9 September, 2009The "Doing Business 2010" report contradicts the World Bank reiterated endorsement of improved social safety nets and continues discouraging workers' protection against job losses.
GLOBAL: On April 29, 2009 the IMF wrote that, after years of strong criticism by trade unions, the World Bank had finally decided to stop using the labour indicators of its "Doing Business" annual report that for years has given higher rating to countries with the lowest workers' protection.
We were wrong! It was not true. Read again our story here and you will see how wrong and naïve we were.
We believed the leaders of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund when, in January this year, they told a high level global unions delegation that they fully understood the anger of trade union members who are paying the price for a crisis that they have not caused.
We were wrong when we thought that the Bank in April was serious in recommending social safety nets to shield vulnerable parts of society and protect the rights of workers (http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/EWI_revisions.pdf). No! It's just business as usual!
The just released "Doing Business 2010" discourages countries from adopting social protection schemes and designates governments that do so as anti-business. The recipe is the usual one: reduce severance pay for dismissed workers; reduce or eliminate requirements for prior notice about job cuts; and, get rid of measures to retrain redundant workers. So, Portugal is bad because it increased the dismissal notice period by two weeks, and Belarus is good because it made it easier to eliminate jobs! Honduras is bad because it increased severance pay and advance notice requirements in response to the economic crisis, but Rwanda is very good because it eliminated any requirement for prior consultation of employees' representatives or notification to labour inspectors about job cuts!
Congratulations, Mr Zoellick! But, didn't you announce in April that the Doing Business indicator of labour market flexibility which encouraged reduction of workers' protection "shouldn't be used as basis for policy advice or in any country programme documents"? Please, tell us when, exactly, the Bank plans to stop promoting the elimination of social and workers' protection?