Testimony of Deputy Undersecretary Sandra Polaski, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Committee on Ways and Means, November 17, 2009

Statement focusing on the labor component of U.S. trade preference programs. Polaski describes labor provisions\u27 role in preference programs, specifically in the achievement of development objectives. She also shares observations on the functioning of preference programs, and highlights areas where Congress should consider improving the programs

Policy dilemmas in India: The Impact of changes in agricultural prices on rural and urban poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma: a fall in agricultural prices benefits poor urban consumers but hurts poor rural producers, while a rise yields the converse. Poor countries have argued that they need to be able to use import protection and/or price support policies to protect themselves against volatility in world agricultural prices in order to dampen these effects. In this paper, we explore this dilemma in a CGE model of India that uses a new social accounting matrix (SAM) developed at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai. The SAM includes extensive disaggregation of agricultural activities, commodity markets, labor markets, and rural and urban households. This SAM includes 115 commodities, 48 labor types and 352 types of households, (classified by social group, income class, region, and urban/rural). The CGE model based on this SAM can be used to explore the linkages between changes in world prices of agriculture and the incomes of poor rural and urban households, capturing rural-urban linkages in both commodity and factor markets. The results indicate that the inclusion of linkages between rural and urban labor markets is necessary to fully explore, and potentially eliminate, the dilemma. A fall in agricultural prices hurts agricultural producers, lowers wages and/or employment of rural labor, and in some cases spills over into urban labor markets, depressing wages and incomes of poor urban households as well. In these cases both rural and urban poverty increases. The paper explores the strength of these commodity and factor market linkages, and the potential spillover effects of policies affecting agricultural prices.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, World prices, Labour market, CGE model

Labor Relations Law in North America

[Excerpt] In establishing their Agreement on Labor Cooperation as a complement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico accepted the fact that each nation had evolved a different system of labor law and administration. They agreed that those systems should continue to evolve independently within each sovereign jurisdiction. But they also recognized the extremely important fact that these three systems were based on underlying principles which were held in common and which could be articulated. These are the 11 Labor Principles of the NAALC. Each principle defines a sector of labor law, which is given concrete expression by the statutes and jurisprudence of the different jurisdictions. The parties to the NAALC undertake solemn obligations to ensure that their laws in these sectors are effectively enforced. Thus all competitors in the North American Free Trade area will operate under the law in regard to labor matters, administered openly and consistently. Such is a major objective of the NAALC. The objective of this publication by the Commission for Labor Cooperation is to enable the public at large in North America, and not just specialists in comparative labor law, to know simply and clearly what those different labor law regimes are and how they are administered. The NAALC relies primarily on the public to draw attention to any deficiencies which may occur in regard to labor law administration. It is thus imperative that the public have ready access to the content of the laws and how they are meant to apply, organized following the schema of the NAALC

Policy Dilemmas in India - The Impact of Changes in Agricultural Prices on Rural and Urban Poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma : a fall in agricultural prices benefits poor urban consumers but hurts poor rural producers, while a rise yields the converse. Poor countries have argued that they need to be able to use import protection and/or price support policies to protect themselves against volatility in world agricultural prices in order to dampen these effects. In this paper, we explore this dilemma in a CGE model of India that uses a new social accounting matrix (SAM) developed at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai. The SAM includes extensive disaggregation of agricultural activities, commodity markets, labor markets, and rural and urban households. This SAM includes 115 commodities, 48 labor types and 352 types of households, (classified by social group, income class, region, and urban/rural). The CGE model based on this SAM can be used to explore the linkages between changes in world prices of agriculture and the incomes of poor rural and urban households, capturing rural-urban linkages in both commodity and factor markets. The results indicate that the inclusion of linkages between rural and urban labor markets is necessary to fully explore, and potentially eliminate, the dilemma. A fall in agricultural prices hurts agricultural producers, lowers wages and/or employment of rural labor, and in some cases spills over into urban labor markets, depressing wages and incomes of poor urban households as well. In these cases both rural and urban poverty increases. The paper explores the strength of these commodity and factor market linkages, and the potential spillover effects of policies affecting agricultural prices.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, World prices, Labour Market, CGE model

Teaching Biblical Studies Online

In this edited transcript of a panel at the Society of Biblical Literature (November 23, 2009, Boston, Massachusetts), five Bible scholars give brief presentations on various challenges and opportunities encountered when teaching academic biblical studies courses online in both undergraduate and theological education contexts. Each presentation is followed by questions from the audience and discussion. Topics include: a typology of different approaches to online teaching, advantages and disadvantages of online compared to face-to-face classrooms (for both students and faculty), opportunities for imaginative exercises online, the advantages of online threaded discussions, and the joys and pitfalls of bringing your course into an online environment for the first time

Testimony of Deputy Undersecretary Sandra Polaski, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 10, 2010

Statement highlighting the US Department of Labor’s promotion of fair working conditions in the global marketplace through trade agreements, technical assistance programs, and collaboration with governments to exchange information on labor policies.ILAB_Testimony_Polaski_2010.pdf: 40 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020