Paper Example on Trade and Labour Standards

Introduction

Labour Standards are a framework of internationally conventions agreement which determines minimum expectations of rights at work (Ladbury & Gibbons, 2000). According to Trading Standards Scotland (2014), Trade Standards, on the other hand, are the governmental services that harness customer protection as well as supporting legitimate business practices. These services delivery are statutory obligations to spearhead enforcement of fair trading, combat illegal trading, monitor product safety, and verifying weights and other measures (http://www.tsscot.co.uk/about-us/what-trading-standards).

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According to Press Brief on Trade and Labour Standards, labour standards are currently not subject to World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations and disciplines but in some instances, some industrial nations are of the opinion that the issue to be recommended by the WTO as the first step towards bringing the matter of core labour standards into the organization. These industrial member states believe in the rights of collective bargaining, freedom of association and workplace abuse, as matters for consideration in the WTO. They argue that WTO rules and disciplines would provide a powerful incentive for members for purposes of improving working conditions. These proposals have been highly controversial (https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min96_e/labstand.htm).

Rules of The Game, (2014) states that the principle of freedom of association is at the core of the ILO's values, enshrined in the ILO Constitution. It is a right proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right helps employers and workers to form organizations prerequisite for sound collective bargaining and social dialogue. Although freedom of association recognized as a fundamental right at work, unions and their members are still exposed to severe violations of their rights (pg. 28). According to a publication on "Violations of Trade Unionists Rights" (2013), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) estimated that union members had faced violence in 24 out of 87 countries. The trade unionists are murdered in the recent past evident in Colombia when 18 trade unionists killed since January 2012. The governments are arresting or imprisoning workers as a tactic to resist demands for democratic rights, better wages, better working conditions, and secure jobs. Some countries exclude laws and practices and prohibit a specific type of workers from the right to strike.

Encyclopedia Britannica on Collective Bargaining (February 07, 2018), collective bargaining is the process of negotiating conditions of employment between employers and the representatives of workers. The agreement covers wages and a wide range of issue like hiring practices, layoffs, promotions, as well as job functions. Matters of interest to be under debate workers such as working conditions and hours, worker termination, and benefit programs. ILO standards promote collective bargaining and help to ensure that good labour relations benefit everyone. According to Investopedia on the Collective Bargaining Controversies, tax revenues fund wages for public-sector employees, the practice of collective bargaining leads to excessive pay to the worker placing burden on taxpayers. Supporters of public-sector collective bargaining counter that any worries about runaway pay are unfounded and that public-sector employees covered by collective bargaining agreements earn a large amount of taxpayers' money from taxes.

According to Workplace Bullying and Disruptive Behaviour (https://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Research/Files/Bullying.pdf), workplace abuse or bullying is a repeated, unreasonable actions of individuals or a group, directed towards the employee(s), with an intention to intimidate, degrade, humiliate, or undermine the individual(s), resulting to health and safety risk of the said employee(s). This kind of bully involves an abuse or misuse of power typically. The behavior creates injustice and undermines an individual's right to dignity at work. Bullying is unlawful and unacceptable workplace behaviour and should not tolerate in any form. According to the survey conducted concerning Violence on the Job - a Global Problem (20 July 1998), ILO reports that there is an increase in high rates of assaults and sexual harassment on the job. The report mentions that, in the United States, some 1,000 killings take place in job settings every year, and homicide is the leading cause of death on the job for Americans (press release 20 July 1998)

The immediate cost of Workplace bullying range from long-term disruption to interpersonal relationships, the organization of work and the overall working environment. Employers also bear the direct cost of lost work and improved security measures, reduced productivity and efficiency, loss of quality, loss of company reputation and resulting in low clients' turnover.

Most of the developed and developing nations believe that the controversy does not weight the WTO framework. They argue that the efforts to incorporate labour standards into the core of multilateral trade negotiations are little for protectionism. They believe the campaign to bring labour issues into the WTO is a bid by industrial nations to outdo the benefits trading partners of the lower wage.

Conclusion

The controversy is not new as far as trade and labour standards are concerned. There has been a debate in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the possibility of including a "social clause" in the WTO to enforce core ILO labour standards. Member countries make proposals for a decision to undertake work on promoting core labour standards in the context of global trade liberalization.

Reference

Ladbury, S., & Gibbons, S. (2000). Core labour standards. Key issues and a proposal for a strategy. Department for International Development.

Trading Standards Scotland, 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.tsscot.co.uk/about-us/what-trading-standardsBolle, M. J. (2016). Overview of labor enforcement issues in free trade agreements.

Kose, S. (2016). Violations of Trade Union Rights: Case Studies from Turkey in 2000s. American Journal of Sociological Research, 6(2), 43-48.

Egels-Zanden, N., & Merk, J. (2014). Private regulation and trade union rights: Why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights. Journal of Business Ethics, 123(3), 461-473.

Lichtenstein, N. (2016). The ILO and the Corporate Social Responsibility Regime in East and South Asia. In The ILO from Geneva to the Pacific Rim (pp. 277-296). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Encyclopaedia Britannica retrieved from:https://www.britannica.com/topic/collective-bargaining

Marx, A., Brando, N., & Lein, B. (2017). Strengthening Labour Rights Provisions in Bilateral Trade Agreements: Making the Case for Voluntary Sustainability Standards. Global Policy, 8, 78-88.

Investopedia on the Collective bargaining Controversies. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collective-bargaining.aspDevadason, E. S., Chandran, V. G. R., & Kalirajan, K. (2018). Harmonization of food trade standards and regulations in ASEAN: the case of Malaysia's food imports. Agricultural Economics, 49(1), 97-109.

Francioli, L., Hogh, A., Conway, P. M., Costa, G., Karasek, R., & Hansen, A. M. (2016). Do personal dispositions affect the relationship between psychosocial working conditions and workplace bullying?. Ethics & Behavior, 26(6), 451-469.

Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., & Cooper, C. (Eds.). (2003). Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace: International perspectives in research and practice. CRC Press.

Busby, G. (2015). Incidence and cost of workplace violence. Journal of emergency nursing, 41(1), 5.

Johnson, P. R., & Indvik, J. (1994). Workplace violence: An issue of the nineties. Public Personnel Management, 23(4), 515-523.

Lype, B. E. (2017). Violence at Work. Tenn. BJ, 53, 12.