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The EU-India FTA: Safeguarding Labour and Environmental Rights

The EU-India FTA: Safeguarding Labour and Environmental Rights. 22 January 2014 Georgios.Altintzis@ituc-csi.org. Sustainability Impact Assessment.

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The EU-India FTA: Safeguarding Labour and Environmental Rights

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  1. The EU-India FTA: Safeguarding Labour and Environmental Rights 22 January 2014 Georgios.Altintzis@ituc-csi.org

  2. Sustainability Impact Assessment “The reallocation of labour – especially in the short run – may lead to lower levels of job security in the short run, but will mean higher levels of job security and work quality in the long-run, especially when ILO Core Labour Standards and Decent Work are taken into account.”

  3. Labour trends in Europe Non-regular forms of employment are on the rise • Women and young people are disproportionately represented • Since 2008, temporary and part-time work increased in 22 EU countries • Rapid growth of agency work • Spain, 30.9% of all employment • Main job a part-time job: 19.5% (2011) (from 16.2% in 2001) • the Netherlands (49.1% in 2011), the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Austria (25% to 27%) • Fixed-term employment: 14.0% (2011) tendency to increase • Poland and Spain, Portugal (20%-22.2 %)

  4. Labour trends in South Asia • Growth did not deliver significant numbers of better jobs and decent work • Economic growth in the 2000s largely from productivity gains rather than job creation (“jobless growth”) • India’s case: total employment grew by 60 million in 2000-2005 and 2.7 million from 2005 to 2010 • Labour force participation rate for women is 31.8% (2012) Informality • Large part in agriculture, urban informal and unprotected jobs in the formal economy • India, the share of formal employment has declined from 9% (2000) to 7% (2010), despite record growth rates

  5. How could this fta increase informality in India? AnushreeSinha, 2011, Trade and the informal economy, Trade and Employment ‘From Myths to Facts’, EU/ILO Bacchetta, M; Ernst, E.; Bustamante, J.P. 2009. Globalization and Informal Jobs in Developing Countries, ILO-WTO Co-publication, Geneva.

  6. Labour and other conditionality EC claims that the Sustainable Development chapter is binding and enforceable • It is actually toothless EU-Korea FTA DAGs experience • Problematic representation in the Korean DAG • If a party fails to implement the recommendations of the ‘enforcement body’, there is nothing else that can be done Good parts: • Civil society is there • Structured participation protects the body

  7. The Trade Unions’ proposal • Maintain and implement national laws and regulations, including those issued by sub-national structures • Non-derogation provisions to prevent parties from weakening or waiving labour standards   • Fundamental labour rights conventions • Adherence with the following governance ILO Conventions: • No. 81 Labour Inspection Convention • No. 122 Employment Policy Convention • No. 129 Labour Inspection (Agriculture) Convention • No 144 Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) Convention • Up to date ILO Conventions • Acceptable conditions of work: wages, hours of work, OSH etc. • A system of identifying and preventing the import of products made with forced labour and worst forms of child labour at the border

  8. The Trade Unions’ proposal Dispute settlement mechanism • Clearly defined stages of procedure including time frames • A submission process open to any person of any party to the agreement, • Cooperative consultations and arbitration with binding decisions • Suspension of benefits, not monetary assessments • Sanctions must be sufficiently stringent - a sanction floor • Benefits suspension should first be targeted at the tariffs lines corresponding to the sector in which the violation occurred, broadened to include the tariff lines of a related sector or sectors. • The sanction should increase by 50% for every year of non-compliance

  9. The Trade Unions’ proposal After procedures that guarantee labour standards are in , there could be: • A Labour Affairs Council consisting of cabinet-level officials to oversee the implementation • A forum for civil society (for instance, DAGs) that produces research and regular, independent reports on the implementation In general the institutions should: • Be appropriately resourced with regard to international benchmarks • Include genuinely tripartite governance and consultation structures • Coordinate, where appropriate, with the ILO and other relevant organizations

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