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You chair the Workers' Group, which is an important component of the UN's only tripartite agency, the ILO. How is the work of this institution relevant to workers? Workers around the world attach great significance to the ILO for a number of reasons. First, they see the ILO as the only organization where they can make their voice heard in global decision-making. Workers in the ILO are treated with respect. They are listened to not as a matter of privilege but as a matter of basic rights. Secondly, they see the ILO as the rule-making body which impacts upon the quality of life for working men and women all over the world, since it seeks to guide governments and employers in the determination of what minimum living and working standards should apply across the globe. The ILO provides an avenue through which workers and their organizations are able to bring international pressure to bear on governments and on companies which fail to observe basic norms of fundamental rights or decency at work. It frequently operates as an international institution through which acts of horror by a government against its own population or against other people may be examined by peers, so that concerted efforts to restore human dignity can be made to achieve results. Are you satisfied with the current way of working in the ILO? We would like to see things moving forward more quickly, but our primary concern is that the work should be done well. We want to reach agreements that can be applied in the best way possible in the field by the ILO, governments, regional organizations, employers and workers. The fine declarations made by the ILO must actually be put into practice in activities and programmes to improve the quality of life for all the people who live in conditions that the decision-makers in Geneva would never accept for their own children. We cannot be satisfied with agreements that would create, for the rest of the world, working conditions that we would not wish to see imposed on our children: very low wages, a lack of safety, a very tough working environment, sometimes corporal punishment, and so on. If the decision-makers in Geneva don't want that for their own families, then they should do more, and faster, to ensure that all the other human beings, who after all are our brothers and sisters, are not obliged to accept it either. And yet these very distressing situations are found all over the world. Why is taking so long to improve things? There are several reasons, but from our point of view, the main one is the overwhelming influence of capital. In most countries, governments need the votes of the masses in order to get elected, so you would think they would have an interest in satisfying the aspirations of those masses. But in reality, governments are very much subordinated to capital, and sometimes stem from the same class. Regrettably, these days capital is less interested in people's suffering and in the quality of life than in profit levels. Those who are active in this world of capital don't make the link between the figures that they see on their stocks and shares and the living standards of their neighbours, of their children's teachers and so on. So they exert pressure in favour of extraordinarily inhuman conditions, not because they know what those conditions are like, but because they are preoccupied with the return on their investment. The world has become very cynical, sort of inhuman. We're no longer concerned about human values, but about the dollar. There's nothing theoretical or radical about saying that - it's a reality. The only ideology is money. Nobody still thinks he ought to be first and foremost his brothers' and sisters' keeper. In these circumstances, the unions' work is particularly difficult, including within the ILO. You are a member of the ILO Commission on the social dimension of globalization. What is the purpose of this body and how is its work progressing? For many years, the various international institutions influencing the globalization of trade and the liberalization of the economy have been experiencing difficulties in dealing with human issues. They often claimed that those issues would be resolved automatically as a result of their treatment of economic and trade questions on their agenda. That actually has failed to produce results. The ILO's World Commission seeks to bring social issues to the fore for international debate, and for that reason alone it is a major step forward in a process that up to now has been going round in circles. The Commission should force governments in every region of the globe and all major institutions to re-evaluate the reasons for their existence - in particular, for the existence of the outstanding institutions that have been created in recent times like the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. The evolution of globalization has to be reassessed too. Institutions should be reminded that they were intended to create a better, more accessible world order in which poverty and want would be significantly reduced. In a real sense, therefore, the ILO World Commission should be seen as practical follow-up to the Copenhagen Summit and to its successor conference in 2000. It should put forward suggestions for a more inclusive global community where increased efforts will be made to provide bread, peace and freedom to all. So you're optimistic about the results of the ILO World Commission's work? The debate about the social dimension of globalization has been going on for a long time. And now, at the instigation of the Director-General, Mr. Juan Somavia, the forum has been created, a forum in which all ILO constituents can express themselves. The commission members come from very different regions and very varied professional backgrounds. Their first meetings enabled them to get to know each other, to know exactly what each of them meant when they said this or that. They have already garnered a large quantity of information and held numerous consultations over this period. Next, we'll reach the moment when all these hours of debate are written down on paper, when we tell the world that what we want is not what exists today. The Commission will have to express a unanimous position. The big question is to know what has to be changed. From the workers' point of view, a new world order is needed that puts people and human values at the centre. Today, if you don't have money, nobody takes you very seriously, even if you're talking about the situation of people who live just a few metres from where you are. You're not regarded as very relevant if you're not capable of influencing economic decisions. We need a new paradigm, decided by the people. What is the Workers' Group doing to achieve that? The Workers' Group is acting in favour of that. It is trying to make everybody aware of the need for corporate social responsibility. Global Union Federations have reached framework agreements with some companies and we're trying to make the multinationals more sensitive to this need. We're doing everything we can to ensure that new standards are created; that the Committee on the Application of Standards, which watches over the implementation of the ILO Conventions, deals with more cases and gets its decisions respected; and that the Committee on Freedom of Association deals effectively with terrible situations like in Myanmar (Burma) and Colombia. We hope that, by raising these problems, we can ensure that ILO member governments have the political will to change and to persuade their neighbours to change their behaviour, so as to respect human values. It's a heavy task, but the Workers' Group must tackle it, with the help of the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities. In June 2002, the ILO adopted a resolution to strengthen tripartism within the organization. Was that because tripartism is really under threat at the moment, or was it to ward off a future threat? I would have liked to reply that we wanted to ward off a future problem, but the reality is that the problem is already here. Over the years, the ILO has often repeated that it is a tripartite organization, but unfortunately on several occasions it has resolutely opted for a multipartite course, what some call "tripartism - plus". The labour movements have often said that they wished to cooperate with civil society, with the NGOs, and this is happening at various levels, but the ILO was created to deal with standards and problems relating to work, and it was tripartite from the start. We think that those who are preaching "tripartism - plus" at the ILO are making a mistake. Hence the resolution. The ILO's social dialogue sector recently published a document explaining clearly what tripartism means - i.e. a dialogue between governments and representatives of workers and employers. The Director-General subsequently repeated that this is the correct interpretation. We welcome this initiative because, although Convention 144 on tripartism was adopted more than twenty years ago, few governments attach much importance to it. It must also be said that, within the ILO itself, some people are more interested in the NGOs than in promoting a social partnership that would strengthen the organization. This attitude must change, and the document prepared by the social dialogue sector can help to bring that about. This doesn't mean that the NGOs aren't important or that they don't have some excellent viewpoints. We must take account of these, but the NGOs are not a social partner and should not be involved in the ILO's decision-making. Interviewer: Mr. Samuel Grumiau, November 2002.
Updated by LO. Approved by MS. Last updated: 7 June 2003.
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Interview with Mr. Leroy Trotman