By Fred Gabaoury . . .
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Fred's a good egg, but his argument has a couple of holes.
In principle the ILO is a more hospitable place to promulgate and enforce labor standards. Clearly that's one reason why it hasn't the power to do so. The question is, where is the incentive for any government to grant the ILO such power? Where is the leverage? There is none.
I'd be curious to know which ILO conventions the AFL has not ratified, and what their arguments are. Assuming I disagreed with their position, sure I would support a campaign to reverse such a decision. But this is in no necessary contradiction to demanding that trade deals have social clauses, or that the WTO enforce them.
The AFL is already involved in campaigning against sweatshops and out-sourcing. By and large the groups involved in such activities are backed by labor. Sure they could be doing more. I'd like to see them do more. But this is again beside the point.
Trade agreements require political sponsorship. As such, they provide an opening to labor to press for its agenda. There is no reason to pass up such an opening. It's a rare weakness of the system and the way it operates. The indisputable fact that there are other things worth doing as well does not take away from the opportunity that trade deals represent.
We can invent all the noble causes we like. Why can't labor do such and such. Wouldn't that be nice. But the political problem is not to decide what we think is important, but to determine how to connect what we think is important with what everybody else thinks is important, and to find points of entry into the workings of the political system.
mbs