Helsinki (04.10.2002 - Juhani Artto) Finnish President Tarja Halonen and the President of Tanzania jointly chair a World Commission tackling the social dimensions of globalisation. The decision to establish the organ was made in November 2001 by the International Labour Organisation – ILO. The Commission began its work in February 2002.

ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola, who served between 1972 and 1996 twelve years as International Secretary of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions – SAK, spoke at the end of August in Helsinki about the background to the founding of the Commission and the functions that it will perform.

"We are fairly clear about the social problems involved in globalisation. We know what is going wrong. Now we must find answers and build bridges to solve these problems," Tapiola observed. "Globalisation also incorporates features that can accelerate solutions to these social problems."

"The background to the World Commission is the view that globalisation does not function in a way that benefits the majority of humanity."

After the end of the Cold War, more than ten years ago, a belief became globally widespread that a combination of democracy and market economics would overcome injustice and obstacles to development. Kari Tapiola explains what followed: "This belief retained popular currency into the late 1990s, even though it had become obvious that a mere combination of democracy and market economics does not suffice to eliminate poverty and child labour. Instead of this, phenomena like poverty, child labour and other difficult social problems became more visible in the transformed world. This has increased the pressure for real progress in alleviating problems, which has also improved the success conditions for the work of the World Commission."

Over the first six months of next year, the 21 eminent members of the World Commission will submit proposals for solving the most pressing problems. Some proposed alleviation measures are already expected in the short term. The Commission will work on a broader spectrum of issues than the ILO. This agenda may include issues such as migration, third world debt and the liberalisation of markets in the industrialised countries.

Technical assistance preferred to sanctions

The work of the World Commission stresses efforts to achieve results that will gain broad global acceptance. Kari Tapiola explains the scale of the desired consensus: "In the USA it is necessary to involve both Republicans and Democrats in the process of implementing the proposals, as well as the business community and the trade union movement." Broad acceptance can be expected only of proposals from which all parties believe they will benefit.

Two other examples further illustrate what the present ILO means when it talks of an open-minded search for solutions. The first of these concerns Burma, a country that, since summer 2000, has been subject to an international boycott recommended by the ILO because of its widespread use of forced labour. The boycott campaign has captured the attention of Burma's ruling military junta, which has made certain moves to get the boycott lifted. In Summer 2002 the ILO opened an office in the Burmese capital Rangoon to promote co-operation with both the ruling administration and the opposition to establish zones in the country that are free of forced labour.

"Instead of sanctions and criticism, technical assistance and co-operation have become increasingly important in the work of the ILO," Tapiola notes.

Kari Tapiola also had news to share from Saudi Arabia – a State with a sustained notoriety for serious violations of international standards governing working life. "Even a few years ago I could never have guessed that in November 2001 ILO representatives would be negotiating in Riadh with Crown Prince Abdullah about an employee participation system."

Kari Tapiola concedes that it will take time before concrete changes emerge in Saudi Arabian working life, but he feels that even the beginning of the co-operation process itself is a significant opening. "In these matters going through the first fifth of the journey is often more important than going through the last fifth."

The social clause would not guarantee basic rights

Surprisingly, Kari Tapiola is critical of the "social clause" that has long been one of the main demands of the international trade union movement. The idea of the social clause is to incorporate a condition in the rules governing international trade, allowing governments to limit market access of goods that are produced by methods that contravene core labour standards.

Besides the trade union movement, the USA and many of the European Union Member States have warmed to the social clause. Developing countries, on the other hand, have generally opposed it, suspecting the industrialised countries of seeking to use the social clause as a means of protecting their own products against competition from the developing countries.

Kari Tapiola feels that the campaign for the social clause has been problematic, in the sense that it has focused the debate on standards in working life on the notion of a sanction. He characterises as illusory the opinion that the social clause – which itself is an application of a certain kind of sanction procedure – could play a decisive role in enforcing the core standards of working life. One example of alternative approaches noted by Tapiola is the option of granting more favourable terms of trade to developing countries that implement core labour standards.

"Despite its problematic aspects, the trade union campaign for the social clause has provided a stimulus for achieving many good things," Tapiola continues. "The campaign of the trade union movement has made it easier to reach a consensus within the ILO on core labour standards, and the Organisation has created a system for monitoring enforcement standards. Ratification of ILO Conventions on core labour standards has also made progress around the world, and is now approaching the point where these standards may be viewed as universal," he observes.

The World Commission in an independent role

The World Commission prepares its proposals in dialogue with other bodies, including UN organisations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation – WTO. The Commission secretariat comprises ILO officials.

Kari Tapiola emphasises that the Commission will fashion a concluding document from creative conclusions of its own: "This organ has not been set up to serve as a rubber stamp, merely to present the work of others as its own. The text will not be ceremonial, but will above all comprise concrete proposals."