BY SEAN HEALY
A major international trade union confederation has told the World Trade Organisation that, in its view, the trade body has learned nothing from the defeat of attempts to launch a new, comprehensive round of trade talks at its last ministerial conference in Seattle in November 1999.
In a statement to the WTO's General Council, meeting in Geneva on May 3 to discuss preparations for the next ministerial meeting in Qatar in November, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions said "little of substance has changed since Seattle to indicate that any of the underlying reasons for the failure of the 3rd WTO Conference have changed. Governments and their trade negotiators must heed the lessons of Seattle if they are to regain public confidence in the multilateral trading system."
"Seattle was a watershed in the short lifetime of the WTO, marking a crisis in the legitimacy of the multilateral trading system", concluded its general secretary, Bill Jordan. "Failing to heed its message can only reduce the WTO's credibility and legitimacy among the general public, and intensify the backlash against globalisation."
The union federation is especially concerned that the General Agreement on Trade in Services will take from governments the right to keep education, health, water and postal services within the public sector.
The ICFTU does not oppose the WTO, its "free trade" agenda or a planned new round of trade talks outright, as do most people's movements worldwide, instead calling simply for the incorporation of certain labour rights standards into existing and future WTO agreements.
Nevertheless, its criticism of GATS will increase public pressure on the major trading powers.