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    30 July 2010

    Trade, labour and the crisis: Time to rethink trade!




    Esther Busser
    Trade has been one of the main transmission channels of the financial and economic crisis to developing countries where many jobs were lost in export sectors. This was largely due to a reduced demand for goods in industrialised economies as well as to a lack of access to credit for the financing of exports.
    At the international level, calls against protectionism (that is, increasing barriers to trade) have been manifold. These calls have been made in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Global Jobs Pact, G-20 Declarations and government declarations in organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Despite these calls and the common understanding that closing off markets would have negative effects and risk a further deepening of the crisis, several countries have resorted to protectionist measures.
    Discussions around trade and the crisis have mainly focused on whether countries have resorted to protectionist measures, the nature of these measures as well as their impacts. However, this discussion only reflects a part of the overall picture on the role of trade in the crisis. It does not touch on its role in promoting a sustainable recovery and in addressing the underlying imbalances in world trade. Two important questions, therefore, need to be raised. The first is whether the pre-crisis model of export-led growth in some countries and debt-fuelled consumption in others is sustainable. The second is whether the outcomes of export-led growth have indeed been beneficial for the long-term employment and development perspectives of developing countries.
    The crisis has shown that the push for trade liberalisation and open markets over the past couple of decades, as promoted by the WTO, the major economies and Transnational Corporations (TNCs), has resulted in an export or “market access” focused trade model, which in turn has created a situation where many countries became dependent on export markets for their growth. Such a situation makes them vulnerable in cases of shocks, like in the current crisis, particularly when demand drops simultaneously in all markets, resulting in job losses. This constitutes a crucial difference with the Asian financial crisis, which limited itself to Asian countries and allowed them to export themselves out of their crisis, an option not available currently.
    Several voices have been calling for a rebalancing of trade, not only to reduce vulnerability to trade shocks but, more importantly, to rebalance global demand. Such voices have been expressed in several fora, including in the G-20, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ILO and other United Nations (UN) organisations. Such a rebalancing would require less dependence on export markets and more emphasis on creating diversified domestic markets in all countries, that are based on consumption and wage led growth as well as a re-establishment of wage-productivity linkages.
    However, these calls for rebalancing are made amidst the dominance of a free trade paradigm. The “no protectionism” slogan is regularly accompanied by a call for “further trade liberalisation”. Mixing the two is problematic, especially when it comes to rebalancing efforts that do require a substantial rethinking of the role of trade and trade liberalisation in sustainable recovery and development. The recent G-20 Toronto statement that calls upon “the OECD, the ILO, World Bank and the WTO to report on the benefits of trade liberalisation for employment and growth at the Seoul Summit” clearly shows how the current drive for trade liberalisation continues to reign.
    Moreover, this rebalancing exercise questions the long-term growth perspectives to be achieved in developing countries by free trade and the current specialisation pattern. The vulnerabilities of developing countries are unfortunately not only limited to their dependence on export markets, but also to specialisation in low value added activities in highly competitive markets.
    Despite some diversification and industrialisation successes, particularly in Asia and in a few Latin American countries, many developing countries have witnessed a specialisation in limited numbers of low value-added economic activities. This strategy has not only increased the dependency of these countries on export markets, but it has also failed to bring about diversification and to substantially raise income levels and decent work opportunities. Trade liberalisation has played a major role in this process. An exclusive focus on trade liberalisation has forced countries to specialise in products in which they have a so-called natural comparative advantage, either in agriculture and natural resources or in low value added and labour intensive manufacturing. This is problematic because commodities and low value added manufacturing (such as textiles and clothing) are characterised by highly competitive markets, low prices, low productivity gains, low wages, poor working conditions and powerful supply chains that have reinforced competition and a race to the bottom. In other words, specialising in production in which developing countries have a natural comparative advantage only allows for limited productivity and wage improvements. In such a context, creating decent employment and higher levels of income remains difficult and rather challenging. Strategies that only focus on entering and stagnating in the lower ends of global supply chains are therefore problematic and limit prospects for a diversified economy.
    A rebalancing approach should thus aim at creating decent and productive employment through diversification of economies. This would entail increasing productivity in sectors such as agriculture while at the same time building comparative advantage and productive capacity in higher value added activities characterised by increasing returns to investment and a higher potential for productivity gains. Such a strategy for development is not only the key to more productive employment, higher wages and decent working conditions, but also instrumental in increasing aggregate demand and stimulating the growth of domestic markets.
    What is important to understand, though, is that such a development and rebalancing strategy is only possible if governments reinvigorate their developmental role, build the relevant institutions, diversify their economies and adopt pro-active and strategic trade and industrial policies. The challenge is to recognise again the importance of these policy instruments aimed at putting diversification, productivity increases in agriculture, industrial development and structural transformation at the top of the agenda if decent and productive employment is to be delivered. This can only be done if trade agreements and trade liberalisation are looked at in a different way and assessed on the basis of their impacts on development and decent work. Unfortunately, over the last two to three decades, countries have been set on a path of trade liberalisation that has largely eliminated such instruments and policy space through commitments in trade and investment agreements.
    Such policy space is crucial if countries currently confined to low value added activities want to move up the value chain, diversify their economies and rely more on domestic and wage led growth. Experiences in industrialised countries and successful emerging economies have shown that trade liberalisation has to be gradual to allow economies to build up their productive capacity and specialise in the right activities. There is an important role for the state in channeling investment, protecting domestic markets, providing access to finance and attracting new technology. A variety of policy instruments will be necessary to ensure industrial development. Such instruments do include the strategic and flexible use of tariffs (low for inputs and higher on products in which competitiveness is being developed), subsidies, reverse engineering, local content and other investment requirements, export taxes and so on. Many of these instruments have either been prohibited or strongly limited by current trade agreements.
    Although the Doha round seems stalled, the demands to revive it are frequent and the aggressive bilateral trade liberalisation led by the US and the EU continues more than ever, reducing much of the remaining policy space for developing countries. In a similar way policy space is being reduced in developing countries that are in the process of accession to the WTO, slashing their tariffs, opening up their services and reducing their policy space far beyond that of WTO members with comparable levels of development, thus having a strong impact on their long term development perspectives. A much more viable strategy would be to promote regional integration, diversification and development. Unfortunately the current drive for liberalisation hinders such regional strategies.
    Governments will have to shift from a laissez-faire approach in trade to a more active role whose core objective is the creation of decent and productive employment through industrialisation and structural transformation. To put industrial policies high on the agenda again requires a serious reconsideration of the current free trade paradigm. Instead of eliminating vital policy space, a new trade regime should actively promote the use of it, as some protection will be needed to enable industrialisation and create decent work. A new trade regime such as this is imperative if a sustainable recovery is to become a reality.

    Download this article as pdf

    Esther Busser is the Assistant Director in the Geneva Office of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) since February 2009. She previously worked as trade policy advisor for the ITUC from 2003-2009.

    (1) G-20 Toronto summit declaration : http://g20.gc.ca/toronto-summit/summit-documents/the-g-20-toronto-summit-declaration/

    16 July 2010

    For a real European Industrial Policy

    Peter Scherrer
    The term ‘Industrial Policy’ refers to various concepts ranging from providing an environment conducive for private business to targeted state intervention on industrial sectors, with numerous dimensions. This article focuses on what the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) is demanding with regard to the issue of development skills, training and qualification. The European metalworking industries and the jobs these industries provide will be sustainable only when a well-trained and highly qualified workforce is able to produce competitive goods for a global market. On a long term perspective the production of “greener”(1) products will be the base for successful participation in the global economy.
    It should be noted from the outset that the recent past has shown that many industrialised EU Member States have tended to search for solutions at national level rather than through increased European co-operation. This trend can also be seen in the abandonment of large projects involving high cross-border cooperation such as the Airbus project. This reduction in co-operation between EU Member States has serious implications for the development of skills as the huge financial investments required for big industrial projects, in particular for the R&D costs, can no longer be provided by a single Government budget, especially not during a far-reaching financial and economic crisis.
    Watching the disaster in connection with possible financial aid for General Motors Europe for their restructuring programme, one can see how easy it becomes for management not only to play off the workers of one plant against another, but also to play off one Government against another. It seems that either politicians have not learnt their lessons or that pre-national election pressure is preventing them from drawing the obvious conclusions from the recent political and economic developments. Being in the metal industry involves having a slightly longer perspective than the next four years because many of the investments will be profitable only after many years. The steel, shipbuilding and automobile industries require strategic thinking and investment over decades. This might be the main reason why many trade unionists in Europe are deeply worried about the future of the manufacturing industry. Industrial policy can only be successful when it is carried out using a long-term, sustainable approach.
    The importance of industrial production
    Maintaining and strengthening Europe’s industrial base is fundamental to securing the foundation and transformation of the EU economy and ensuring employment, social progress and cohesion in the future. Manufacturing industries are significant employment creators. Currently, manufacturing (excluding construction) is directly responsible for 20% of GDP in the EU-27, and an equal proportion in the euro-zone. Industrial goods account for the bulk of intra-EU trade at approximately 80%. Production growth in manufacturing industries has underpinned economic growth in Europe, with significant national and regional differences. The weight of manufacturing in the economy is heavier than employment in terms of value added in 19 of the 27 EU Member States, which indicates relatively high labour productivity. European manufacturing industry employs close to 40 million workers(2). Moreover, manufacturing provides employment multipliers through strong backward and forward linkages to other sectors in the economy and drives demand for industry-related services: every industrial job creates substantial numbers of additional jobs in the service sectors. The worsening economic climate is reflected in the fact that job losses arising from restructuring outnumber jobs created by nearly two to one - with the car sector hit harder than other sectors. With social Europe all but stalled, restructuring has been taking place in a virtual social vacuum at EU level. The negative effects of restructuring are still mainly to be dealt with by the national Governments. The EU globalisation and adjustment fund and the European Social and regional funds are too small to be an effective and decisive support. A much more developed social and employment policy on a European level is needed.
    Skills and Know-how
    Adapting to economic and climate change necessitates a comprehensive approach to new skills and competencies. The only way for Europe to foster economic growth and maintain its industrial base, while ensuring social progress and promoting environmental sustainability, is through technological and social innovation. Innovation is the primary driver of a successful and sustainable industrial policy. A strong lead in R&D and innovation is Europe’s key competitive advantage and of central importance in finding solutions to social and environmental challenges. The European Commission is trying to react to this by creating “Skill Councils” in various sectors of the economy. The skills of the qualified work force in Europe are still the basis for the successful performance of European companies on the global market.
    To achieve a truly sustainable, positive effect for manufacturing industry and the workforce it employs, the EU and its Members States should aim to avoid the relocation of manufacturing activities and related services (e.g. R&D, ICT) and support the permanent upgrading of its European industrial sectors (e.g. by paying more attention in the European framework programmes to industry-related research).
    There is an urgent need to achieve and strengthen the “Barcelona objective” of investing 3% of GDP (whereof 1% public R&D) in research and development through more qualitative objectives (e.g. more efficient use of financial resources, a more effective European research system, creation of sufficient critical mass, closer links with society and a better use of public-private partnerships to promote technology and innovation).
    The European Community must also support the development of innovation alongside R&D, i.e. promoting new processes, products and services by applying existing scientific knowledge in new ways, recognising that innovation is more than technological innovation and includes also issues such as new concepts for logistics or marketing, organisational innovation, workplace development, business model innovation, product design and product quality. The EMF considers that a better common understanding of and a much more coordinated European approach to non-technological innovation is needed. In its Industrial Policy Manifesto, the EMF calls for the development of a new, broader understanding of innovation that does not equate innovative ability with excellence in R&D alone, raising awareness of innovation policies such as:
    • the development of innovative clusters
    • creation of effective systems of knowledge diffusion
    • strengthening the absorption capacity for innovation in firms
    • developing the non-technological aspects of innovation
    • better co-ordination between the innovation system, the industrial fabric and labour markets
    • better recognition of the strategic importance of the institutional framework (e.g. standards) to bring new products to the market.
    What is important is that policy-makers and industry alike should not concentrate all their efforts on the development of high-tech activities. Many ‘traditional’ sectors such as the metals have shown a high capacity to innovate and/or have comparative advantages, which should be fully exploited.
    Last, but certainly not least, support for the development of the recently created European Institute for Innovation and Technology, as a flagship for industrial research, is a contribution to an industrial development with all the necessary potential.
    At company level
    Research and Development are strategic investments that require a commitment towards a long-term development of companies instead of short term profit-maximization.
    The current crisis demonstrates the need for a profound renovation of the current model of corporate governance, which has proved its limitations. We need a new model capable of giving trade unions and workers a stronger say in corporate strategy and preventing the excesses of financial capitalism that have weakened long-term corporate development. The European Participation Index(3) shows that companies located in countries that recognise a greater participatory role for workers operate more in coherence with social and ecological objectives, higher productivity and greater investment in R&D. Worker representatives’ involvement in companies becomes more effective through the strengthening of information and participation rights both at national and European levels. Workers and trade unions are concerned about the sustainable development of their companies and want to be better involved in shaping the future of their companies via participation in the development of company policies. In order to achieve this they have to be informed and consulted in due time about planned corporate decisions. The EMF’s work with European Works Councils is a key activity for generating collective bargaining power through European Framework Agreements for example. A joint approach of all trade unions in the manufacturing sector offers the potential for increased coordination on worker participation in company decision-making bodies.
    Social Dialogue
    As mentioned above, an intensive and effective social dialogue has to take place at company level but also at national and European level. The EMF is working in various sectoral social dialogue committees (shipbuilding, steel and foundries), but also with the umbrella organisation of the European metal industry employers, CEEMET in the framework of a European social dialogue committee. Two working groups have been established so far. One is dealing with qualification and training. There is a clear need to improve qualification and training in order to overcome the skills gap that exists in some sectors. The second work groups deals with the possibilities for increased competitiveness and ways of keeping and generating sustainable and quality employment. Social dialogue can only be fruitful when both the metal industry employers and the trade unions are serious about a European approach and a European solution for European problems. The EMF member organisations are.
    Mobilising for change
    The success of European social dialogue will crucially depend on the ability of the trade union movement to mobilise across borders for a common and solidarity based economic and industrial policy. In the current crisis an employment-orientated and environmentally future looking industrial policy based on a highly skilled and innovative workforce must be a priority. Instead of deflationary austerity policies a European-wide commitment towards industrial jobs and growth is essential. That is why the European trade unions plan for a day of action on 29 September to increase the pressure for an employment-centred recovery strategy.

    Download this article as pdf

    Peter Scherrer is the General Secretary of the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF). He was previously a trade union representative of the German metalworkers’ trade union, IG Metall, responsible for the steel industry.

    For more information about European Industrial Policy please click: http://www.industrialpolicy.eu/ and http://www.emf-fem.org/
    Footnotes
    (1) Greener products refer to less polluting, more energy efficient, full recyclable, raw material efficient
    (2) See http://www.industrialpolicy.eu/. On this website one can find an overview about the recent development in the metal working industries as one can see on our http://www.emf-fem.org/ website under the section industrial policy.
    (3) Found at www.worker-participation.eu/About-WP/European-Participation-Index-EPI

    9 July 2010

    The global crisis, unemployment and HIV&AIDS: what role for public works programmes?

    Francie Lund
    South Africa faces a severe and seemingly intractable unemployment problem. The narrow or strictest definition of unemployment produces a rate of approximately 25 percent. This problem existed before the global financial crisis, and has been made worse by it. The government makes unrealistic promises about the numbers of jobs that it will create each year; each year these hopes are dashed.
    Unemployment rates are highest amongst the poor and unskilled, higher for women, and higher in rural areas – and in all cases, the situation is worst for African and Coloured people. A 2008 survey showed that the relationship between unemployment and poverty is strong: 31 percent of households have no-one in employment, and the poverty incidence in these households is 81 percent (Leibbrandt et al 2010: 48, using data from the National Income Dynamics Survey – NIDS). Shockingly, more than half of the unemployed said that they had never worked before.
    This crippling unemployment problem is accompanied by the HIV&AIDS crisis which also has its worst impact on poor people, especially poor women. Over 5 million of South Africa’s population of 48 million is currently infected. This has led to a crisis of both paid and unpaid care work. Health professionals such as nurses are under strain; thousands of nurses have moved from the public to the private sector. In 2008, 36 percent of health professional posts in the public sector were vacant – nearly half (48 percent) in the rural Eastern Cape, and 28 percent in Gauteng (Health Systems Trust website). Many leave South Africa to work in other countries.
    However by far the greatest burden of care work is shouldered by family members and community ‘volunteers’ – mostly African women - who care for both HIV-infected and other ill people. HIV&AIDS increases the general level of ill-health in the population, because of the associated and general increase in infectious diseases, especially among the poor who live in over-crowded housing, with too little decent water, sanitation and ventilation. There has been a very rapid rollout of anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy in the last five years, with nearly a million people now being treated. It is complex and difficult to comply with, and intensive care and support is still needed by those receiving it.
    So, the three crises work alongside each other: cripplingly high unemployment, made worse by the global crisis, and a serious crisis of care. What contribution could public works programmes make in addressing the situation?
    In the late 1980s and early 1990s the design of public works programmes was negotiated by government, industry and organized labour. In 2004, government announced that the new Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) would be a bridge into formal employment for marginalized unemployed and informal workers; the EPWP was extended in 2008 for five more years.
    The EPWP includes social programmes in the fields of early childhood development (ECD) (‘pre-school care’), and in home- and community-based care (HCBC). The HCBC in the EPWP, and other community-based care programmes in the health and social development sectors, are a response to the AIDS crisis of care. Programmes vary a lot, but the basic idea is that a local person, after some training, visits households where there is a sick person, and trains a family member to become more skilled in patient care and support.
    It is very unusual, anywhere in the world, to find public works programmes in these fields. They usually focus on building and maintaining physical infrastructure such as roads and dams, or dealing with environmental issues. India’s recent National Rural Employment Guarantee Act guarantees all poor households access to a public works programme for one hundred days a year. It focuses on infrastructural development, not care, though it (notionally) provides child care facilities for programme participants.
    Public works programmes are controversial. Their main objective is to mitigate extreme poverty, and they offer short term work at very low rates. Researcher Anna McCord consistently argues that the infrastructural programmes are an inappropriate policy response to the chronic and structural labour market crisis: the combination of short-termism, very low wage rates and poor skills training mean that participants cannot use the opportunity to move out of poverty. They carry the danger of promoting a dual or two-tier labour market. Melanie Samson has shown that the waste management public works programme undermined the creation of new longer term formal jobs.
    In the earlier public works programmes in South Africa, organized labour insisted that the work not be presented as enduring employment, and must have a training component. More recently, through discussions inside NEDLAC (the tripartite National Economic Development and Labour Council), a Code of Good Practice for Special Public Works Programmes was developed by the Department of Labour. Melanie Samson, in a study done for the National Education, Health and Allied Worker's Union (NEHAWU) about possibilities of organising care workers, found that few government officials knew about the Code.
    There is a huge need for support for care work. Can an argument be made for viewing the HCBC schemes differently, and less critically, than other public works programmes? There are real problems with the HCBC:
    • The work varies from being very part time work as a volunteer receiving perhaps compensation for out-of-pocket expenses, all the way to something that is called voluntary work, but is clearly employment, with paid leave, and regular hours. All these varieties of work are exempt from core provisions of the Basic Conditions of Employment legislation.
    • The care tasks are supposedly those that women can ‘naturally’ do; this perpetuates the gender trap in stereotyping types of work.
    • Related to this, within the EPWP wage rates are even lower in the HCBC than in the more ‘masculine’ infrastructural public works programmes; Debbie Budlender has suggested that the gendered wage penalty that occurs in the formal sector (engineers and nurses have the same level of training, but nurses earn less), is also found in public works programmes.
    • Some feel that in the HCBC the emphasis is too much on training and not enough on any sort of further job creation once the programme is over.
    However, there are positive aspects of the HCBC:
    • There is a real demand for community care workers and the EPWP and other community-based care programmes are a response to this.
    • Care labour easily draws in women, and is not substitutable by machinery in the same way that much infrastructural work is. The Zibambele roads maintenance programme in KwaZulu-Natal targets women successfully: the placement goes to households so that if the person on the job gets sick, she can be replaced by another available woman household member. It has been a successful programme - but a road-maintenance machine could do in twenty minutes what each woman does in a day.
    • It connects unemployed and informally-employed people with those in formal employment, through placement in and supervision by formal paid care workers such as social workers.
    Given the strong demand for care workers, and the fuzzy boundaries between paid and unpaid care work, the care field is probably generating substantial informal work for unskilled women workers. Masters and doctoral research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal shows how it can create a bridge into more formal work opportunities – albeit low paid, and in a traditionally women’s sector. This might be exposing participants to the world of work, and simply keeping the hope of further work alive. However, they also hold the potential of trapping women in low paid, unskilled ‘women’s work’.
    In trying to develop a strategic position about public works programmes, it would be useful to distinguish between different sectors, as they may throw up quite different opportunities for (rapid) bridging into more secure work. It would be useful for organized labour to consider whether and how to support workers in programmes with a code of practice to organize for their rights.

    Download this article as pdf

    Francie Lund is the director of WIEGO Social Protection Programme and a Senior Research Associate, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

    Further readings
    • Leibbrandt, M., Woolard, I., Finn, A. and Argent, J. 2010. Trends in South African income distribution and poverty since the fall of apartheid. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper No. 101. Brussels: Office for Economic Co-operation and Development. Downloadable from the OECD website.
    • Lund, F. with Debbie Budlender. 2009. Paid care providers in South Africa: nurses, domestic workers and home-based care workers. South African Research Report 4 for UNRISD Political Economy of Paid and Unpaid Care Work Project. Downloadable from http://www.unrisd.org/
    • Parenzee, Penny and Debbie Budlender. 2007. South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme: exploratory research of the social sector. Unpublished paper. Cape Town: ON PAR, and Community Agency for Social Enquiry.
    • Samson, M. 2007. ‘Privatizing collective public goods: a case study of street cleaning in Johannesburg, South Africa’, Studies in Political Economy No. 79, Spring.
    • Samson, M. 2008. Organising health, home and community based care workers in South Africa. A Research Report commissioned by NALEDI. May 2008.

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