Body
Relatively little controversy surrounds three of the four core labor standards--forced labor, discrimination, and child labor. But the right to associate and organize freely and to bargain collectively has generated real heat in the negotiation of core labor standards in the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Promoting social dialogue, including with unions, can make economic reforms more acceptable and sustainable. Elliott suggests using a parallel track to negotiate labor issues and link progress in those negotiations more closely to the trade negotiations. Workers and labor activists should keep the pressure on but must stop making sanctions to enforce standards in trade agreements the focus of their demands. Instead, they should ratchet up the pressure on governments to adopt concrete plans of action for raising labor standards and to finance implementation of those plans.