Tuesday, 10 December 2019

Multilateralism in Crisis, APEC Leaders' Meeting 2018 – A good opportunity to rebuild multilateralism
Thursday, 01 November 2018
The ITUC-AP General Secretary, Shoya
Yoshida, met with the Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, Dr Alan
Bollard, on 30 October 2018 in Singapore and presented the Statement of the
International Trade Union Confederation / Asia Pacific Labour Network
(ITUC/APLN) to the 2018 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
“Multilateralism is in crisis with
growing concerns against globalisation,” says the ITUC-AP General Secretary,
“And perhaps the APEC Leaders’ Meeting 2018 is a good opportunity to rebuild
this.”
In view of the upcoming APEC Leaders’
Meeting in November 2018, Shoya Yoshida, on behalf of the ITUC/APLN,
highlighted the following demands listed in the Statement:
- To ensure minimum living wages;
- To promote collective bargaining for
fair wages and working conditions and increasing its coverage;
- To invest in adequate comprehensive
social protection systems;
- To employ formalisation strategies for
the informal economy;
- To purge global supply chains of
precariousness, informality, slavery and child labour and ensure corporate
human rights due diligence;
- To invest public funds in
infrastructure, the green economy and the care economy; and
- To
address gender equalities at the workplace and eliminate the gender pay gap.
The ITUC-AP General
Secretary also reiterated the ITUC/APLN’s demand for the establishment of an
APEC Labour Forum, a new body with consultative responsibilities in parity with
the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) that would also participate in and
contribute to the Human Resources Development Ministers’ Meeting and other APEC
meetings.
On inclusive trade
agenda, Shoya Yoshida stresses that the APEC should include the respect of Core
Labour Standards of the ILO, particularly on the freedom of association (C.87),
right to collective bargaining (C.98), no forced labour (C.105), no
discrimination (C.111) and no child labour (C.182), in to all regional and
bilateral trade agreements, including the RCEP.
On the
recommendations to transform APEC, he added that the APEC should commit on the
following:
- To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of
the UN’s 2030
Agenda;
- To promote due
diligence in compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights of 2011;
- To engage in
promoting environmentally sustainable economy model;
- To ensure minimum
living wage (C.131);
- To promote healthy
and safe workplaces (C.155);
- To strengthen labour
market institutions;
- To formalise the
informal economy;
- To promote gender
equality – C.189 on Domestic Workers,
C.183 on Maternity Protection, C.156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities,
C.111 on Discrimination, C.100 on Equal Remuneration and C.175 on Part-Time
Work;
- To adopt APEC
Guidelines to ensure effective implementation of non-discriminatory policies;
- To address
discrimination against and exploitation of migrant labour;
- To make commitments
to ratify the Protocol to the ILO Forced Labour Convention; and
- To
create and adopt APEC standards for tax justice and to address tax avoidance
and evasion.
Dr Alan Bollard,
Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, assured that he will send the copy
of the ITUC/APLN Statement to the Senior Officials of the 21 APEC Economies for
their attention.
Dr Bollard also
shared the work and initiatives by the various technical working groups in the
APEC process:
- APEC
Vision Group: This working group will provide directions about where APEC
should go beyond 2020.
- Heath
Working Group: Health in the workplace
- Finance
Ministers’ Process: Tax erosion, fair tax issues, inclusive economy issues –
access to banking system
- Trade
and Investment: Components of free trade areas, monitor negotiations, capacity
building for officials in developing economies
Specifically on the
Human Resource Development Working Group (HRDWG), APEC Program Director, Anais
Kedgley Laidlaw, spoke about 3 networks in the HRDWG, namely, Education, Labour
and Capacity Building. She mentioned that the APEC economies are increasingly
interested in ensuring that education policy is aligned with labour market
demands; anticipating future market demands, especially in the rapidly changing
economy; and the main focus is on responding to the digital economy.
According to the APEC
Program Director, this year, the HRDWG has been looking at what competencies
are needed to ensure that APEC youth are able to be employable in the future
and the other is on digital workforce development to see how APEC economies can
harness digital career and technological education, distance learning, to
expand workforce development. On digital workforce development, the Philippines
is very interested in distance learning to reach out to workers in the remote
areas. There is also increasing focus on inclusive trade and Japan recently
initiated a project on “Trade and Human Resource Development, Capacity Building
for Inclusive Trade”. The Taiwanese government is also very focused on this
issue and they have a current project on “Promotion of Sustainable and
Inclusive Growth by Enhancing Social Protection in the Digital Age”.
It was shared that
the ILO was a guest and had presented at a meeting of the HRDWG this year on
“Women in Economy” and Chile has announced that this will be a priority area
next year. In addition, the APEC Dashboard on “Women in Economy”, which gives a
snapshot of where all the different APEC economies are on specific “Women in
Economy” issues, it has just been agreed to add some new indicators on wage
equality to give APEC economies a better idea on how APEC is doing in that area
and it will be available on the APEC website in 2019.
The APEC Executive
Director added that there are ongoing projects and workshops on climate change
and green economy, however, as far as labour migration is concerned, especially
on unskilled labour migration, he shared that it is a difficult issue and could
be a sensitive topic for some APEC economies to pick up.
The ITUC/APLN – formerly known as the ICFTU/APLN – was
established in 1995 in order to support and promote the work of trade unions of
the APEC region in their dialogue with governments, business and other groups
involved in the APEC process. Since its creation, the ITUC/APLN has held
meetings with the heads of state or government hosting the APEC Leaders’
Meeting in virtually every year since its establishment.
- To ensure minimum living wages;
- To promote collective bargaining for
fair wages and working conditions and increasing its coverage;
- To invest in adequate comprehensive
social protection systems;
- To employ formalisation strategies for
the informal economy;
- To purge global supply chains of
precariousness, informality, slavery and child labour and ensure corporate
human rights due diligence;
- To invest public funds in
infrastructure, the green economy and the care economy; and
- To
address gender equalities at the workplace and eliminate the gender pay gap.
- To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of
the UN’s 2030
Agenda;
- To promote due
diligence in compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights of 2011;
- To engage in
promoting environmentally sustainable economy model;
- To ensure minimum
living wage (C.131);
- To promote healthy
and safe workplaces (C.155);
- To strengthen labour
market institutions;
- To formalise the
informal economy;
- To promote gender
equality – C.189 on Domestic Workers,
C.183 on Maternity Protection, C.156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities,
C.111 on Discrimination, C.100 on Equal Remuneration and C.175 on Part-Time
Work;
- To adopt APEC
Guidelines to ensure effective implementation of non-discriminatory policies;
- To address
discrimination against and exploitation of migrant labour;
- To make commitments
to ratify the Protocol to the ILO Forced Labour Convention; and
- To
create and adopt APEC standards for tax justice and to address tax avoidance
and evasion.
- APEC
Vision Group: This working group will provide directions about where APEC
should go beyond 2020.
- Heath
Working Group: Health in the workplace
- Finance
Ministers’ Process: Tax erosion, fair tax issues, inclusive economy issues –
access to banking system
- Trade
and Investment: Components of free trade areas, monitor negotiations, capacity
building for officials in developing economies