Fine-Tuning the Linkage Proposal: Commentary

A cross-country comparison which finds ‘Strong evidence that countries with open trade policies have superior labor rights and health conditions and less child labor’ (Flanagan 2004: 26) suggests that openness to the world economy does not undermine workers’ rights and may even enhance them. However, the finding that in any particular country openness to the world economy can go with high labour standards is not incompatible with the proposition that globalisation as a process undermines labour rights globally.

One process by which this could and does take place is by the transfer of production from countries with higher labour standards to countries with lower standards, leaving workers in the former unemployed. Thus in developed countries, jobs in the labour-intensive textile and garment industries have been decimated as production shifted to developing country export sectors (Williams 2004; Narendranath 2004). This has also caused job losses in developing countries, when production moved from higher-wage countries like Korea to lower-wage ones like Cambodia. Outsourcing in the service sector led to further transfer of employment from developed to developing countries, leading to calls for a curb on outsourcing in the US (Alden 2004).

A less obvious, more insidious way in which labour standards are undermined is by the spread of low labour standards to countries which did not formerly suffer from them, or at least not to the same extent. The global expansion of informal labour – workers who do not have any formal employment contract with an employer and therefore are extremely vulnerable to abuse – is a case of this. Informal labour was always preponderant in India, but the expansion of homeworking, sweatshops, and the hiring of workers through intermediaries (‘labour contractors’, ‘agencies’, ‘gangmasters’ and so on) in countries which were formerly free of these problems (Mather 2005) has caused serious concern within the ILO in the 21^st century (ILO 2002).

In this context, the publication of International Trade and Labor Standards, with its carefully crafted proposal for a linkage between trade and labour standards that is both feasible and capable of stopping the downward pressure on labour standards, is of great importance. The authors have taken up objections to linkage in a step-by-step manner in order to formulate a proposal that meets almost all the arguments against it that are commonly put forward. This paper is an attempt to strengthen it by tackling some of the few remaining weaknesses.

No Peace Without Human Rights

I have been asked to talk about Rajan Hoole and Kopalasingham Sritharan of University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) (UTHR(J)), who received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders this year. I was absolutely thrilled when they got the award, because I had been feeling for years that they hadn't received sufficient recognition for the amazing work they had been doing under extremely difficult circumstances, without any institutional support
or proper funding, and leading a hunted existence due to their refusal to give up human rights work despite death threats from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon

Review of Tomorrow is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement in India and Ceylon, 1935-48, by Charles Wesley Ervin, Social Scientists’ Association, Colombo, 2006, xiii + illustrations + 366 pages

Tomorrow is Ours is an impressive account of the emergence of the Trotskyist movement in Ceylon and India, ending soon after Independence in both countries. The first chapter sketches the historical background: Mughal India, the rule of the East India Company, the consequent de-industrialisation of India, the 1857 insurrection followed by the takeover of India by the British government, the building of the railways and genesis of the textile industry, and the origins of the national movement. This is followed by a summary of debates within the Marxist movement on the national and colonial question, the nature of the impending revolutions in the colonies, and the united front vs. the popular front, all constituting an essential theoretical background to the ensuing account.

Erasing Diversity and Hybridity

Erasure of the Euro-Asian: Recovering Early Radicalism and Feminism in South Asia, by Kumari Jayawardena, Social Scientists’ Association, Colombo, 2007, iv+312 pages + photographs

The significant contributions to history of Euro-Asians – a term coined by Kumari Jayawardena to encompass Burghers, Anglo-Indians and Eurasians – are documented in detail in this book, which deals mainly with Sri Lanka, but also takes up some cases in India, and a few elsewhere. The central question posed by it is the following: There were many men and women of mixed European and Asian descent in India and Sri Lanka, who questioned both foreign domination and oppressive local social structures – visionaries and agitators who supported national liberation, feminism, pluralism, secularism and the rights of workers and peasants – yet their contribution to history has largely been erased. In the case of Euro-Asians of maternal European descent, such as Ananda Coomaraswamy, they have been recognised, but at the cost of erasing their mothers. What is the reason for this denial? 

Review of Globalization, Employment and Income Distribution in Developing Countries

Globalization, Employment and Income Distribution in Developing Countries edited by Eddy Lee and Marco Vivarelli. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006, xvii + 253 pp., ISBN 0 230 00783 X, £65.00

This book presents the findings of the second stage of a research project funded by the UK Department for International Development and carried out by the International Policy Group of the International Labour Office. The focus of the project was on the impact of trade and investment liberalization on employment, within-country inequality and poverty reduction in developing countries. While the first stage of the project carried out a general worldwide review, this book is based on country studies of Morocco, Ghana, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Nepal.

Imagine There's No Countries, Nothing to Kill or Die For (from 'Imagine,' by John Lennon)

 

I would like to look at the issue of community and nationalism and its continued relevance at the present, and in particular to analyse its association with authoritarianism, militarisation, nuclearisation, terrorism, and questions of war and peace in South Asia.     Within this region, there is a very close parallel between the current situation in Sri Lanka and developments which have taken place much earlier in India, Pakistan, and later Bangladesh. In both cases, we see the development of strong authoritarian tendencies, linked up to either religion or ethnicity.

The Case for Banning the VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS

In the context of the prolonged and horrific violence in Gujarat, there have been numerous calls for the VHP and Bajrang Dal to be banned. For some people, evidently, the well-documented role of these organisations in planning, inciting and perpetrating systematic attacks on Muslims – destroying their livelihoods, driving them out of their homes, raping hundreds of women and girls, and murdering thousands of men, women, children and babies – seems an obvious reason for outlawing them.

Others, however, disagree. Even if we leave aside members and supporters of the VHP and Bajrang Dal, there are objections which can be summarised as follows: (1) Bans are undemocratic. (2) Who will ban them? Not this government! (3) It won’t work – they will go underground, or change their names. (4) Endorsing the use of a ban against them will make it easier for the government to ban organisations and harass individuals engaged in legitimate activities.