Such a policy would benefit workers everywhere, not just those in low-income countries. For much of the 20th century, strong labor unions and a corporate class had little choice but to stay in the United States – which meant steady, middle-class manufacturing jobs with reasonable wages. With the suppression of labor rights and the rise of neoliberal globalization in the 1980s, corporations were suddenly free to leave for countries where wages were lower. This shift in corporate power is one of the major drivers behind the decline in American manufacturing. While a global minimum wage may not reverse the trend entirely, it would help stem the tide.
Importantly, it would do so without appealing to nationalism. Right-wing demagogues from Donald Trump in the United States to Marine Le Pen in France to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil capitalize on the failures of the neoliberal global system by scapegoating workers in other countries. Even many erstwhile progressives have fallen into the nationalist trap.
A campaign for a global minimum wage, by contrast, would expose the reality: that workers share more interests with other workers across borders than they do with capital in their given country. Such a movement would help catalyze global solidarity, and build the working-class power necessary to achieve any number of other global goals — including an alternative trade policy and a New Bretton Woods.
There is no doubt that the realization of a global minimum wage faces many obstacles.
Determining how it would actually work – from calculating the actual wage to defining an enforcement mechanism — is crucial. Some have proposed a simple formula based on a percentage of national median wage. Others suggest a more complex measurement that accounts for cost of living and national living standards. Implementation may be modeled on international trade law, with a body like the World Trade Organization acting as a forum for multilateral agreements on targets, and an arbiter of state-state disputes. Such technical questions present challenges, but they are not insurmountable.
More difficult is the building of the necessary political will. But there’s precedent for global institutional change of this scale. From the creation of the ILO after the First World War to the United Nations after the Second, moments of crisis breed political opportunities. With the neoliberal world order teetering on the edge, right-wing nationalism on the rise, and climate catastrophe fueled by and fueling both, this is definitively such a moment.
Respected academics from Thomas Palley to Jason Hickel to Nobel-Prize winner Muhammad Yunus are already vocal proponents of a global minimum wage. At the grassroots level, the International Convention for a Global Minimum Wage, the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, and Justice Is Global are pushing the policy into the mainstream. Left-leaning parties in the EU have proposed a continental version. And existing campaigns, such as those for a Global Green New Deal and a New Social Contract, could fittingly incorporate a global minimum wage as a part of their program. The movement for a GMW has already begun.
On the 100th anniversary of its creation, the ILO has a unique opportunity to become a leader in this nascent movement. By calling for a global minimum wage, the ILO would be taking a crucial step forward in its mission of global social justice as it enters another century.