[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 24 (Monday, June 21, 1999)]
[Pages 1117-1121]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the International Labor Organization Conference                
       in Geneva, Switzerland

June 16, 1999

    Thank you very much, Director General Somavia, for your fine 
statements and your excellent work. Conference President Mumuni, 
Director General Petrovsky, ladies and gentlemen of the ILO, it is a 
great honor for me to be here today with, as you have noticed, quite a 
large American delegation. I hope you will take it as a commitment of 
the United States to our shared vision and not simply as a burning 
desire for us to visit this beautiful city on every possible 
opportunity.
    I am delighted to be here with Secretary Albright and Secretary of 
Labor Herman; with my National Economic Adviser, Gene Sperling, and my 
National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. We're delighted to be joined by 
the president of the American Federation of Labor, the AFL-CIO, John 
Sweeney, and several other leaders of the U.S. labor movement, and with 
Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa, who is the foremost advocate in the United 
States of the abolition of child labor. I am grateful to all of them for 
coming with me, and to the First Lady and our daughter for joining us on 
this trip. And I thank you for your warm reception of her presence here.
    It is indeed an honor for me to be the first American President to 
speak before the ILO in Geneva. It is long overdue. There is no 
organization that has worked harder to bring people together around 
fundamental human aspirations, and no organization whose mission is more 
vital for today and tomorrow.
    The ILO, as the Director General said, was created in the wake of 
the devastation of World War I as part of a vision to provide stability 
to a world recovering from war, a vision put forward by our President, 
Woodrow Wilson. He said then, ``While we are fighting for freedom, we 
must see that labor is free.'' At a time when dangerous doctrines of 
dictatorship were increasingly appealing, the ILO was founded on the 
realization that injustice produces, and I quote, ``unrest so great that 
the peace and harmony of the world are imperiled.''
    Over time the organization was strengthened, and the United States 
played its role, starting with President Franklin Roosevelt and 
following through his successors and many others in the United States 
Congress, down to the strong supporters today, including Senator Harkin 
and the distinguished senior Senator from New York, Patrick Moynihan.
    For half a century, the ILO has waged a struggle of rising 
prosperity and widening freedom, from the shipyards of Poland to the 
diamond mines of South Africa. Today, as the Director General said, you 
remain the only organization to bring together governments, labor 
unions, and business to try to unite people in common cause: the dignity 
of work; the belief that honest labor, fairly compensated, gives meaning 
and structure to our lives; the ability of every family and all children 
to rise as far as their talents will take them.
    In a world too often divided, this organization has been a powerful 
force for unity, justice, equality, and shared prosperity. For all that, 
I thank you. Now, at the edge of a new century, at the dawn of the 
information age, the ILO and its vision are more vital than ever, for 
the world is becoming a much smaller and much, much more interdependent 
place. Most nations are linked to the new dynamic, idea-driven, 
technology-powered, highly competitive international economy.
    The digital revolution is a profound, powerful, and potentially 
democratizing force. It can empower people and nations, enabling the 
wise and farsighted to develop more quickly and with less damage to the 
environment. It can enable us to work together

[[Page 1118]]

across the world as easily as if we were working just across the hall. 
Competition, communications, and more open markets spur stunning 
innovation and make their fruits available to business and workers 
worldwide.
    Consider this: Every single day, half a million air passengers, 1.5 
billion E-mail messages, and $1.5 trillion cross international borders. 
We also have new tools to eradicate diseases that have long plagued 
humanity, to remove the threat of global warming and environmental 
destruction, to lift billions of people into the first truly global 
middle class.
    Yet, as the financial crisis of the last 2 years has shown, the 
global economy with its churning hyperactivity, poses new risks, as 
well, of disruption, dislocation, and division. A financial crisis in 
one country can be felt on factory floors half a world away. The world 
has changed, much of it for the better, but too often our response to 
its new challenges has not changed.
    Globalization is not a proposal or a policy choice. It is a fact. 
But how we respond to it will make all the difference. We cannot dam up 
the tides of economic change anymore than King Knute could still the 
waters. Nor can we tell our people to sink or swim on their own. We must 
find a third way, a new and democratic way, to maximize market potential 
and social justice, competition and community. We must put a human face 
on the global economy, giving working people everywhere a stake in its 
success, equipping them all to reap its rewards, providing for their 
families the basic conditions of a just society. All nations must 
embrace this vision, and all the great economic institutions of the 
world must devote their creativity and energy to this end.
    Last May I had the opportunity to come and speak to the World Trade 
Organization and stress that as we fight for open markets, it must open 
its doors to the concerns of working people and the environment. Last 
November I spoke to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and 
stressed that we must build a new financial architecture as modern as 
today's markets, to tame the cycles of boom and bust in the global 
economy as we can now do in national economies, to ensure the integrity 
of international financial transactions, and to expand social safety 
nets for the most vulnerable.
    Today I say to you that the ILO, too, must be ready for the 21st 
century, along the lines that Director General Somavia has outlined.
    Let me begin by stating my firm belief that open trade is not 
contrary to the interest of working people. Competition and integration 
lead to stronger growth, more and better jobs, more widely shared gains. 
Renewed protectionism in any of our nations would lead to a spiral of 
retaliation that would diminish the standard of living for working 
people everywhere. Moreover, a failure to expand trade further could 
choke off innovation and diminish the very possibilities of the 
information economy. No, we need more trade, not less.
    Unfortunately, working people the world over do not believe this. 
Even in the United States, with the lowest unemployment rate in a 
generation, where exports accounted for 30 percent of our growth, until 
the financial crisis hit Asia, working people strongly resist new 
market-opening measures. There are many reasons. In advanced countries 
the benefits of open trade outweigh the burdens. But they are widely 
spread, while the dislocations of open trade are painfully concentrated.
    In all countries, the premium the modern economy places on skills 
leaves too many hard-working people behind. In poor countries, the gains 
seem too often to go to the already wealthy and powerful, with little or 
no rise in the general standard of living. And the international 
organizations charged with monitoring and providing for rules of fair 
trade, and enforcement of them, seem to take a very long time to work 
their way to the right decision, often too late to affect the people who 
have been disadvantaged.
    So as we press for more open trade, we must do more to ensure that 
all our people are lifted by the global economy. As we prepare to launch 
a new global round of trade talks in Seattle, in November, it is vital 
that the WTO and the ILO work together to advance that common goal.
    We clearly see that a thriving global economy will grow out of the 
skills, the ideas, the education of millions of individuals. In each of 
our nations and as a community of

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nations, we must invest in our people and lift them to their full 
potential. If we allow the ups and downs of financial crises to divert 
us from investing in our people, it is not only those citizens or 
nations that will suffer; the entire world will suffer from their lost 
potential.
    It is clear that when nations face financial crisis, they need the 
commitment and the expertise not only of the international financial 
institutions; they need the ILO as well. The IMF, the World Bank, and 
WTO, themselves, should work more closely with the ILO, and this 
organization must be willing and able to assume more responsibility.
    The lesson of the past 2 years is plain: Those nations with strong 
social safety nets are better able to weather the storms. Those strong 
safety nets do not just include financial assistance and emergency aid 
for poorest people, they also call for the empowerment of the poorest 
people.
    This weekend in Cologne, I will join my partners in the G-8 in 
calling for a new focus on stronger safety nets within nations and 
within the international community. We will also urge improved 
cooperation between the ILO and the international financial institutions 
in promoting social protections and core labor standards. And we should 
press forward to lift the debt burden that is crushing many of the 
poorest nations.
    We are working to forge a bold agreement to more than triple debt 
relief for the world's poorest nations and to target those savings to 
education, health care, child survival, and fighting poverty. I pledge 
to work to find the resources so we can do our part and contribute our 
share toward an expanded trust fund for debt relief.
    Yet, as important as our efforts to strengthen safety nets and 
relieve debt burdens are, for citizens throughout the world to feel that 
they truly have a hand in shaping their future, they must know the 
dignity and respect of basic rights in the workplace.
    You have taken a vital step toward lifting the lives of working 
people by adopting the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights 
at Work last year. The document is a blueprint for the global economy 
that honors our values: the dignity of work, an end to discrimination, 
an end to forced labor, freedom of association, the right of people to 
organize and bargain in a civil and peaceful way. These are not just 
labor rights; they're human rights. They are a charter for a truly 
modern economy. We must make them an everyday reality all across the 
world.
    We advance these rights first by standing up to those who abuse 
them. Today, one member nation, Burma, stands in defiance of the ILO's 
most fundamental values and most serious findings. The Director General 
has just reported to us that the flagrant violation of human rights 
persists, and I urge the ILO governing body to take definite steps, for 
Burma is out of step with the standards of the world community and the 
aspirations of its people. Until people have the right to shape their 
destiny, we must stand by them and keep up the pressure for change.
    We also advance core labor rights by standing with those who seek to 
make them a reality in the workplace. Many countries need extra 
assistance to meet these standards. Whether it's rewriting inadequate 
labor laws or helping fight discrimination against women and minorities 
in the workplace, the ILO must be able to help.
    That is why in the balanced budget I submitted to our Congress this 
year I've asked for $25 million to help create a new arm of the ILO, to 
work with developing countries to put in place basic labor standards, 
protections, safe workplaces, the right to organize. I ask other 
governments to join us. I've also asked for $10 million from our 
Congress to strengthen U.S. bilateral support for governments seeking to 
raise such core labor standards.
    We have asked for millions of dollars also to build on our voluntary 
anti-sweatshop initiative to encourage the many innovative programs that 
are being developed to eliminate sweatshops and raise consumer awareness 
of the conditions in which the clothes they wear and the toys they buy 
for their children are made.
    But we must go further, to give life to our dream of an economy that 
lifts all our people. To do that, we must wipe from the Earth the most 
vicious forms of abusive child labor. Every single day tens of millions 
of children work in conditions that shock the conscience.

[[Page 1120]]

There are children chained to often risky machines, children handling 
dangerous chemicals, children forced to work when they should be in 
school preparing themselves and their countries for a better tomorrow. 
Each of our nations must take responsibility.
    Last week, at the inspiration of Senator Tom Harkin, who is here 
with me today, I directed all agencies of the United States Government 
to make absolutely sure they are not buying any products made with 
abusive child labor.
    But we must also act together. Today, the time has come to build on 
the growing world consensus to ban the most abusive forms of child 
labor, to join together and to say there are some things we cannot and 
will not tolerate.
    We will not tolerate children being used in pornography and 
prostitution. We will not tolerate children in slavery or bondage. We 
will not tolerate children being forcibly recruited to serve in armed 
conflicts. We will not tolerate young children risking their health and 
breaking their bodies in hazardous and dangerous working conditions for 
hours unconscionably long, regardless of country, regardless of 
circumstance. These are not some archaic practices out of a Charles 
Dickens novel. These are things that happen in too many places today.
    I am proud of what is being done at your meeting. In January I said 
to our Congress and the American people, in the State of the Union 
Address, that we would work with the ILO on a new initiative to raise 
labor standards and to conclude a treaty to ban abusive child labor 
everywhere in the world. I am proud to say that the United States will 
support your convention. After I return home, I will send it to the U.S. 
Senate for ratification, and I ask all other countries to ratify it, as 
well.
    We thank you for achieving a true breakthrough for the children of 
the world. We thank the nations here represented who have made genuine 
progress in dealing with this issue in their own nations. You have 
written an important new chapter in our effort to honor our values and 
protect our children.
    Passing this convention alone, however, will not solve the problem. 
We must also work aggressively to enforce it. And we must address root 
causes, the tangled pathology of poverty and hopelessness that leads to 
abusive child labor. Where that still exists, it is simply not enough to 
close the factories where the worst child labor practices occur. We must 
also ensure that children then have access to schools and their parents 
have jobs. Otherwise, we may find children in even more abusive 
circumstances.
    That is why the work of the International Program for the 
Elimination of Child Labor is so important. With the support of the 
United States, it is working in places around the world to get children 
out of the business of making fireworks, to help children move from 
their jobs as domestic servants, to take children from factories to 
schools.
    Let me cite just one example of the success being achieved, the work 
being done to eliminate child labor from the soccer ball industry in 
Pakistan. Two years ago, thousands of children under the age of 14 
worked for 50 companies stitching soccer balls full-time. The industry, 
the ILO, and UNICEF joined together to remove children from the 
production of soccer balls and give them a chance to go to school, and 
to monitor the results.
    Today, the work has been taken up by women in 80 poor villages in 
Pakistan, giving them new employment and their families new stabilities. 
Meanwhile, the children have started to go to school, so that when they 
come of age, they will be able to do better jobs raising the standard of 
living of their families, their villages, and their nation. I thank all 
who were involved in this endeavor and ask others to follow their lead.
    I am pleased that our administration has increased our support for 
IPEC by tenfold. I ask you to think what could be achieved by a full and 
focused international effort to eliminate the worst forms of child 
labor. Think of the children who would go to school, whose lives would 
open up, whose very health would flower, freed of the crushing burden of 
dangerous and demeaning work, given back those irreplaceable hours of 
childhood for learning and playing and living.
    By giving life to core labor standards, by acting effectively to 
lift the burden of debt, by putting a more human face on the world

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trading system and the global economy, by ending the worst forms of 
child labor, we will be giving our children the 21st century they 
deserve.
    These are hopeful times. Previous generations sought to redeem the 
rights of labor in a time of world war and organized tyranny. We have a 
chance to build a world more prosperous, more united, more humane than 
ever before. In so doing, we can fulfill the dreams of the ILO's 
founders and redeem the struggles of those who fought and organized, who 
sacrificed and, yes, died for freedom, equality, and justice in the 
workplace.
    It is our great good fortune that in our time we have been given the 
golden opportunity to make the 21st century a period of abundance and 
achievement for all. Because we can do that, we must. It is a gift to 
our children worthy of the millennium.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:25 a.m. in the Assembly Hall at the 
United Nations Building. In his remarks, he referred to Juan Somavia, 
director general, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, conference president, 
International Labor Organization; and Vladimir Petrovsky, director 
general, United Nations Office at Geneva. The President also referred to 
the IPEC, International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor.