International Trade committee  I think at this moment—and this could be said about the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement—you have substantial leverage prior to entering into an agreement to try to encourage the other country to live up to its legal obligations under the FTA. Once the FTA is ratified, there's

International Trade committee  I think the real question is, what are both the standards and the dispute mechanisms that are available in such circumstances? I think the reason why there was such an outcry on the labour provisions of the NAFTA was that you had a very obviously substandard set of dispute resolu

International Trade committee  In the garment industry, as is typical in many places, the workforce is typically female. I am not by any means an expert on the question of child labour within Jordan. I can certainly research that and provide information to you on that question. I'm afraid that's probably the e

International Trade committee  I do not know what the position of the federation is on that issue. I know, though, that since Jordan entered into an FTA with the United States, the QIZs have shrunk substantially in size. So I think there was an indication that this would be a lifeline to the garment industry i

International Trade committee  Certainly. Again, I think the third witness, who is coming up after the two of us, has visited these zones before and will present to you a lot of eyewitness testimony of his own. I think a very authoritative source—and a very recent source—would be the most recent report of the

International Trade committee  Yes. I have the 2010 amendments here. They clearly state that a Jordanian national must be the founder of a trade union. Foreign workers cannot create their own unions. That is a violation of freedom of association. It also does not appear that they can be in the leadership of a

International Trade committee  I would assume so if they can be members of a trade union. Yes.

International Trade committee  Yes. I think they have improved over where they were in 2006. Again, I was one of the drafters of the complaints that the AFL-CIO filed against Jordan then. The other witness, who will be on later, was also involved in exposing those violations in the garment industry at the time

International Trade committee  Again, the ILO found just a couple of weeks ago that in a number of important areas there are still the issues around forced labour, forced overtime, violations of freedom of association, horrendous dormitory—

International Trade committee  Sure. I'm saying that the legislation was changed. There used to be an exclusion of migrant workers from trade unions, and that has been changed. Migrant workers can now belong to a trade union. However, they cannot be founders of trade unions. So they can't actually create a un

International Trade committee  On your first question about strikes, there is a lengthy notice requirement to undertake a strike, and it's longer if it's in a public service. In practice, essentially permission is required to undertake a strike. The law also allows the government to intervene and undertake med

International Trade committee  There's a number of issues there. One, I think there the law requires a monopoly union confederation, the GFJTU, the General Federation of Jordanian Trade Unions, which on its face is a violation of the principles of freedom of association. There's also legislation stating that

International Trade committee  Yes, fine. Thank you.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Jeff Vogt. I'm the legal advisor to the Department of Human and Trade Union Rights at the ITUC. The ITUC is a global confederation of 176 million workers worldwide, including workers in Canada. Again, thank you for this invitation