Social clauses
Social clauses don't help
Many nroducte cold in Eurono any products sold in Europe,
North America and Japan come from non-union sweatshops in the third world. Minimal health and safety regulations and the savage repression of organised labour ensure low prices and maximum flexibility for ruthless employers. And, far from disappearing with industrialisation, child labour is an essential part o production in many countries.
Some Northern trade unions argue that restricting imports from this kind of company would help third world workers win better conditions, and reduce the incentives for northern companies to "relocate" to cheaplabour countries. Maxime Durand believes that this new protectionism is the wrong strategy.
The debate on social clauses only reflects the damage being done by capitalist globalisation. The bosses are more and more relying on the simple strategy of "everyone for himself". • Liberalisation of currency regulations, speculative capital, speculative investments are all destroying everything which could hinder competition between different parts of the world, with very different levels of productivity.
The idea of the social clause is to organise the rules of the game a bit more. To try to prevent a global levelling down of the working conditions of the proletariat towards the "standards" of the most exploited countries.
A complex debate. And the positions taken by the organised workers' movement are less than clear. We present here two articles which set out the questions we need to deal with.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has five "social clauses". Every socialist, every democrat would defend the right to free association of workers (Clause #87) and the right to negotiate with employers
(#98). We support the respect of ILO clauses forbidding discrimination based on "race, sex, religion, political opinion" etc. (#111), child labour (#38), and forced labour (#29 and 105).
There is a second, wider definition of
"Social clauses", linked to the idea of social dumping. The low wages, poor working conditions and weak social security systems give the Southern and Eastern countries an "unfair" competitive advantage in trade with the
Northern countries, the argument goes. Why not put a special import duty on goods produced in these disgraceful conditions? This would not only reduce the incentive to employ children at low wages, but, the advocates of
"social clause" legislation argue, this tax could finance a range of prolabour aid programmes in the countries concerned.
The problem is that such a tax could never be anything more than a new justification for extremely selective protectionism by the
Northern bourgeoisies. The excite-
"social about ment clauses" is a new script for that tired old story of national unity in hypocrisy between the workers and the bosses of the rich countries.
In economic terms, this new "social"
protectionism is absurd. The main element in the salary difference between the
USA and Bangladesh is the difference in the rate of productivity in the two countries. Because of decades of investment in machinery and training, and because of the supporting infrastructure provided by public funds.
An import duty corresponding to the difference in salary or social security provision would simply eliminate the Bangladeshi product from the US marketplace.
Another problem: Who will enforce the WTO legislation, and how? The fact that we are talking about clauses rather than principles or rights testifies to the fact that the "social clause" movement sees itself as a pressure group on international bodies like the World Trade Organisation (formerly GATT). Why? The struggle to defend wor-
DON'T BUY CHILDREN'S 0078 International Viewpoint #280 15
* Social clauses kers' basic rights is suddenly reduced to a "social" definition of what conditions ought to be considered as "fair competition". *. But workers' rights exist independently of competition. They also exist in the large part of each national economy which is not based on international trade.
The WTO might be willing and able to attack the "social deformations" of the free trade system. Which would, at the same time, reinforce the dominance and the legitimacy of "free" trade — the raison d'être of the WTO, and the fundamental strategy of the imperialist governments.
What ordinary socialists like us ought to be doing is rephrasing the debate in terms of social norms, rather than legalistic clauses.
balance of forces between the oppressed and oppressor classes at a world scale.
International solidarity is no longer a subjective response to apparently similar struggles in different countries. The objective need for solidarity is increasing. For our class enemy has taken a decisive step forward. He is more capable than ever of striking against us in a co-ordinated fashion, in different parts of the world. His weapon is the unified, global market.
Wage earners around the world have little choice. Either we put up with this, or we do something about it. The key step now is to
Transformation organise ourselves better internationally, industry by industry, sector by sector, profession by profession. We need to develop solidarity and co-operation, and begin to define and agitate for our programme of norms on working conditions.
Such international organisation must be based on the principle of class independence. It is not our role to redraft a few clauses in the respectful hope of amending the treaties which define the powers of the WTO. Instead, we should be organising so as to impose new, universal social norms: transcontinental collective bargaining agreements. * and regroupment
We should oppose all expressions of Northem protectionism towards the Southern countries. We have no reason to trust the WTO to act on our behalf. It is the co-ordinated struggle of Northern and Southern workers which can best affirm and defend our rights to decent working conditions.
In previous decades, the world economy was more or less compartmentalised into national and regional blocks. In consequence, the workers' movement could, more or less, defend itself through a series of national struggles. The result was a real, global improvement in the conditions of working people. But a very unequal improvement.
The current long wave of depression in the world economy, coupled with the globalisation of industry, is changing all this. From Switzerland to South Korea, capitalists are threatening to displace production to another part of the world where salaries and working conditions are worse. Workers in each country are being forced into competition with each other. The result is a decline in conditions world-wide. A worsening of the
The collapse of Stalinism and the continuing capitalist crisis has contradictory effects. Myths and illusions connected to the restoration of capitalism in the post-
Stalinist societies have dissipated, faced with the actually existing market economy. But reactions to the socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist struggle, taking account of the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result
14th Congress of the double failure of social democracy and of the Fourth
Stalinism.
International
Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was
Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries.
The organisations of the Fourth International are ready to be part of the regroupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale. At the international level, the Fourth International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. *
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