for American Progress (2009).
>
> The first has produced a seriously damaging analysis of the 
> incapacities of the International Labour Organisation - the source of 
> the DW strategy (I don't have the text here in Lima but I you surely 
> know it.
>
> The second has just critiqued a 'global social democratic' (GSD) 
> policy which he sees as likely to surpass neo-liberalism but - 
> obviously - to fail to undermine or even question capitalism. This 
> piece was forwarded on the Debate List in South Africa but Patrick 
> Bond, so you probably have access to this also. Walden Bello also 
> foresees a significant labour role in thus attempting to restore 
> capitalism (both materially and ideologically?).
>
> The third, also posted on Debate in reply to me by Patrick, is for me 
> the most damaging since it demonstrates to what extent and in what 
> manner, in what context, the US and International union leaderships 
> are using DW in an attempt to forward - to or with capital and state - 
> a restoration of capitalism that hardly amounts to the GSD strategy 
> Walden Bello is critiquing! I received this today and attach it below.
>
> Finally, Eddie, my suggestion is that this present exchange be 
> transformed into a public one. DW has so far been reproduced rather 
> than discussed within the international labour movement. I understand 
> that Guy Standing might anyway be in South Africa early in the new 
> year. This would seem to me to provide a potential opportunity for an 
> open discussion at least in one country.
>
> In the meantime, however, I continue to consider that DW points labour 
> in the wrong direction, to talking with the wrong people in the wrong 
> places.
>
> I would like to hope that the autonomous labour initiative, 'labour 
> and globalisation', in the World Social Forum, Belem, Brazil, in one 
> month's time, will be able to come up with a declaration that calls 
> capitalism 'capitalism' and that it will point beyond the restoration 
> of a brutal, wasteful, incompetent and corrupt system.
>
> Sincerely, and with best wishes for you and yours in 2009,
>
>
> Peter Waterman
>
> *************************************************************************
>
> Center for American Progress | Progressive Ideas for a Strong, Just, 
> and Free America
>
> Executive Summary
>
> Session I: Setting development assistance priorities
>
> Session II: Setting trade liberalization priorities
>
> Session III: Widening participation in the gains from economic 
> integration
>
> Session IV: International Financial Architecture
>
>
>
> The Center for American Progress convened a high-level meeting of 
> domestic and international policymakers and thinkers on international 
> economic policy on December 11, 2008. Current and former multilateral 
> institution heads were represented at the table, as well as 
> international cabinet-level representatives, former U.S. 
> administration officials, and heads of Washington-based think tanks, 
> NGOs, and campaigning organizations.
>
> Six hours of discussion on the current global economic meltdown 
> covered the topics of development, trade, and international financial 
> architecture during four sessions. Central to these discussions was 
> the importance of ensuring that prosperity is widely shared in 
> developed and emerging economies.
>
> The Center for American Progress published a series of documents 
> alongside a public event the following morning with Kemal Dervis, 
> Richard Samans, and Juan Somavia, including a new report by Richard 
> Samans, “Transitioning to a new U.S. International Economic Policy: 
> Toward a ‘Global Deal’ to Revive and Broaden the Benefits of 
> Growth.”
>
> The private meeting’s key conclusions included:
>
> * The incoming administration cannot hold trade and development in 
> separate silos; it must consider them together.
> * The size and composition of development assistance is critical in 
> advancing living standards; multilateral and bilateral forms of 
> assistance both have a role to play.
> * The timetable for meeting the G20’s request to agree to the Doha 
> modalities is closing and will come up against the Indian election 
> likely in April or May.
> * Decent Work must underpin widespread advancement in gains from trade.
> * The current economic crisis should be used to reform the 
> international financial architecture, and the IMF’s role should be 
> enhanced rather than diminished.
> * More work is needed on the substantive role and composition of the G20.
>
> The Center for American Progress will be following this event with an 
> international discussion on global governance and the role of the G20 
> in the spring.
> Session I: Setting development assistance priorities
>
> We do not yet know the full consequences of the current economic 
> crisis, and it will almost certainly continue worsening, but it will 
> undoubtedly affect President-elect Obama’s international economic 
> policy agenda, including development.
>
> The economic downturn is a global problem. Economic growth rates in 
> all countries are slowing and unemployment is rising. Attendees 
> suggested that worldwide perceptions of globalization—which is 
> generally viewed favorably during times of economic growth—have 
> started to decline. This shift in opinion is partly due to the 
> negative repercussions of the subprime crisis around the world, where 
> blame is perceived to lie with the United States.
>
> The least-developed countries have not felt the initial wave of the 
> economic downturn, but will be hit if the United States and other 
> developed countries are unable to provide official development 
> assistance. That said, development assistance should not be viewed 
> purely as a bilateral exchange; it should include multilateral 
> assistance, public-private partnerships, trade policies, and the work 
> of philanthropic foundations. The world’s nations can restore 
> economic global leadership by maintaining strong global institutions 
> and pushing for robust macroeconomic policies.
>
> Attendees agreed that the United States has a crucial role to play in 
> terms of global leadership, but it will have to balance short- and 
> long-term goals, and domestic and international pressures. A key focus 
> will have to be global development.
>
> The “smart power” debate has strengthened development by 
> positioning it within a broader national security context. 
> President-elect Obama has pledged to double foreign assistance, but he 
> must also consider the question of why we engage in foreign 
> assistance. Attendees suggested that the U.S. Agency for International 
> Development is weaker now than it has ever been and U.S. development 
> efforts are undermined because they are spread out over 20 government 
> agencies. Foreign aid legislation was written in 1961 during the 
> Kennedy administration and has not been updated since. U.S. 
> development assistance needs to be fundamentally reconceived and 
> reprioritized by creating a national development strategy, a new 
> cabinet-level structure for administering aid, and 21st-century 
> legislation to handle today’s development challenges.
>
> Other topics of discussion included the food crisis and failure of 
> agricultural development policies, the role of remittances, migration, 
> social security, and the role of the Decent Work Agenda. One attendee 
> suggested that the Millennium Development Goals will prove much more 
> difficult to achieve in the coming years because donors have not 
> fulfilled their development assistance commitments. And finding 
> solutions to climate change is also critical and will require 
> multilateral action.
>
> The new administration will need to have a sense of responsibility not 
> just for the domestic crisis, but also for its international 
> implications. The United States needs to play a leadership role in 
> addressing frustrations around global integration.
>
> Session II: Setting trade liberalization priorities
>
> Trade has been a key driver of global economic growth and will 
> continue to be so in the future. Fostering trade rather than stymieing 
> it would therefore facilitate recovery from the current economic 
> crisis. There was considerable support, particularly from the 
> international participants, for concluding the Doha round of trade 
> negotiations. Brokering such a deal would offer some optimism for an 
> otherwise bleak 2009.
>
> Nonetheless, it is inevitable that these negotiations will be pushed 
> back at least to the early part of 2009 since there is a lame-duck 
> president currently in office and the president-elect must restrain 
> himself until he formally takes office. This concerned the 
> international participants since it is unclear whether India, with its 
> election looming, will be able to negotiate as the spring approaches.
>
> Appropriate policies and institutions are clearly needed to better 
> redistribute the gains from trade both in the United States and 
> abroad. Attendees noted that, for the domestic debate, it is not 
> possible to have a progressive foreign policy with a regressive trade 
> policy. There are few levers through which countries interact, and 
> trade constitutes one such channel. Transatlantic dialogue on trade, 
> for example, is an important strand of the relationship between the 
> United States and Europe.
>
> A progressive trade policy in the United States should incorporate the 
> provision of social safety nets to a much greater extent than it does 
> already, including a universal health care policy. Attendees agreed 
> that a progressive trade policy should foster competitiveness through 
> policies that cultivate innovation and technological advancement, and 
> examine and attempt to balance worldwide savings rates.
>
> Within an international context, trade has not benefited all countries 
> that have opened their markets because there is not always sufficient 
> trade capacity. Any trade adjustment assistance or aid for trade 
> should therefore be coupled with the domestic provision of social 
> safety nets to protect citizens from the detrimental effects that fall 
> on certain industries. The gains from trade should also be 
> redistributed more equitably. This is essential to maintaining global 
> support for openness.
>
> Trade is a piece of the global economic jigsaw puzzle; it has value as 
> an individual piece, but it is much more important as part of the 
> whole. Establishing a robust trade agenda alongside a parallel 
> institution-building agenda is possible. Participants said that this 
> would be a positive step toward re-invigorating U.S. global leadership 
> and garnering a favorable international view of the Obama administration.
> Session III: Widening participation in the gains from economic 
> integration
>
> The current economic crisis is also a jobs crisis. A major challenge 
> now is for the world to agree to an agenda for more and better work 
> and not let the short-term exigencies of the economic downturn derail 
> these efforts.
>
> The past mindset was that countries could grow their economies and 
> then distribute the benefits of that growth later, but that 
> distribution did not happen. Productivity gains have increased over 
> the past decade, while distribution has decreased, and there is now a 
> much wider disparity between the rich and the poor. Workers have 
> experienced not only stagnation in their wages; many have seen their 
> salaries decline. In short, domestic U.S. workers are not gaining from 
> these higher levels of productivity and are dissatisfied with the 
> effects of globalization.
>
> The session outlined three factors that contribute to this phenomenon. 
> First, the United States has, over the last eight years, taken an 
> ideological approach to economic governance. This includes, for 
> example, elevating market deregulation to a philosophy for governing 
> the economy. Second, strong distrust has emerged between workers and 
> multinational corporations. It is no longer the case that what is good 
> for American companies is good for America. Policymakers need to 
> reassess how global agreements affect workers at home and play a much 
> more proactive role in examining how companies’ dealings abroad 
> affect growth and labor standards domestically. Third, the 
> International Monetary Fund has created worse conditions for workers, 
> especially in developing countries. Mandatory structural adjustments 
> put a significant burden on governments and hurt funding for many 
> sectors including education, training, and labor, which attendees 
> suggested would make it difficult to maintain parallel policy agendas 
> for labor and trade.
>
> These three areas should not be treated as separate and divergent 
> interests; participants agreed that policy must focus on the 
> convergence of trade and labor policies.
>
> The Decent Work Agenda played a strong role in the discussion, 
> particularly its framework for dignity at work, international 
> standards, and the provision of jobs, as well as effective social 
> protections such as universal healthcare, continued education and 
> training, and pensions. Last year’s May 10 agreement on trade, which 
> attached environmental and worker protections to several pending trade 
> accords, demonstrated that businesses were in agreement about labor 
> and environmental rights, and most other significant issues.
>
> Policymakers will have to take a combined approach to fighting poverty 
> and implementing the Decent Work Agenda in order to advance the 
> overarching objective of balancing global trade, development, and 
> labor issues. Multilateralism and interstate policy coordination on 
> Decent Work will be imperative in achieving this. The current crisis 
> facing the auto industry, for example, is tied to and will affect 
> countries all over the world. Leaders must take a multilateral, and 
> sectoral approach to contain the crisis. Each country will also have 
> to work with each other and afford others the flexibility and policy 
> space needed to stabilize their own economies.
>
> This historic crisis has produced an unprecedented opportunity. Given 
> all the concerns and pressures around the world, arguments and 
> infighting have now diminished. Labor and business now want to work 
> together to fix the problems. Policymakers, labor, and business are 
> all thinking big and are in need of a bold vision and policy that 
> includes all the relevant parts: growth, labor, development, and trade.
> Session IV: International financial architecture
>
> Michel Camdessus, managing director of the IMF from 1987 to 2000 
> suggested in his after dinner address that the current crisis provided 
> an opportunity for reform. The global financial village had been 
> allowed to expand without any effective international regulation, he 
> said, and policymakers should recognize the sea change that has 
> occurred and act urgently and radically.
>
> The IMF has highly professional staff and must remain the centerpiece 
> of international financial architecture. It should be given greater 
> powers of surveillance without reducing its other important 
> responsibilities including addressing global imbalances. The United 
> States, in particular, has an important responsibility here.
>
> Governance arrangements are also of critical importance, but they are 
> not yet right. The Executive Board’s membership of 25 is too large 
> and includes over-representation from Europe and under-representation 
> from the developing world. And Camdessus suggested changing the name 
> of the International Monetary Fund to the “Monetary and Financial 
> World Fund.”
>
> The post-dinner discussion delved deeper into the mission of the IMF, 
> which attendees suggested still suffers from a credibility problem 
> driven by the conditionality and deflationary agenda of the 1970s and 
> 1980s. Others suggested that the IMF should be given greater teeth and 
> independence in relation to its surveillance work and that member 
> countries should not be able to veto country reports. The Bank of 
> International Settlements and the Financial Stability Forum could be 
> better arenas for financial market regulation and oversight.
>
> The G-20 could emerge as the de facto international leaders’ body. 
> Although there is under-representation from the poorest countries and 
> the most generous donors (i.e. Nordic countries), attendees saw it as 
> the best forum for forging consensus. The G-20 could be used for 
> cross-sectoral negotiations such as high-income countries trading off 
> representation on the IMF board for concessions from middle-income 
> countries on climate change.
>
> These summaries were produced by Winny Chen, Sabina Dewan, Natalie 
> Ondiak, and Will Straw.
> List of participants
>
> Urban Ahlin. Chairman, Swedish Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee
> Catherine Ashton, Trade Commissioner, European Union
> Charlene Barshefsky, Senior International Partner, WilmerHale, LLP
> Amar Bhattacharya, Director, G-24
> Karan Bhatia, Vice President and Senior Counsel for International Law 
> and Policy, GE
> Nancy Birdsall, Director, Center for Global Development
> Matt Browne, Visiting Fellow, Center for American Progress
> Sharan Burrow, President, International Trade Union Confederation
> Michel Camdessus, former Managing Director (1987-2000), IMF
> Simon Crean, Trade Minister, Australia
> Kenneth Dam, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
> Kemal Dervis, Executive Head, UNDP
> Sabina Dewan, Associate Director for International Economics, CAP
> Ambroise Fayolle, Executive Director for France, IMF
> Helga Flores, Chief of Constituencies, Inter-American Development Bank
> Claude Fontheim, Fontheim International
> Ed Gresser, Director of Trade of Global Markets Project, PPI
> David Lane, President and CEO, One Campaign
> Trevor Manuel, Finance Minister, South Africa
> Raymond Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America
> PierCarlo Padoan, Deputy Secretary General, OECD
> Sandra Polaski, Director of the Trade, Equity and Development Program, 
> Carnegie
> Endowment for Peace
> Bill Reinsch, President, National Foreign Trade Council
> Richard Samans, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
> Barbara Shailor, Director of International Affairs, AFL-CIO
> Ira Shapiro, GreenbergTraurig, LLP
> Robert Shapiro, Director of Globalization Initiative, New Democratic 
> Network
> Arshi Siddiqui, Counsel, Office of Speaker Pelosi
> Juan Somavia, Director-General, ILO
> Gene Sperling, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
> Thoralf Stenvold, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Norway to the U.N.
> Will Straw, Associate Director for Economic Growth, CAP
> Karen Tramontano, President, Global Fairness Initiative
> Sarah Rosen Wartell, Acting CEO, Center for American Progress
> Christian Weller, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
>
> To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:
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> Putting Aid and Trade to Work , by Sabina Dewan, Reuben Brigety
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> Edward Webster wrote:
>> Hi Peter - good to hear from you and , as always, your provocation to 
>> take the debate further.
>> I agree that the concept of decent work sounds rather feeble - he is 
>> a decent chap, as the English say !! But as with the concept of 
>> social movement unionism that you introduced many decades ago it can 
>> take on a different and potentially progressive meaning in a 
>> different context.
>> Let me give three reasons why I feel the need to take it seriously:
>>
>> Firstly, and put simply, the debate in many countries is about the 
>> need to create jobs . In our context where `unemployment' could be as 
>> much as 40% there is a temptation to say `any job is better than no 
>> job' and for progress to be measured in the number of jobs created . 
>> In the case of the bi-annual statistical survey in South Africa a job 
>> means any income generating activity including begging!! The concept 
>> of decent work allows us to talk about the quality of jobs - are they 
>> temporary or permanent , are workers provided with training , are the 
>> jobs save, is the in come regular , does it involve the usual 
>> benefits of leave, etc , etc. Ofcourse these are minimal demands but 
>> under the whip of hyper competition many of the features of 
>> nineteenth century capitalism are re-emerging - longer working 
>> hourts, casual work , and homework.
>> A second reason is that I have found that unionists struggling for 
>> better jobs in the factory do not dismiss it as a campaigning concept.
>> Thirdly it is also increasingly the way in which our department of 
>> labour is framing its mandate. I completed a study for our department 
>> this year where I was asked to develop a decent work deficit index 
>> amongst vulnerable workers which included sweatshops in down-town 
>> Johannesburg, workers in shebeens in Soweto and waste pickers on the 
>> streets of Johannesburg. To conceptualise decent work I used Guy 
>> Standings seven indicators of security - labour market security, 
>> employment security, job security, work security, skills security, 
>> income security and representation security. I then developed a 
>> composite index and placed the seven indicators on a range from 9 ( 
>> absolute insecurity) to 1 ( absolute security).
>> I was also interested to read of the outcome of the recent Tripartite 
>> meeting in September of experts on the measurement of decent work.
>> I agree with you Peter that we need to go Beyond Decent Work but it 
>> may be worth taking as a point of departure the work already done on 
>> it and in particular Guys work in the late nineties and the current 
>> attempts by the ILO and its `experts' to define and measure it.
>>
>> Warm regards
>> Eddie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Peter Waterman [mailto:p.waterman at inter.nl.net] Sent: 23 
>> December 2008 05:22 PM
>> To: R.Hyman at lse.ac.uk
>> Cc: Devan Pillay; david.hollis at netzwerkit.de; nigd-list at nigd.org; 
>> WorldSocialForum-Discuss at openspaceforum.net; jai.sen at cacim.net; 
>> duhagon at item.org.uy; bsantos at fe.uc.pt; costello.gls at gmail.com; 
>> GuyStanding at standingnet.com; newunionism at gmail.com; 
>> ericlee at labourstart.org; ginavargas at telefonica.net.pe; 
>> balkanozapatista at gmail.com; Andreas.Bieler at nottingham.ac.uk; 
>> aguiton at gmail.com; bfletcher at transafricaforum.org; 
>> dave_spooner at wiego.org; d.chavez at mac.com; 
>> Dirk.Kloosterboer at vc.fnv.nl; Edward Webster; fdove at tni.org; 
>> francoishoutart at yahoo.fr; henning.melber at dhf.uu.se; hilary1 at manc.org; 
>> immanuel.wallerstein at yale.edu; jean.pierre.page at gmail.com; 
>> johnholloway at prodigy.net.mx; j.wills at qmul.ac.uk; 
>> kimscipes at earthlink.com; kjeld at os.org.br; kolyaab at yahoo.co.uk; 
>> magnus.wennerhag at soc.lu.se; M.Deangelis at btinternet.com; 
>> Mike.Waghorne at world-psi.org; nicola_bullard at yahoo.com; 
>> Raphael at democraciaglobal.org; R.P.Munck at liverpool.ac.uk; Sakhela 
>> Buhlungu; stellan.vinthagen at globalstudies.gu.se; w.bello@
>
> focusweb.org
>> Subject: Re: Decent Work Analysis - and Beyond
>>
>> It is something of a relief to me that anyone is taking a critical 
>> interests in the ITUC/ILO Decent Work campaign. I have been 
>> increasingly feeling not that I was the little boy who pointed out 
>> that the emperor was naked but like a crazed seer in an empty desert.
>>
>> So thanks, Devan for starting this little exchange. And to Richard 
>> Hyman and Guy Standing for their rapid response.
>>
>> I fear, however, that - whatever Richard, Guy and myself have so far 
>> said directly about DW - Devan is faced with thin pickings.
>>
>
>
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