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Davos, Business and Labour

Let me begin this little essay with Davos, high up on the slippery Swiss Alps, once known to skiers, and now of global renown to the kings and queens of Big Business. Here they flock once a year to the World Economic Forum, where The Private Sector is tempted to think big about their place in the world. Since 1997 Kofi Annan has addressed the Forum three times. In January 1999, he challenged big business at Davos to "embrace and enact" a nine-point Global Compact between the United Nations, business and civil society, covering human rights, labour standards and the environment:

Human Rights

• support and respect the protection of international human rights within their sphere of influence;
• and make sure their own corporations are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour Standards

• freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
• the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
• the effective abolition of child labour; and
• the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

• support policies that protect the environment,
• undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
• encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

As a follow-up to this challenge, in January 2000 at the Davos Forum, the UN launched an interactive website (www.globalcompact.org), a unique resource centre on corporate citizenship. It means something that participants in the ceremonial launching of the website at Davos included Mary Robinson (High Commissioner for Human Rights), Juan Somavia (Director-General of ILO), and Klaus Topfer (Executive Director UNEP). James Wolfensohn (President, World Bank) was there, of course, along with Bill Gates (Micro What?). The heads of WHO and UNICEF, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland and Carol Bellamy were in attendance, calling for support for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. The show is on as I write.

We have a reaction to Kofi Annan's "Compact." Just before the current Davos, the President of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Adam Kassar, handed to the Secretary-General a world business message for the UN Millennium Assembly next September. The ICC has over 2,000 affiliates in more than 130 countries. Speaking at the UN, Adrian Kassar said: "We welcome the Global Compact that the Secretary-General proposed almost one year ago for cooperation between business and the United Nations in raising environmental and labour standards and promoting human rights." Yes? Don't hold your breath. Continuing, he said: "Strong commitment to open markets and the effective treatment of these issues are mutually reinforcing and should go hand in hand." By strengthening capacity in the poorest countries, the ICC says, the UN would help create conditions that would attract investment and link these countries to the global economy.

What about the workers of the world, organized labour? Predating both the League of Nations and the UN, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is governed by tripartite national delegations: government, management, labour. Mother UN in New York, a government club with occasional NGO invasion, is now reaching out to labour as well as management in emulation of ILO. Labour came to the UN Secretary-General on 20 January 2000: representatives of the international labour movement led by Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In discussion with Kofi Annan, there was agreement that the Global Compact posed a new challenge as it set out goals and principles for tripartite collaboration-- labour, business, the UN-- putting human good at the heart of globalization. From labour's perspective, the Compact reinforces the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Strong trade unions make for economic growth and more stable and equitable societies. The UN Millennium Assembly, they agreed, would be a special occasion for renewed commitment to human development.