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| MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND
LAW SECTION 4: GLOBALISATION AND ITS IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SAFETY: 2: The Effects Of Globalisation |
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| MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND
LAW SECTION 4: GLOBALISATION AND ITS IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SAFETY: 2: The Effects Of Globalisation |
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There are both positive and negative effects of globalisation. While there have been positive developments for some less developed countries many negative developments have been documented. The overall global result has been increasing inequality both within and between countries at different stages of development.
Positive features include faster economic growth worldwide consequent on a more efficient economy where production can be optimally located geographically, institutionally or financially with increasingly integrated production across borders and within corporate entities . Global trade has increased disproportionately to production. [Global markets may increase opportunities and pressure for ethical trade or environmentally sensitive production in primary producing countries. Consumers in the north can shape producer policies in the south (for good or bad!)] Cheaper information technology and easier access to information empowers small countries or geographically dispersed people and organisations with knowledge and the means to improve the efficiency of their participation in economic, political, social and cultural activities. For example, in occupational health and safety (OHS) harmonisation of standards and industrial practices could be beneficial if multinationals operating in both DCs and LDCs use best practice experience from their DC base for benchmarking in countries with less developed regulatory infrastructure[Frumkin, 1999; International Labour Organisation 1996; international Labour Organisation 2000.
Negative features include widespread economic restructuring with increased unemployment and inequality. The human development report [1999] indicated that globalisation was more profit than people-oriented. Consequently, a "regulatory" gap has developed between existing international institutions catering for open global markets and those yet to be born which would ensure ensuring human rights. Additionally unstable market forces have shown the ability to negatively impact non-market social goods and services as well as the environment.
The report went on to identify several areas of inequity highlighting challenges to global ethics and the frequent violation of human rights. It described considerable power and wealth inequities within and between countries. The income gap between the richest and poorest country increased from 35 to 1 in 1950, 44 to 1 in 1973 and 72 to 1 in 1992. An important aspect of this is the digital divide separating those connected to the new information and communication technologies from those unconnected. Inequities include the generation and retention of intellectual property.
Developed countries have been taking advantage of less developed systems in less developed countries to obtain globally enforceable patent rights and hence exclusive control over valuable natural and material goods in distant lands. For example, the phamaceutical giant Pfizer has obtained the intellectual property rights to an ingredient for a new and safer slimming agent through the local intermediate of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. This is an example where a large pharmaceutical company based in a developed country profits from indigenous knowledge of the San hunter-gatherer community in a developing country through the intermediation of a developing country institution, while the source community receives little in the way of benefit and loses the intellectual rights to property held collectively since time immemorial. Given the potential market for obesity reduction in developed countries, the financial implications are potentially vast [Mail and Guardian, 2001]. There are distinct shades of rights that are imperceptible to local people in developing countries exchanged for the modern equivalent of the shiny trinkets proferred by explorers in centuries past.
Power and systematic legal inequities related to the recent attempt via the World Trade Organisation to enforce of TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property) in respect of the availability and affordability of anti-retroviral medications for HIV/AIDS in less developed countries consitute a poignant example of global human rights. Countries like South Africa or Brazil with huge HIV/AIDS problems and which are able to manufacture generic antiretroviral drugs at a fraction of the cost of patented drugs are under legal constraint by world trade enforcement mechanisms to solve their problems in the most cost-efficient manner.
People and countries have been marginalized by distortions and inequities inherent in the development of globalised relationships. Removal of tarrif barriers and subsidies have for example developed unevenly with developing countries being forced to relinquish their tariffs and subsidies in order to access developed country markets, while developed country farmers have remained protected. In many Less developed countries a dual economy has developed - a global formal economy for the connected, and an informal local one for the marginalized.
Human insecurity linked to employment opportunities consequent on the instability of financial and political systems has increased. This includes inequitable changes in employment patterns whereby mobility advantages for skilled business and professional groups contrast with restricted markets for unskilled labour between and within countries - even less developed countries. Unstable financial conditions have exaggerated effects on small enterprises with fewer resources at their disposal. Unemployment and job insecurity have become widespread and long lasting. The International Labour Organisation estimates that the number of people unemployed or underemployed in the world today exceeds 800 million. This amounts to nearly one-third of the global labour force, rising to even in some developed countries to as high as 11 per cent [ International Labour Organisation 1996]. New forms of employment and changes in global labour policies, corporate restructuring, and the changing class structure of modern societies have gone hand in hand with increased insecurity, stress and lower incomes in both developed countries and less developed countries. Structural adjustment policies have given rise to adverse effects on social goods and services in less developed countries as resources for these have come under pressure and have been seriously cut back. The institutions of social protection have been progressively dismantled under the pressure of privatisation and deregulation contributing substantially to human insecurity.
Easier transfer of hazards in the form of materials, products and production processes to less protective and regulated jurisdictions in less developed countries has had adverse impacts on environmental sustainability - both locally and globally. Chronic environmental degradation threatens large numbers of people world-wide. Poor people have little choice but to put pressure on the environment, while the high resource consumption of the rich nations continues to pose multiple environmental and ecological threats. The growing export markets for many (agricultural) products mean depleted stocks, less bio-diversity and fewer forests.
Development and social programmes benefiting the poor and marginalized are adversely affected because the global economy is mainly the economy of the multinational private sector which in many instances overshadows national economies. The rush to the bottom for cheaper production costs [Frumkin, 1999] may lead to the exploitation of ever cheaper labour in poorer countries and populations. Financial instability can undermine development efforts disproportionately in less developed countries.
