DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7509-957-0-0018

CORE LABOUR STANDARDS: DEBATES LIKE MOST OTHERS

Oldřich Bubák¹, Josef Kasal²

¹ Ústav sociálních studií, Pedagogická fakulta, Univerzita Hradec Králové, , Rokitanského 62, 500 03 Hradec Králové, Česká republika

² Univerzita Hradec Králové, Rokitanského 62, 500 03 Hradec Králové, Česká republika

World's societies, along with their economies, have experienced immense changes over the last few decades. Many of these shifts involve opening up of previously closed markets, involving labour migrations, economic integration at various scales and corresponding (de)industrialization trends, among others. Needless to say, the above developments have generated many heated debates concerning the environment, sovereignty, democracy, or the social aspects of globalization, among others. This contribution will engage one of such debates centering on the need for unqualified enforcement of minimum labour standards around the world. In this debate, the supporters claim the core set of labour standard must be enforced globally to ensure the basic protections for all workers and to prevent the race-to-the-bottom among the competitive nations of the global South. Detractors, on the other hand, assert that enforcing standards would put undue pressures on workers in the South while stifling economic growth and development. The goal of this paper is to examine both sides of the argument and supply an analysis highlighting that such debates are precisely those common to all major social-political issues of global relevance.

Keywords: labor standards, globalization, labor migration, economic integration

pages: 18-23, online: 2023