There were no surprise announcements in store for the world’s top labor leaders when WTO head Michael Moore delivered an address to a Seattle conference of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Nov. 29.

With labor leaders from over a hundred countries in attendance, it was Moore’s chance to say something to the world labor movement, but his message was the same one he’s been pushing since he took office Sept. 1: Workers have nothing to fear from WTO-led globalization because more trade means more jobs.

"Trade is the ally of working people, not their enemy," Moore declared. "Countries that have embraced openness and freedom have increased the real incomes of their workers, which in turn has raised labor standards and reduced poverty."

That’s not the dynamic the world’s workers are observing, though, said ICFTU general secretary Bill Jordan. "The problem for the trade union movement is that in so many countries, too many of the workers we represent are experiencing every day the negative effects of globalization."

"We’ve entered a period of what you could call ‘casino development,’ with too many losers and too few winners."

Without some enforceable international labor standards, labor leaders argue, greater freedom to import and export goods has meant freedom for transnational corporations to shift basic production to the countries with the lowest wages.

Moore listened, head in hands, as labor delegates reacted to his comments. One delegate who had just returned from a factfinding trip to Cambodia reported on an export sector in which 160,000 mostly female textile workers toil 10 hours a day for $2, where workers are beaten for making mistakes and fired for complaining.

As the WTO Ministerial kicks off, international labor is betting on a proposal to create a "working group" that would study the impact of trade globalization on labor standards and issue a report in two years. The United States and the European Union have made such a proposal, but there is opposition in the developing world.

Jordan and AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said they weren’t satisfied with that proposal, but defended it as a useful first step. Jordan said if the WTO’s own working group concludes that trade has had negative impacts on labor standards, there will be great pressure to look at incentives or sanctions.

For the world’s labor movement, and for the WTO, it’s vital that the assembled trade ministers reach some agreement this week about bringing labor standards into the WTO, Jordan said. "If the ministers fail to act, they could be setting in train the beginning of the end of the WTO."

Don McIntosh

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