Originially from: World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)

Resolving Disputes Over ILO Convention Compliance: A Proposal for A Mediation Service to Help Resolve Conflicts Among Governments, Employers, Unions, and NGOS Over Conformity to ILO Conventions
by Arnold M. Zack

[Delivered to the IRRA National Policy Forum, June 7, 2001]

Increasing globalization is igniting protests from many players
who challenge the impact on workers, local communities, and the
fundamental rights set forth in ILO [(International Labor Organization)]
conventions. Governments, associations, and companies proclaiming their
commitment to fairness in their operations have adopted a plethora of
Codes of Conduct. A skeptical world looks for an impartial expert
institution to help resolve the increasing number of conflicts that are
erupting over these issues. The ILO as the sponsor of the Conventions and
as the conscience of the working world has a unique opportunity to
provide or sponsor a Mediation Facility to help governments, unions,
employers, the [(Non-governmental Organization)] NGOs, and the public
resolve such disputes. It could use its good offices to establish a roster of
mediators skilled in the process, knowledgeable in local labor practices,
and fluent in the disputants' languages. Through a Mediation Office within
the ILO or under its sponsorship, it could encourage the parties to
participate in mediation, and through that role help to meet its bigger goal
of greater conformity to ILO Conventions.

The Paris Herald Tribune on May 12, 2001 had a welcome story
about unemployed textile workers in Greer, South Carolina who had been
hired by BMW. It cited Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Toyota as
also opening factories in the United States. It is wonderful that these
foreign companies opened big factories in the United States to give work
to what the article referred to as "low skilled, low wage earners…among
the thousands who in turn had lost jobs to cheaper-labor nations." I
suppose one could assemble an interesting panel among German and
Japanese management, academics, and union representatives protesting
the loss of their job entitlement to workers in low-wage countries such as
the United States, and of the destructive impact of multinational
corporations destroying jobs in those two countries. But that is the
consequence of our ever shrinking world and the imperative of
corporations seeking lower costs to provide goods at competitive market
prices to remain in the game. It may be fine for us as beneficiaries of these
runaway shops to assure the displaced Germans and Japanese workers that