By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Mar 29 2005 (IPS)

The European Union must defend workers’ rights when it revises its system of trade benefits for developing countries next month, the international trade union movement is urging.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is currently revising its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) regulation, which claims to stimulate exports from developing countries to industrialised countries by offering preferential tariff rates.

The Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) say they are deeply concerned that the European Union (EU) and some of its 25 member states are considering a clause to "water down" the labour standards content of its GSP.

The trade union groups are concerned that under the proposed clause, some developing countries which have not ratified the eight fundamental rights conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will still be able to profit from the ‘GSP-plus’ trade benefits with the EU under the GSP.

As part of the GSP, the ‘GSP-plus’ provides increased trade benefits, through reduced tariffs, for countries that have ratified and fully implemented specified international human rights, workers rights, women’s rights and environmental conventions.

The ILO is a Geneva-based UN agency that promotes social justice and labour rights. The organisation formulates international labour standards to set minimum standards of basic labour rights such as the right to organise, collective bargaining, the abolition of forced labour, and other standards regulating conditions across the entire spectrum of work-related issues.

Trade union groups now say that a new labour clause in GSP regulation could have serious ramifications for workers’ rights in developing countries.

"The repercussions would go beyond the EU itself and would lead to a generalised weakening of international efforts to ensure ratification and implementation of ILO conventions," they said in a statement.

In a letter sent to EU commissioner for trade Peter Mandelson last week, the group of trade unions said such proposals are unacceptable.

"We find such a proposal impossible to accept," they said in a letter. "It has always been a condition for the GSP-plus that the core labour conventions be ratified before any trade benefits are granted. We cannot accept that any country can hide behind the pretext of supposed constitutional difficulties in order not to ratify those conventions."

The trade unions say the GSP-plus is meant to be "granted solely as an incentive for proven good practice, and certainly not in return for promises of future merit." They add that the proposed exemption would remove "the prospect of using the GSP as a device to provide a serious incentive to countries to ratify the conventions, and indeed would penalise the actions of other countries that have ratified and do apply the conventions concerned."

ICFTU spokesperson Barbara Kwateng said the Commission’s proposals are sending out the wrong message to governments and countries in developing countries. "A country’s respect for labour standards, namely the ratification of the UN ILO’s core labour standards conventions, has until now been a prerequisite for the granting of trade benefits under the GSP-plus system," she told IPS.

"The international labour movement believes that the EU would prefer to underline a commitment to encouraging the respect for workers’ rights and thereby contribute to the fight against poverty, rather than accelerating a race to the bottom in developing countries," she added.

The trade unions say that the effects of such an exemption would be far-reaching. "The repercussions of the proposed exemption would be felt far beyond the GSP system itself and prompt a generalised weakening of international efforts to ensure ratification and implementation of ILO conventions," said WCL general secretary Willy Thys.

The trade unions highlight the case of El Salvador which may still benefit from GSP plus trade benefits, despite its failing to ratify the two ILO conventions on fundamental trade union rights, and its government’s troubling record of violations of labour rights.

"The text of the GSP plus system is categorical and unequivocal: all beneficiaries must ratify and implement fully all fundamental workers’ human rights conventions. This applies equally to El Salvador, to Sri Lanka and to any other current or potential beneficiary, and the trade union movement will not hesitate to demand an investigation into any country that is in breach of its GSP obligations," said ETUC general secretary John Monks.

The trade unions say the EU must avoid any exemption clause in its new GSP and be "extremely firm" when it consider applications to benefit from GSP plus.

"We insist that the GSP plus must continue to serve as an incentive for the full respect of all fundamental workers’ rights, and consequently, the EU and its member states should take a decision not to support any sort of exemption clause for any country," said Monks.

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