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ABSTRACT The idea of forging a linkage between global trade and labour standards has a long history and has been the subject of fierce debate. In a global political economy that incites 'competition for jobs', the idea cannot escape controversy. Crucially, it has failed to win significant support from trade unionists in the global South. Drawing on viewpoints voiced by workers' rights activists in South Africa and Brazil, this article presents four propositions on the features and functions that a labour-trade linkage would have to possess if it is to serve workers' interests, and explores whether and how these may be accommodated by the ILO and WTO regimes. It is argued that a linkage requiring a new single WTO undertaking is out of the question; a linkage would only make sense if it superimposes ILO rule onto the WTO, not the opposite; a linkage should be premised on positive trade measures; and, finally, it should serve the interests of presently unprotected and unorganized workers. Overall, the main challenge of such a linkage would be to achieve the necessary reform within the ILO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a case study of Brazil, this paper explores the extent to which and how International Labour Organisation's (ILO) freedom of association norms, supervision and promotion affect domestic provisions for workers' associational power. In terms of its legislative, judiciary and executive dimensions, ILO illustrate key challenges of a ‘soft law’ regime; indeed, it has allowed successive Brazilian governments to escape key freedom of association obligations. I detail what this means for workers in agriculture: crucially, Brazil's non-standard provisions for associational power exacerbate, rather than countervail, labour's structural disadvantages vis-à-vis capital. ILO norms have nevertheless been of great political significance. They sat at the heart of the discourse through which oppositional labour framed repressive labour–state relations during the late 1970s and 1980s. However, in the context of neoliberal globalisation, the meanings that Brazilian labour inscribed in these norms saw ‘rightwards’ slide, while the political connotations of the previously discredited corporatism slid in the opposite direction. Eventually, labour failed to support Lula's attempt, during the 2000s, to align Brazil's labour relations system with ILO's standards. Still, the deep historical identification of Brazil's left with ILO norms has, in combination with ILO's regularly issued denunciations and recent domestic ‘decent work’ promotion, helped a certain permutation of legal and political practice. The case suggests that the force of ILO is highly contingent on particular structural conjunctures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]