Submission on imposing tariffs on imported health-care goods manufactured using labour rights

violations to the International Commission of Labour’s National Policy Forum

Imposing tariffs on imported health-care goods manufactured using labour rights violations would
answer in part the question “How should Labour prioritise the international issues on which we will
need to offer global leadership for creating more equality and opportunity for all?” asked in the
International Commission’s discussion paper. It would encourage our trading partners to improve
their labour practices.

Professor Mahmood F Bhutta wrote in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization in 2017(1):

“Working conditions found in the manufacture of some health-care products have been among the
worse encountered anywhere.

Most medical gloves are manufactured in factories in Malaysia or Thailand, where employees are
usually immigrant workers. Interviews with some of these workers revealed that many had secured
employment by paying extortionate fees to international recruitment agencies in exchange for
poorly paid jobs. Most will work 12–13 hours a day, 7 days a week, and suffer exhaustion. Some
have been subject to bullying and harassment. In one instance, an employee alleged that he was
imprisoned in a factory and threatened with physical violence by the employer.

An estimated two-thirds of the 150 million reusable and disposable surgical instruments in the
global market are produced each year in Sialkot in northern Pakistan. Here, over 50,000 workers do
most of the filing, grinding, hammering and polishing of instruments by hand. They will regularly
work over 80 hours a week for an inadequate wage, and frequently suffer musculoskeletal injuries,
that are sometimes incapacitating. The surgical instruments’ industry in Pakistan employs hundreds
of children, some aged as young as 7 years. Many children work to pay off debt to their father’s
employer. Most work full time and receive no formal education and are thus trapped in poverty.

Long working hours and low pay has also been noted in the manufacture of surgical masks in
Mexico and health-care uniforms in India. People working in the manufacture of medical goods, in
general, are considered at high risk of labour rights abuse because most of the factories are located
in countries where such abuse is frequent.”

The UK has some of the most stringent labour rights in the world, legislated for in the Working
Time Regulations 1998, the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Pension Acts, and the Trade Union
and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, amongst others. Imposing tariffs on imported
health-care goods manufactured using labour practices that are below these standards would
encourage our trading partners to improve their labour practices. The UK would assess
manufacturers’ compliance with these standards and offer advice to help them achieve compliance
with these standards and consequent tariff-free trade.

I would like to submit a proposal to impose tariffs on imported health-care goods manufactured
using labour practices that are below UK standards, to assess manufacturers’ compliance with these
standards and to offer advice to help them achieve compliance with these standards and consequent
tariff-free trade.

This proposal is linked to my previous proposal to impose tariffs on imported goods manufactured
using poor labour or environmental practices to the Economy, Business & Trade Commission.(2)

(1) Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2017;95:314-314A. doi:

http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.193417
(2) https://policyforum.labour.org.uk/commissions/economy/imposing-tariffs-on-imported-goods-
manufactured-using-poor-labour-or-environmental-practices