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Labor Continues Battle for Inclusion in the Summit and FTAA In the three days of meetings, the Latin American delegations, led by Brazil, fought hard to limit the role of the labor ministers in efforts to enforce worker rights on a hemispheric level, linking them to the Summit process and, eventually, the FTAA. The draft declaration, crafted by the Canadian and US delegations, attempted to build on the mandate that they perceived from the Santiago and Quebec Summits. The stickiest part of this mandate is its links to other parts of the Summit process and the activities of other international organizations. This is expressed in the Quebec Plan of Action as the effort to "create a process for improved collaboration and coordination on the labor dimensions of the Summit of the Americas process between Labor Ministries and other appropriate ministries and key international institutions within the Americas that have a critical role to play in the improvement of labor conditions, in particular the OAS, the ILO, ECLAC, as well as the IDB and the World Bank." The Brazilians and their allies hoped to relegate the labor ministries to technical cooperation and capacity building at the local level. The OAS Labor Ministerials predate the Summit process, but became part of the FTAA negotiations through the work of Assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs Jack Otero during the first Clinton administration. Working with then Argentine Labor Minister Armando Caro Figueroa, Otero sought to have the Labor Ministers Conference report to the Trade Ministerials on the effects of hemispheric integration on worker rights and the labor market. This effort was hotly resisted, and much of the battle continued in the Miami meeting. Currently, the United States Trade Representative's position is "to build on the work that has already been done under the Santiago Summit Plan of Action. For example, in the Summit preparation process, the United States is proposing that the Labor Ministers be instructed to prepare a further analytic report on basic worker rights and the labor dimensions of a globalized economy as well as begin a dialogue on the labor dimensions of hemispheric integration with Trade and other appropriate ministries." (www.ustr.gov/regions/whemisphere/labor.pdf). Department of Labor representative Jorge P�rez-L�pez mostly reiterated this position at the Miami meeting. Although it may seem odd that the Bush administration would take a similar stand on these issues as its predecessor, the effort actually has less to do with including worker rights in the FTAA. In reality, it ties into the administration's idea of creating a "tool box" of worker rights remedies as a parallel but separate track to the actual trade agreement. Bolstering the role of the OAS labor ministers as well as increasing their cooperation with the International Labor Organization in enforcing basic worker rights is part of the tool box approach. The USTR document on this issue calls for actions to "strengthen and raise the profile of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and provide strong support for ILO initiatives aimed at fostering member countries' adherence to core labor standards, such as the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the new Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor," and to "strengthen and raise the profile of the ILO by improving the ILO's ability to fact-find, spotlight, and hold member countries accountable for violations of core labor standards by strengthening the ILO's existing mechanisms for enforcing member countries' adherence to the conventions they have ratified." Significantly, both of these items were part of the Brazilian-led effort to water down the declaration's more action-oriented sections. Seconded by Argentina and supported by Mexico, Brazil moved to delay a hemispheric conference and to limit the amount of investigative studies on core labor standards in the hemisphere-even child labor conditions. When the US and Costa Rica questioned their motives, the Brazilians responded that the "mandate" was to discuss a "process," not to take action. As in years past, their fear is that the ILO will link the social dimension to trade liberalization. This question was raised at the meeting in a document distributed by one of the official partners of the Summit process, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the ECLAC document, "technological and organizational changes that have occurred, both at enterprises and within the economy as a whole during the last decade-associated undoubtedly to the effort countries have made to optimize their linkages to global markets-have contributed to heightening social inequity." The organization promised to contribute its expertise in this area to the ministers-whether they like the results or not. Unions and business representatives worked closely throughout the meeting to defend their right to participate in the Summit and FTAA processes at all levels. Attempts to limit their presence to only those meetings that "receive" the conclusions of working groups were beaten back several times. Both sectors have practical interests in being part of the whole process and not merely receiving the results. This was about the only success they could point to at this juncture. A large amount of bracketed text remains for discussion at the Ottawa Labor Ministerial. The negotiations will continue on this and many other fronts.
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