[CTC] Vietnam ready to make labor reforms for TPP

Wed Sep 9 09:29:05 PDT 2015

https://www.politicopro.com/trade/story/2015/09/vietnam-pitches-labor-reforms-for-tpp-053577 <https://www.politicopro.com/trade/story/2015/09/vietnam-pitches-labor-reforms-for-tpp-053577>

Vietnam ready to make labor reforms for TPP

Politico
By Adam Behsudi
September 9, 2015

Vietnam is ready to allow workers greater freedom to organize independent labor unions for the first time in the communist country in order to ease its membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

But don't expect U.S. labor groups to endorse the move.

Hanoi has expressed a willingness to allow workers to form unions at specific workplaces independent of the state-run Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, sources tell POLITICO. The development promises to help settle one of at least a half-dozen major obstacles to wrapping up the 12-nation Asia-Pacific trade deal in the coming weeks: Getting both Vietnam and Mexico to comply with the trade agreement's labor rules.

There's one wrinkle, however, that U.S. labor leaders still find unacceptable. The workplace-specific unions would have to register with the state union confederation and would be restricted from organizing industry-wide.

Until Vietnam allows fully independent unions, Owen Herrnstadt, chief of staff at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the country isn't meeting the principles of freedom of association laid out by the International Labor Organization.

“International labor standards and human rights are one size fits all,” Herrnstadt said. "You either meet them or not.”

The development was no doubt talked about when U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Nguyen Sinh Hung, chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly, the country’s legislative body, met Tuesday in Washington. The USTR’s office provided few details from the meeting, except to say that it covered “outstanding issues in the TPP negotiations and the legislative process for ratifying the agreement in each country. They discussed the importance of concluding the agreement as soon as possible so workers and businesses in both countries can begin benefitting from the agreement.”

The TPP talks were meant to wrap up in late July when trade ministers gathered in Hawaii, but the negotiations got hung up on dairy and sugar market access and automobile trade rules, as well as the labor issues.

Vietnam, a major emerging Asian market, is considered a valuable partner in the deal with a popuation of nearly 90 million and average tariffs still set at 9.5 percent, the highest among TPP countries. How the country opens itself more to free trade and market forces could also serve as a test case for its much larger communist neighbor to the north, China.

But in order to participate in the TPP, Vietnam must prove it can meet the requirement to allow workers the freedom to organize independent from the government or employers. The standard to which any action is being measured is the ILO, a group under the umbrella of the United Nations. The ILO has no specific definition on what it means to grant workers the right to organize, but the organization's Committee on Freedom of Association has offered its opinion in thousands of complaints about freedom of association.

Mexico is also being pressured to uphold its laws on freedom of association. The AFL-CIO and Mexico’s National Union of Workers last month demanded <http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/163134/3996145/UNT+and+AFLCIO+Joint+Declaration_081215.pdf> the Mexican government seek to end “protection contracts” in which employers negotiate collective bargaining agreements with employer-dominated labor unions. The groups say such an arrangement “hijacks the right of workers to authentic representative organizations and denies workers access to genuine collective bargaining.”

In the end it could be up to the United States to consider any action Vietnam takes as a step in the right direction when it comes to participation in the TPP, even if it falls short of fully complying with international standards on the right to organize.

“I do get the impression they are negotiating for the highest level possible, but the U.S. does want Vietnam in the TPP pretty badly,” said Murray Hiebert, a Vietnam expert at the Center for Strategic and International studies.

“I wonder if the U.S. maybe lets them (Vietnam) start here and maybe over a five-year period move closer to International Labor Organization standards,” he added.

Vietnam agreed <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/07/united-states-%E2%80%93-vietnam-joint-vision-statement> in July to “carry out whatever reforms may be necessary” to meet the standards of the trade deal, including the adoption of fundamental international labor standards.

Froman is also publicly pushing for Vietnam to adopt fundamental labor rights as laid out by the ILO.

“Vietnam will need to allow workers to form and join independent labor unions,” Froman wrote in a Monday editorial <http://www.democracyjournal.org/37/getting-trade-right.php?page=all>.

Hung could be an important figure in pushing for any reform, since it would likely have to pass through the country’s legislative body, Hiebert said.

Most decisions by the Communist government are made by a select few at the top, but members of the National Assembly has grown more independent under Hung’s leadership, he said. But Hung’s authority over labor rights could be limited, considering the issue is central to Communist ideology, Hiebert added.

Labor groups in the U.S. are concerned that meaningful reforms may never take place in Vietnam if the U.S. government doesn’t take advantage of the leverage it has right now.

Enforcement of labor rules in trade deals have been a point of contention with U.S. labor groups, who argue that the dispute settlement process is rife with delays and inaction. U.S. government officials have pledged <https://www.politicopro.com/trade/story/2015/04/trade-deal-promotes-labor-rights-unions-not-impressed-046026> to act faster on complaints by launching disputes as soon as there is enough evidence to do so.

“What really matters is whether or not the changes have been effectively made before becoming a signatory to the agreement,” said Herrnstadt of the Machinists.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20150909/0c5f3536/attachment.htm>