CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

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Cross-border social dialogue and agreements so far as corporations retain unilateral control of how these rights are applied, this trend represents a privatization of rights formally guaranteed in the public sphere. The case of the ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC) shows, however, that where there are sufficiently transnational and coherent global political actors representing labour and capital (particularly labour), global tripartitism in the International Labour Organization (ILO) context holds the promise of reintroducing effective state enforcement of labour standards. Within the ILO, 181 member country governments and representatives of the “social partners” (unions and employers) write the international conventions that are the basis for the current global labour rights regime. As with international regimes generally, ILO labour standards exert normative pressure on governments to comply with and implement standards in national legislation. ILO standards have also become the basis of private international standards regimes, used by transnational corporations (TNCs) to respond to or preempt criticisms of complicity in labour rights violations. In maritime shipping, neither the state-centred nor the emerging private labour standards regime serves the functional requirements of existing transnational labour market actors (unions and employers) 3 particularly well. In 2001, seafaring unions and shipowners in the ILO’s Joint Maritime Commission proposed a consolidated maritime labour convention, bringing together in a single instrument many existing maritime labour conventions, updating them, and applying an enforcement mechanism. The new instrument, passed after years of sometimes difficult negotiations in the February 2006 Maritime Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC), borrows elements both from the existing ILO global labour rights regime and from the global maritime safety regime, centred on the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The MLC will come into force when ratified by at least 30 member States registering ships totalling at least 33 per cent of world gross tonnage. The MLC paradigm applies different aspects of state authority in a fragmented manner, knit together by practices of maritime industrial regulation. Beside the traditional member State implementation model, in which member States commit to respecting ILO standards in their own sovereign space, the MLC will have member States enforcing labour 3 In the shipping industry, it is accurate to describe both employers and unions as transnational actors (Lillie, 2004). 192
The ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 – Lillie standards directly on each other’s ships through the established maritime mechanism of port State Control (PSC). This involves a shift in the boundaries of state sovereignty in some respects, because ships, in a legal sense, have been regarded as floating pieces of their flag States’ territories. However, practically, PSC will also operate as an incentive encouraging shipowners and flag States to adequately regulate their own shipping. In this sense, the flag State role still remains primary. Pressures to change the boundaries of sovereignty, as far as labour rights are concerned, arose from the transnationally organized interests of maritime industry actors representing capital and labour at the global level. Political impetus for the convention came from pressure on shipowners to implement globally uniform standards in an industry deregulated through flags of convenience. Global collective bargaining in the industry has resulted in a significant faction among of shipowners being forced to operate under union collective agreements (Lillie, 2004). This faction, associated with the International Maritime Employers’ Committee (IMEC), International Merchant Mariners Association of Japan (IMMAJ) and other employer members of the Joint Negotiating Group (JNG), seeks to “level the playing field” with low-standard operators by re-regulating the industry at the global level. The emergence of this conciliatory shipowner faction opened political opportunities for unions to push for enforceable global labour standards, and in particular to make the link between labour rights and PSC. In addition to reflecting the interests of the industry actors, the text was also shaped by the tripartism of the ILO, and the precedents set by existing international regimes: in particular the labour rights and maritime safety regimes. ILO Conventions are passed through voting in assemblies consisting of unions, employers and governments. Unions and employers are divided into two “social partner” groupings of national associations. For the maritime section of the ILO, the social partners are referred to as the “seafarers’ group” (workers/unions) and “shipowners’ group” (employers’/shipowners’ associations). Unlike transnational pressure groups in other intergovernmental organizations, union and employer representatives at the ILO have voting rights. The social partner groupings are led by representatives from among the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and International Shipping Federation (ISF) national affiliate organizations, although national social partner representatives need not be members of those organizations. 193
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CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AG
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Published by the International Inst
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Cross-border social dialogue and ag
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Contributors Dominique Bé, an econ
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Contributors Nathan Lillie is Assis
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Acronyms BWI Building and Wood Work
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Introduction Konstantinos Papadakis
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Introduction - Papadakis each with
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Introduction - Papadakis above. Thi
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Introduction - Papadakis role of co
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Introduction - Papadakis veaux enje
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Chapter 1 International framework a
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International framework agreements:
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Chapter 3 International framework a
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International framework agreements
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Part 3 Legal dimensions 113
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Appendix
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