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

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Cross-border social dialogue and agreements Discussion The MLC negotiations show how, as capital globalizes, so do the state forms needed to support it. Much of the pressure for global reregulation of maritime shipping is arising from intensified class conflict, and the need for a global industrial relations system to resolve it. Investigation of the politics behind the MLC supports the contention that globalizing States are not “retreating” (Strange, 1996), but neither are they continuing as insular entities, “sovereign” in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, States are “transforming” (Sorenson, 2004), as new forms of governance emerge, based perhaps on templates from the interstate system, but where this is the case, these forms of governance function in new ways. Regulatory demands on institutions like the ILO increase, as actors call on them to take on regulatory roles that nation States individually no longer can fulfil. In some respects, the MLC could be regarded as a reassertion of long-abandoned state regulatory authority over maritime labour standards. Despite the growth of private transnational industrial relations systems, ILO agreements continue to be embedded in the formal structures of an international system based on relations between sovereign States. The formal institution of national sovereignty and the intergovernmental global political framework are crucial to the MLC’s governance system. The ILO made this clear when in the January 2004 MLC working group an ILO legal expert stated in response to a question about whether shipowners could violate the convention: “Member states adopt this convention. Only member states can violate this convention. A shipowner is not a member state. A shipowner cannot violate this convention. But a shipowner can violate the standards set out in this convention”. Clearly, the State retains importance as a central source of authority, in that it continues to mediate and apply international agreements. However, in a sense, the State’s role in the MLC is more as an intermediary than a coherent interest. There was a low level of state autonomy in formulating the MLC, and the implementation of the MLC’s “club” formation strategy involves a high degree of interlinked sovereignties. The degree to which States can in practice elect not to implement or enforce the MLC will be very limited (assuming of course that enough flag States ratify it for it to come into effect, and that enough port States ratify it to ensure that there is a strong incentive to comply). 214
The ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 – Lillie Although the formal institution of sovereignty is important in the MLC, it was formulated essentially by unions and shipowners and is aimed primarily at influencing the behaviour of private shipowners. While the MLC seeks to influence flag State behaviour, the primary pressure on flag States to ratify and comply will come not from ILO suasion or pressure from other governments but via the flagging preferences of shipowners. The ILO’s tripartite decision-making process encourages the formulation of transnational class-based interests. In the maritime shipping industry, transnational class-based actors have sufficiently welldeveloped organizations and interests to take advantage of this, and build a functional global social partnership. Corporatism and social partnership at the national level are (or, perhaps more realistically, used to be) state strategies for defusing class conflict through incorporation of fractions of the working class (Panitch, 1981). In the MLC case, States did not exhibit sufficient autonomy from capital to have an actual strategy; rather the class-based interests of the maritime industry actors proved the decisive influence on the formulation of the MLC. Nonetheless, States collectively behaved as agents of capital, restructuring in ways conducive to transnational regulation, so as to fulfil their traditional role of stabilizing and protecting the capital accumulation process by providing the enforcement mechanisms sought by the industry actors. Specifically, through the provisions of the MLC, they regulate the labour market by protecting labour rights as a public good for capital, favouring certain politically influential capital factions, and defusing the class conflict that threatens to undermine the capital accumulation process. The ILO’s brand of global tripartitism is one possible solution to the need to develop and legitimize global systems of labour regulation. References Alderton, Tony et al. 2004. The global seafarer: Living and working conditions in a globalized industry (Geneva, ILO). Bloor, Michael. 2003. “Problems of global governance: Port State Control and ILO Conventions”. Proceedings of SIRC’s Third Symposium, Cardiff University, 19 Sep. 2003 Boockman, Bernhard. 2003. “Mixed motives: <strong>An</strong> empirical analysis of ILO role-call voting”, in Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 263-285. Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR). 1987. The Labour trade: Filipino migrant workers around the world (London, Russell Press). 215
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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 tices unde
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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 4 Varieties of dialogue and re
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