*EPF505 10/06/00
Transcript: State Department Official on Labor Diplomacy
(Sandra Polaski emphasizes enforcement of workers' rights) (2170)

Sandra Polaski, the State Department's special representative for international labor affairs, says that developing enforcement mechanisms for internationally recognized core labor rights is an increasingly high priority for the United States.

Polaski has just completed her first year in her newly created position. In a recent interview with Phillip Kurata, she spoke about what she has been trying to accomplish during the past 12 months and what she hopes to achieve.

She said enforceable standards are vital to reducing the vulnerabilities of workers in the global economy. She noted the substantial increase in U.S. assistance for international labor programs over the last few years, particularly in the area of child labor.

Following is an edited transcript of that interview:

(begin transcript)

Q: What was the rationale for creating your job as special representative for international labor affairs one year ago?

POLASKI: The department had had a fairly vigorous labor program for most of the second half of the 20th century. During the 1980s and 1990s, it was scaled back, in part because of the perception that the labor function existed primarily within a Cold War setting. In the mid-1990's labor issues in the department were relegated to one item in the portfolio of deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor -- one item among many, many items, and so it wasn't even getting full time attention at the deputy assistant secretary level.

Both within and outside government, there developed increasing frustration that there was not an adequate capacity at State to deal with these issues. The Department of Labor, for example, was extremely frustrated because its overseas work, which is handled by its International Labor Affairs Bureau here in Washington, was actually growing, particularly in the area of child labor and in technical assistance to foreign labor ministries. The Labor Department didn't have State support to interface with those governments in many countries where they went.

As a result, decisions were made to create my position, as well as to appoint an advisory committee on labor diplomacy, a blue ribbon external panel, to make recommendations to the secretary and to the president about how to refocus, reinvigorate, reinvent the department's labor diplomacy.

Q: What role does labor diplomacy play in the globalization process?

POLASKI: Increasing global economic integration means that product and capital markets are rapidly integrating. But the vast majority of working people can't move, so they bear the consequences if there is a labor excess in a particular place, with resulting low wages and poor treatment.

There is a broad international consensus that there has to be a set of rules on worker rights that meets certain minimum standards in all parts of the world. Otherwise, production can be shifted to chase the lowest labor cost.

The universally accepted minimum labor standards have a compelling human rights basis. Freedom of association is a fundamental human right, long enshrined in the United Nations covenants. Freedom from forced labor, and from discrimination based on race or gender are fundamental human rights. Freedom from exploitative child labor certainly ought to be a fundamental human right and certainly is a prerequisite for a better future. International standards have been agreed on all these rights.

Historically, the International Labor Organization [ILO] has been the repository of that effort. It establishes conventions through a truly unique tripartite mechanism, which involves governments and employers' and workers' organizations.

The beauty of the ILO is that with 184 members the conventions and standards that it establishes reflect virtually the entire international community -- both industrialized and developing countries and both unions' and employers' as well as governments' points of view. That's the strength of the organization.

Q: Why do we need new rules if the ILO has conventions that address the key issues?

A: The ILO does not have the ability to enforce these rules. It has lots of oversight mechanisms and moral authority, which it has used well, sometimes with surprising ingenuity and impact.

But, we believe that we need to find ways to make adherence to those standards more compelling so that even scofflaw governments must comply with these obligations. One approach is through the World Trade Organization [WTO] and multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. On the investment front, we seek greater policy coherence among the World Bank, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the ILO. We look to the private sector for voluntary corporate codes of conduct and ways of standardizing those codes, such as through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or through the United Nations. We're trying to move forward on many fronts. There isn't any one place where we think these rules on worker rights should be enforced or enforceable, but, rather, we're looking for proper modalities to find ways of giving some more teeth to these rules.

Q: Have you had any success in that regard?

POLASKI: One very important development was the adoption in 1998 of the ILO's Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The declaration articulates four major rights that all the member countries of the ILO recognized to be inalienable human rights regardless of the level of economic development:

-- the right to organize and bargain collectively.

-- the right to freedom from forced labor.

-- the right to freedom from exploitative child labor.

-- the right to freedom from discrimination in employment, based on race, nationality, religion, gender, et cetera.

We want to make improvements on occupational safety and health and other issues as well but we recognize that we must start with the basics.

Q: What other successes and setbacks have you encountered in your first year on the job?

POLASKI: Enforcement is really the issue. The rules have been written. We no longer have to debate what we are talking about when we say fundamental worker rights. No matter what country is involved, we know what rights must constitute the floor.

We've looked at a combination of carrots and sticks.

The carrots have primarily been significant heightened flow of U.S. funds for technical assistance to help governments that really want to improve their enforcement of worker rights and domestic labor laws but don't have the human resources, the physical capacity. There has been an increase in those funds, from a few million in the mid-1990's to over $100 million in FY 2001.

It started with funding for programs to eliminate exploitative child labor. There is a strong bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Congress in support of that funding -- $3 million in 1998 and now up to $45 million in fiscal year 2001, primarily for the ILO's International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor [IPEC].

IPEC has a core of experts who try to address the problems from many directions. It's not just a question of getting the children out of the factories or the mines. It's also a question of making sure that schooling is available and the families are provided with alternative sources of jobs so that they can replace the income that the children brought in. Very often, an IPEC program will involve loans to establish cooperatives in villages so that the adults, including women who may not have been in the labor force before, can work and make money through these micro-enterprises in order to be able to sustain the minimum family income while the children go to school.

While the rate of increase of U.S. funding for it has been exponential, even $45 million to deal with these programs all over the world is a drop in the bucket.

Q: What other US funding is available for worker rights promotion?

POLASKI: In addition to the $45 million for child labor, Congress also appropriated $20 million in both fiscal years 2000 and 2001 to support ILO programs of technical assistance in areas related to the four fundamental worker rights. They might train governments to conduct better oversight of freedom of association laws or they might conduct tripartite industrial relations training or dispute resolution.

A number of other countries, the Netherlands, France and the Scandinavian countries to name a few, have also made substantial contributions. These programs are among the important successes during the past year.

In terms of developing instruments for greater enforcement, I would say the past year has been a mixed picture. At the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle, the U.S. government proposed setting up a working group on trade and labor to begin investigating the linkage between the two. There was no enforcement linked to that because we recognize that there is no consensus to do so. However, we were not able to reach an agreement even to study the issue at the WTO.

As the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Social Development in June 2000 in Geneva, we came away with some very good language, in which the international community committed itself to strongly embracing and utilizing the ILO declaration.

We also won language calling on all of the U.N. agencies, which would include the ILO, the World Bank and the IMF, to collaborate closely on policy advice to countries on worker rights and employment issues.

We wanted to make clear that there are many instrumentalities to promote worker rights. The focus on the IFIs allowed us to look at the investment side. The IFIs give money to countries for development and give policy advice on employment generation and social policy. Why not make that more coherent with what the ILO is trying to do and thereby leverage the resources of the ILO and the IFIs to have greater impact? Sometimes countries are sitting in the middle. The ILO is talking in one ear and the World Bank in the other ear, and they're sometimes saying inconsistent things. We were happy to at least get discussion going on that. I would score that as a victory.

We're also involved in advancing the question of how we deal with worker rights issues through trade agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Bilaterally, we're having discussions with Jordan about the possibility of a free trade agreement, including enforceable labor provisions. The Jordanians have a good record on the quality and enforcement of their labor laws.

Q: What does your office see as its key responsibilities?

POLASKI: We need to know what's happening in countries where labor violations occur. We need to be there on the ground. From 33 labor officers that existed up until a year ago, we're now up to 50 in addition to a number of other officers who work occasionally on labor matters. We have labor officers in most of the countries where there are real issues and we can respond more quickly.

It's a tough, complex fight. There are a lot of countries in the world where workers' rights and human rights are being abused. Unfortunately, there are countries even in this hemisphere where worker organizers are getting killed. We prioritize. We pay our closest attention to those situations because, if workers can't feel that they are physically secure in trying to better their lives, they can't do anything. We take those cases that are the most serious and use what leverage we have in the most concerted way. That's some of what we do day-in, day-out in our office.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish by the end of this administration?

POLASKI: I hope that we will complete a free trade agreement with Jordan and that it will have very good labor protection provisions. I hope we will make progress on labor issues in the Western Hemispheric integration process because we want to see closer economic ties amoung the countries of the hemisphere and we would like to think that the Western Hemisphere could be the shining light that shows how we can address these labor issues and need for labor rules. We will finalize determinations on which countries in Africa and the Caribbean will get benefits under the Trade and Development Act of 2000. In some cases there will be stringent requirements on improvements of workers' rights attached to those benefits.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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