Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

How can we build an international labour court?

Walton Pantland 15th September 2022

Multinationals dominate the economy but no international body exists to defend workers in supply chains.

international labour court,arbitration,ILO
Rescue efforts in the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, in which more than a thousand mainly-female garment workers died, which led to the Bangladesh Accord (Sk Hasan Ali / shutterstock.com)

How do we seek justice and remedy for the world’s workers? The closest thing we have to an international labour court is the Committee on the Application of Standards of the International Labour Organization. CAS hears reports of violations of workers’ rights during the International Labour Conference every summer. But it only hears complaints against governments, not companies, and has little power to sanction.

It is technically feasible for the ILO to manage global labour arbitration through an international agreement, akin to the Paris Agreement on climate change or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This however would require the political will of member states, currently lacking.

Institutionalised compromise

The ILO was founded in 1919 to create institutionalised compromise between capital and labour, managed through tripartite structures with the state and overseen by standards set by an international body. The impetus behind the oldest international organisation in the United Nations system was the first world war and fear of revolution. After the war tore apart the structures of the old world, revolutionary waves spread through Russia, Germany and elsewhere. The governments of the world realised that without social justice there would be no peace, and set about creating a global body to govern the world of work through social dialogue.

As the threat of revolution has faded, and capitalist realism come to dominate, there has been a retreat from the values of the ILO. States have colluded to undermine the right to strike and ILO conventions are often not respected. The global resurgence of authoritarian regimes means that there are growing violations of workers’ rights worldwide. Even in advanced democracies, labour laws have been loosened or avoided with the development of platform work and workers’ rights have taken a significant step backwards.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Despite the decline in the influence and status of the ILO, the need to manage capital and prevent its worst excesses remains, and the idea of a global deal between capital and labour has reasserted itself in other ways. In the absence of a robust international system upheld by global social dialogue, a patchwork of measures has emerged to hold companies to account.

Global supply chains

Many consumers are appalled to learn that the products they buy are produced by exploited workers and have demanded action from companies and governments. The result has been a growing body of legislation governing global supply chains.

The most advanced is the German supply-chain legislation, the Lieferkettengesetz. From January 1st, workers and their advocates will be able to sue German companies in German courts for environmental and human-rights breaches, including of workers’ rights. Similar if less ambitious legislation exists elsewhere and the European Commission has proposed a directive on due diligence.

The Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development offer another avenue. These are not legally binding but each of the 50 adhering countries has a national contact point which handles grievance resolution. Negotiations are also under way on a UN Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights.

IndustriALL Global Union calls for an International Labour Conciliation and Arbitration (ILCA) mechanism to enforce binding agreements between global unions and multinational corporations.

Arbitration mechanism

In 2016, IndustriALL and UNI Global filed an arbitration case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague against two garment brands, for violations of the Bangladesh Accord established in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013. The PCA is an international service which can resolve contract disputes through arbitration, conciliation and mediation. The Bangladesh case was the first time it had been used to resolve a dispute between global unions and multinational corporations. 

One brand reached a settlement in December 2017, the other the following month. In 2018, the PCA closed the case as the brands had met all the terms of the settlements, including paying more than US$2.3 million towards remediating unsafe conditions in Bangladesh ready-made garment factories. The accord distributed the money to eligible factories.

While this victory was important, the process was expensive, time-consuming and complex, showing the need for a better way to resolve international labour disputes. In the settlement, the brands also contributed to the global unions’ Supply Chain Worker Support Fund. This was used to support development of an ILCA mechanism, based on The Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration. The Hague Rules put into practice the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, creating a robust tool, in line with international standards, which can be incorporated in agreements between global unions and multinational companies.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Framework agreements

The labour movement has taken collective bargaining to a global level through Global Framework Agreements with multinationals. Since the first GFA—between IUF, the food workers’ international, and Danone in 1988—many more have been signed.

GFAs use the collective bargaining power of the union in a multinational’s home country to extend workers’ rights to other countries where the company operates, usually guaranteeing—as a minimum—neutrality and no attempts to stop workers from unionising. Although some GFAs have a legal basis in national law, it is difficult to enforce them in all jurisdictions. In some cases there is no sanction for violation, except withdrawal from the agreement.

To create a legally-binding GFA with a mechanism for resolving disputes, an ILCA mechanism would need to be included. But companies are reluctant to sign binding agreements, seeing them as bringing liabilities without benefits.

It was the need to be seen to take action after Rana Plaza which led many global garment brands to sign the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord with UNI and IndustriALL. The accord has since been expanded into an International Accord, focusing on health and safety in the sector. The terms make it binding because it is enforceable in the signatories’ home countries.

Dense patchwork

The absence of a single global system has led to a patchwork of mechanisms to hold companies to account. This is becoming increasingly dense and complex, and innovative work is being done to piece together global grievance mechanisms from existing components. Even in the absence of global agreements that include an ILCA mechanism, unions have been able to win justice for workers by combining legislation, OECD guidelines, commitments made in collective agreements, company codes of practice and so on.

In the textile and garment sector, for example, unions use:

  • the legally-binding International Accord, signed by 174 brands;
  • the ILCA mechanism, with which accord members can resolve disputes;
  • GFAs between global unions and brands;
  • union networks, which allow home-country unions to raise issues on behalf of unions in producer countries, and
  • legislation in a growing number of countries requiring brands to demonstrate due diligence. 

Because many developing countries do not have well-developed industrial-relations or social-security systems, some brands have partnered with unions to develop tripartite social dialogue through the Action, Collaboration, Transformation programme. ACT includes a grievance-resolution mechanism, which the parties involved—global brands, supplier factories and global and national unions—accept as binding.

As this network of laws, agreements and mechanisms grows, the framework for a global system begins to take shape. But as these instruments are binding only in some jurisdictions, they give a competitive advantage to companies based in countries where they are free to violate workers’ rights, while companies which need to demonstrate due diligence are at an expensive disadvantage.

The most obvious case is China, where many of the world’s products are produced by workers with no right to independent representation. But we should not forget that the United States has failed to ratify core ILO conventions. Many US states have restrictive anti-union laws, and north-American companies have generally failed to sign the International Accord, GFAs and other global agreements.

Binding treaty

In the long term, we thus need a binding UN treaty and an ILO convention on supply chains, as well as a global system of arbitration managed through the ILO or a separate panel along the lines of the International Panel on Climate Change. The best way to achieve the necessary political will is to demonstrate that a global system is less complex and more just than a patchwork of cobbled-together standards. It is in the interests of companies and countries to insist on a level playing-field for workers’ rights, as the World Trade Organization does for trade. 

The best dispute resolution is local: a global arbitration system would function by supporting robust national systems, with independent unions, employers’ associations and governments aiming to resolve disputes at the lowest level possible—ideally the workplace, through the involvement of the union. If this fails, remedy could be sought through the national arbitration system—countries would need social-security arrangements capable of distributing remedies to workers, as well as unemployment benefits, pensions and so on—and only as a last resort the global system.

There are growing calls worldwide for basic workers’ rights to be universally recognised and respected. Many workers in developed countries have seen the link between exploitation in developing countries and lower wages and the erosion of their rights at home. Global labour standards stop the ‘race to the bottom’ and protect workers everywhere.

Unions need to help shape this call into a global system that can hold capital to account and deliver justice to workers everywhere.

This is an edited version of an article on the IndustriALL web site, a version of which also appeared on Equal Times

Walton Pantland
Walton Pantland

Walton Pantland is the director for organising and campaigns and shipbuilding and shipbreaking for IndustriALL Global Union. He previously worked for Unite the Union in Glasgow, Scotland.

You are here: Home / Economy / How can we build an international labour court?

Most Popular Posts

European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse

Most Recent Posts

geopolitical,Europe Options for Europe’s ‘geopolitical’ futureJon Bloomfield
democracy,democratic Reviving democracy in a fragmented EuropeSusanne Wixforth and Kaoutar Haddouti
EU social agenda,social investment,social protection EU social agenda beyond 2024—no time to wasteFrank Vandenbroucke
pension reform,Germany,Lindner Pension reform in Germany—a market solution?Fabian Mushövel and Nicholas Barr
European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube