Moving towards Trade Justice? Labour movements and ‘free trade’.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting global value chains and geo-political rivalry especially between China and the US, the global ‘free’ trade regime has come under increasing pressure. On 7 May 2021, trade union researchers, academics and activists came together for an online workshop co-organised by Oxford Brookes University and the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ), Nottingham University, to explore whether this could be the moment for labour movements from around the world moving towards an alternative trade regime, based on social justice. In this blog post, I will reflect on some of the key findings. 

 

Call for Papers - Trade unions and Free Trade in the post-pandemic environment: moving towards trade justice?

Free trade has been criticised for some time as being an obstacle to independent development of countries in the Global South supporting working people’s real needs. The assumed benefits of free trade for people in the Global North too have come increasingly under scrutiny. Does COVID-19, which has demonstrated the fragility of the global free trade regime, open up new space for labour movements in their struggles for an alternative regime organised around principles of trade justice?