”Labour Law and its impact in globalization”

Table of Content

Page

I. Introduction.............................................................................................................................3

II. Globalization Historical Background.....................................................................................4

III. The effects of Labour Law on Globalization........................................................................5

III. The globalized Labour Law..................................................................................................6

III. Conclusion............................................................................................................................7

III. Bibliography.........................................................................................................................8

1. Introduction

The Labour Law, in spite of being a relatively young discipline that is born in the XIX century and that consolidates in XX century, has been object of great changes. Particularly at beginnings of the 21st century, it was found in a process of continuous transformation where their limits are discussed, their perspective and their evolution. An additional element of analysis is the globalization context in which are immersed the labor relations.

The advantages and the hope that are adjudged to the globalization are of the same size of the distrust and fear that it generates. The possibility of a world without borders is characterized by the flow of capitals, people and goods and services that necessarily will improve the conditions of life of people in the entire orb, mainly of the developing countries. Nevertheless, also it is perceived to as a phenomenon that brings an increase of the inequalities.

For the workers, the globalization has generated fears, the transfer of the companies towards the countries where the wage costs are smaller has brought the increase of unemployment and generated pressures to diminish the standards of social protection, that until years ago were considered irrefutable.

Nevertheless, the globalization seems irreversible, in that sense, the present work tries to give a focus of labour law in this context. We will begin giving an historical approach of the process of the globalization, putting emphasis on it has been developed throughout the time. Then, we will concentrate in the effect that has the globalization in labour law. As a last part, we are going to finalize with an analysis to the Globalized Labour Law.

2. Globalization Historical Background

When we talk about globalization, we talk about some aspects in particular like, a generalized world in which things are equal or where they mean the same; a world without geographic, socio-cultural, economic and even political borders.

Also, the term “globalization”, includes the new discoveries of the man and the technological innovations that change our form to see the world, creating an impact at world-wide level, where the central objective is to turn the entire planet into a great market.

The idea of a global world, in which all the individuals are affected in the same way as a result of facts happened in distant points of the planet, has acquired great connotation in the recent years. The expansion of the new technologies of information and communication, the renewed impulse to the opening of the commercial exchanges between the nations, are facts that would seem to confirm that the globalization of the planet, the transition from national and regional scales to a global scale of exchanges and relations is something recent.

Nevertheless, in spite of the magnitude that has reached, the phenomenon of the globalization is not new. It has exactly an antiquity of five centuries, when, for the first time in history, two conditions were simultaneously verified: the increase of productivity of the work and a global world order. But it is not until 1945, shortly before finalizing World War II, where the United Nations, still in constitution process, realizes a Financial Conference in Bretton Woods (USA), where it was decided to create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Shortly after, in 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Commerce (GATT), predecessor of the WTO, was signed. In what is related to development policies, the Marshall Plan was implemented. However, when the war ended, the world was divided in two great political-economical blocs: the capitalist bloc with the undisputed leadership of the United States and the communist bloc with also the undisputed leadership of the Soviet Union, what gave origin to the so called Cold War. In that period, the capitalist countries were reorganized, guided by the agreements of the GATT, in the OECD. The internal product of that bloc was expanded and at the same time it started to appear the “corporations” or multinational companies, with great economic and political power. Generally, the beginning of the globalization is located at the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union disappears and the communist bloc that it headed, whose failed experiment of collectivism represented the decline of the projects of closed societies and protected economies. Although the auto dissolution of the Soviet Union took place on December 25, 1991, it has become general to symbolize it with the fall of the Wall of Berlin on November 9, 1989. From that moment, a new historical period began: the globalization with great advances for the capitalist countries.

The globalization and the fast technological revolution have their advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it is evident that the new economic forces bring opportunities for the economic development and the expansion of the employment in each country. The globalization promotes the liberation of the commerce, the elimination of the nontariff barriers and the leveling of the tariffs. As a main effect, what it produced is the free mobility of capitals in a world-wide single market. But the fast rate of globalization and technological progress entail to problems that are common in all the countries. The competition becomes indiscriminate and the economic changes that bring the confluence of world-wide economic integration with the technical advances can generate instability and difficulties in the employability of a great part of the active populace of a country.

In the following chapter, we will see how these multiples economic changes have affected Labour Law.

3. The effects of Labour Law on Globalization

The world where we living has suffered an enormous number of changes and they will continue happening. The globalization of the world has show that the border of a country is not a limit for work. It means that there is a new direction in the focus of labour law in the world. How are national and international labour laws responding to the challenge of globalization as it re-shapes the workplaces of the world? The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the body that is responsible to look into the activities of companies and multinational and watch that international labour standard being respected. This organization “has maintained and developed a system of international labour standards aimed at promoting opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. In today's globalized economy, international labour standards are an essential component in the international framework for ensuring that the growth of the global economy provides benefits to all.”

As the nature and organization of work around the world is being decisively transformed, new regional and international institutions are emerging. That may provide the platform for new labor standards, and for protecting existing ones.

In history, as we have seen before, the first to demonstrate a globalized world were some countries in Europe and North America, when they were metamorphosed from a single individual country to a free trade union, forming the EU (European Union) and NAFTA (North America Free Trade Area) respectively. In our days, this allows that economics resources in these regions being easily moved without interference, including labour. Hence the need to enact a common law to protect the labour forces of these countries, to bring the same rights for everyone in any workplace, not being discriminated. Labour law are made to protect the interest of the workers, therefore that situations like social dumping must be tackled to its barest minimum and individual right of all worker be protected.

The European Union has harmonized the labour law to its member’s countries with no exception. The member countries have vested power on the European Parliament to do it, to get the same law and order in all the member states. Therefore, this goes along the way to effect the required changes among the member states. This means that any company, who employs a worker in any of the member state, must be in strict adhesion to the labour law in the European Union, whereas in the NAFTA region the approach is quite different from the European Union. Harmonization is not the key word in the NAFTA. Among these three member state countries, namely USA, Canada and Mexico, the labour law is treated individually. These three member states are guided by a mechanism which allows them not to interfere with each other. Each member state works out with own modalities about wages, child labour, etc.

Other regions of the world, e.g. Africa, Asia, South America, and Oceania, all have laws protecting the workers and annexing their efforts in protecting the right of their workers.

More than agreements and relations, globalization has made that the world has gained its status of being a global village. Also, with the help technological advancement, the need for good and functioning Labor Law cannot be overemphasis, although it seems enormous to

attain a high level of productivity in the globalised world, a good labor law protecting the right of workers must be in place.

4. The Globalized Labour Law

The economic, legal and cultural changes in the world are multiple, that as a result of the processes of adaptation at the different historical moments, derived, among other things, of new forms of interchanges of goods, value and capital, model and explain a more complex reality.

Is in this context in which each one of the scientific disciplines realize a detailed description, but necessarily partial and limited, of their objects of observation, which makes this task even more difficult, being in the production of norms where these obstacles are demonstrated, because in them it is tried to objectify and to contain the human life to which they are led to regulate.

Confronted with these reflections, labour law has found difficulties at different moments before the frequency whereupon it has been overflowed by new realities, being several the social relations that hardly find legal consequences for not have being anticipated by the legislator and which, nevertheless, in relatively recent times have found in the processes of economic integration the efficient normative cause for their later formalization in international instruments that take the form of treaties.

Labor Law has been feed up certainly by local or national phenomenon and by those beyond the borders of the states, which necessarily imply relations that alter the balance of the social and legal systems. If we consider the economic integration as a process referred to the globalization of markets that implies several legal status that involve diverse forms and representations which are tied to the economies between the diverse countries in order to eliminate or to suppress restrictions on goods, people, capitals and technology to create institutions, to coordinate common policies and to adopt communitarian instruments. If we understand that the legal status are translated to norms that regulates the diverse activities, policies to implant, and the action of the different agents that take part in the integration processes, then we can infer that when we analyze the new legal-labor relations derived from a process of economic integration and legal norms, we will talk about a “globalised labour law”. When studying this, taking in consideration the effects and possible consequences within it, it could be possible to prospectively discern the evolution of the normative systems.

The subject of the Globalised Labour Law could be tackled, not only by the International Labour Law, but also by other legal branches like the own International Public Law, set of legal norms that regulate the relations between states and international organizations, or by the International Private Law, set of legal norms applicable to the individuals in their international relations.

5. Conclusion

The labour law, far from what we could think, never has been absent of the globalization processes. In fact, it could be indicated that the labor law has been pioneering in the construction of a global world, through the establishment of a transnational labour legal frame, in other words, of an international labour law.

In this work, we have wanted to approach to the place that has occupied the labour law in the processes of economic integration. We emphasized the European Union, which has journeyed of a mere economic integration to other than contemplate a social work as a fundamental part in the consolidation of the Union.

As a final conclusion, we can say that labour law and globalization are not separated phenomenon, because as indicates the introduction of the Treaty of Versailles, “Whereas also the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labour is anobstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions intheir own countries.”

6. Bibliography

Bogdan, Michael. "Swedish Law in the new millennium". Norstedts Juridik. 2000.

Craig, John D. R. & Lynk, Michael. "Globalization and the Future of Labour Law". Cambrige University Press. 2006.

Griffin, Ricky W. & Ebert, Roland J. "Business - 8th ed." Pearson Prentice Hall. 2006.

Hirst, P. & Thompson, G.“Globalization in Question - 2nd ed.” Cambridge. Polity Press. 1999.

International Labour Organization Website. http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/lang--en/index.htm. 29 November 2009.

Mehmet, Ozay., Mendes, Errol. & Sinding, Robert. "Toward a fair global Labour market". Routledge. 1999.

Treaty of Versailles. Part XIII. Labour. Section I. Organization of Labour. 1919.

Wikipedia. "Globalization". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization. 25 November 2009.