BRICS and the situation of labour

Abstract

6 | International Union Rights | 24/4 FOCUS | THE BRICS COUNTRIES AND TRADE UNION RIGHTS BRICS and the situation of labour BRICS is an acronym for a grouping of five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group started in 2009 with four countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). South Africa joined the group in 2010, making it a full-blown transcontinental interstate co-operation. Together, these countries account for 41 percent of the world’s population, 14 percent of global trade, 46 percent of the global workforce and 14 percent of the global GDP (Bond, 2016). BRICS was formed in the wake of rebalancing within the global economy that saw the global South emerge as the centre of economic growth. Recognising their emerging economic power, emerging economies felt the need to forge a model of interstate co-operation that will be compatible with the needs of developing economies. With China having emerged as the second biggest economy in the world and two member countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, BRICS is a grouping outside of the West that commands enormous political and economic power. But there are imbalances, contradictions and competing interests obtaining among the BRICS member states that threaten the interstate cooperation . Importantly, the weak state of compliance with trade union rights offer some states unfair competitive advantage over others, giving rise to huge imbalances in the distribution of costs and benefits accruing from the membership of BRICS. Co-operation, tensions and competition within BRICS BRICS was formed to promote co-operation among the key emerging economies which felt that the needs of developing countries were marginalised by the West-dominated multilateral finance institutions. At the heart of the formation of BRICS was the idea of promoting ‘contexts-specific developmental goals’; the need to ‘redress the unfairness of the global political and economic architecture and to act as a self-help group in an uncertain world’ (BRICS Think Tanks Council, 2017: 34). The group felt that the West was unable to bring about stability in the global economy following the recent economic crisis. With much positive economic activity registering in the emerging economies, the countries saw the potential to intervene as a group to influence the direction of the global economy. In the area of co-operation BRICS has established the New Development Bank (NDB) to provide resources for development. A credit support line – the Contingent Reserve Arrangement – to aid countries in times of contingencies has been set and steps are underway to establish a credit ratings agency intended to operate differently from the main rating agencies of the West, which have been regarded as hostile to the needs of developing countries. In setting up its institutions to drive its mission, BRICS has often partnered with the main developmental institutions of the West, thus moderating the view that the group is anti-West. But tensions have emerged between some of the BRICS members, including tensions triggered by border disputes between India and China. Efforts by China to step up relations with Pakistan have also riled India. Furthermore competition between the BRICS member states has emerged strongly. BRICS member states enjoy unrestricted entry into each other’s markets. Within this context, China and Brazil have been flooding South Africa with cheap manufacturing and agricultural products, resulting in massive job losses as factories close or scale down operations. Clothing and textile imports from China stopped short of wiping out the South African clothing and textile industry in the early 2000s (Vlok, 2006). In 2015 and 2016 the dumping of steel by China in the South African market resulted in the loss of about 20,200 jobs in the steel sector (Steyn, 2016). The Chinese steel products weakened South Africa’s leading steel producer – Arcelor-Mittal, which accounts for 70 percent of domestic steel production. The poultry sector in South Africa is another case of an industry that suffered from the country’s membership of BRICS. Joining BRICS induced South Africa to open up its poultry market to imports from Brazil. Cheap chicken imports from Brazil induced South Africa’s biggest chicken producers – Rainbow Chicken and Country Bird, to sell or close...