19th Sept 2013 – IRN News Article - Conference targets problem of 'social dumping'

Andy Prendergast.

The inaugural Global Power conference this week addressed ‘social dumping’ – hiring migrant labour at cheaper cost – pointing to the need for an international consensus of improved domestic legislation to prevent exploitation.

The event – the first of its kind, hosted by the TEEU at the Radisson Blu Airport Hotel in Dublin this week – called for global agreements between unions and employers to end exploitation of workers by rectifying the “transational regulation gap in labour relations.”

TEEU general secretary, Eamon Devoy, said at the conference that to prevent social dumping for posted workers, “appropriate employment conditions and fair legislation need to prevail in each home country as part of an international solution to exploitation of workers across the globe.”

Mr Devoy added that a “balance between fair competition on the one hand and respect for workers’ rights, labour laws and appropriate industrial relations on the other” is needed.

He noted that without the REA agreements in electrical contracting and construction, ruled unconstitutional earlier this year by the Supreme Court, it is believed Ireland “will become nothing more than an incubator for contractors using workers from low wage economies, at country of origin rates.”

Dr Michael Fichter of the Free University of Berlin spoke at the conference on a global strategy which consists of three main elements:

“First, it is based on a global framework agreement (GFA), a contract negotiated and signed between transnational corporations and global union federations to set minimum standards of labour and human rights and enable unions to build and strengthen their organisational base.

Second, it is dimensioned to extend labour relations beyond single transnational corporations to encompass the broader arena of global production networks. And thirdly, it is designed to link together local, national and global unions in transnational union networks to enhance the collective voice and organisational leverage of labour.”

PRECARIOUS WORK AND SOCIAL DUMPING

Ambet Yuson, general secretary of the Building and Wood Worker’s International (BWI) union and chair of the Council of Global Unions, spoke at the conference of how the economic crisis accentuated inequality and the erosion of employment rights.

There has been a rise in agency work with “triangular” employment relationships: “the user enterprise often controls the work of agency workers and determines, in fact, their wages and working conditions through negotiations with the agency, but does not assume the responsibilities of the employer.”

The growth of fixed-term contracts, ‘bogus’ self employment, and ‘zero hour’ contracts were also highlighted as causes of concern.

Mr Yuson said that governments “have become hypersensitive to employer arguments that, unless workers make sacrifices the country will become uncompetitive and lose its place in the global economy. These arguments are made regardless of whether jobs are in traded sectors of the economy.”

There have been a number of trade union responses, namely global agreements. Examples of such are the global agreement between IndustriALL, BWI, PSI (Public Services Interntional) and the GDF Suez, a multinational electrical utility company based in Paris, and the global agreement between BWI, IndustriALL, and Lafarge, the world’s largest cement manufacturer, which covers key provisions on contract labour.

LEARNING CRITICAL

Patricia O’Donovan of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (and a former official of the ICTU) spoke about the importance of training and learning in the campaign to combat exploitation.

“New forms of learning and technologies – online training, webinars, massive open online courses (MOOCs) – are increasingly available to large numbers at very low cost, or free to users.”

She said that “one of the main questions for trade unions is are they ready and able to take full advantage of these new learning and training tools to reach out to vulnerable trade union members and other workers, disseminate information about their fundamental rights and entitlements to them as well as advising them of the role of trade unions and the advice and support they can provide to them?”