This paper argues that currently one of the most emotive, divisive and significant international debates is running in the world of economics and politics, and the churches -- including the WCC -- have rejected playing a role in it.

It is a debate about trade, the market, and human rights.

As the WCC Assembly in Canberra noted, "the world ecumenical movement has a long history of moral criticism of the economic order. Points of critique included the lack of economic democracy, social justice and the stimulation of human greed"  (Assembly Report Page 61). But no involvement in or critique of this debate on trade, labour standards and the defence of human and worker rights, issues which are integral to democracy and social justice.

The significant elements in the debate include the major players - employer organisations, organised labour through both the international trade union organisation - the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the related international trade union secretariats (ITS), as well as, government, labour, industrial and trade ministers and officials. 

The organisations include the OECD, the ILO, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the emerging trading blocs - NAFTA, APEC, the fledgling Indian Ocean developments, etc., as well as a number of non-government agencies are active in the debate. 

And up to this point, while countries like the United States of America and France have acted as catalysts for the debate, it is a debate being increasingly dominated by Asian governments in consort with business, both national and transnational. ("ASEAN vows to oppose ILO’s social clause", Jakarta Post, 2.5.95).

Finally, it is a debate which, while having a long history, received new life with the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994.

There is, and has been, considerable debate on economic issues within the ecumenical movement.  Yet this analysis of the "nature and content" discussion reveals that despite the WCC's explicit intention to "provide a basis for a dialogue... and open space for alternatives" (De Santa Ana 1985, p 104), it deliberately excluded from its scope major participants in the debate such as the trade union movement and the ILO.

There are two judgements which have been made of the response of the ecumenical movement to economic issues, including industrial issues.

First, according to De Santa Ana, "the profoundness and sharpness with which situations are analysed. It is the kind of reflection which combines the thinking of economists with important elements of ethics, and above all, with an evident sensitivity vis-à-vis the problems affecting the less privileged sectors of society. Secondly, and in contrast with the first, this analysis generally leads to a series of recommendations which very often do not fit into the horizon of possibilities open to the churches and to Christians." (De Santa Ana, p 104).

Ellingsen offers further judgment. He concluded that church statements, including those of the WCC, on the whole are still shallow in their concrete ethical proposals, more inclined to articulate general principles than to define concrete steps to action (Ellingsen p 151).

Duff, in the context of industrial issues, identifies clearly how from its very beginning, the WCC has had difficulties with the question of action in relation to industrial issues. Commenting on the Amsterdam Report, particularly on the Section on Social Questions, he notes how in other sections of the Assembly, there was specific and concrete language in terms, for example, of the denunciation of the expulsion of minorities and freedom from arbitrary arrest. However, when it came to social questions there was certainly condemnation "of any denial to man of an opportunity to participate in the shaping of society", but there was no indication as to whether this implied, "the right to join a labour union" (Duff, 1956, page 277).

In fact, probably there is no ecumenical statement which clearly and unequivocally states that the WCC supports the ILO Conventions 87 and 98 (Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining). It would be interesting to know the extent to which churches and ecumenical councils including WCC support these Conventions, even in terms of their employment relations with their own staff.

Critiques such as the above provide the context for the following questions:

The answers to such questions are not easy, and perhaps the questions themselves are not even the most significant or the best focused ones. Nevertheless, there are a number of clues which need further exploration.

At least one reason for the ambivalence of the WCC to the ILO, lies in the history of the ecumenical movement's relationship with the whole UN system. From an historical perspective, that relationship was rooted in the founders of the Churches' Commission on International Affairs of the WCC. These were people largely with a diplomatic familiarity with the UN system andlargely unfamiliar with the ILO. In short, their context was "government" and "business" --  not "workers".

In addition to its historical beginnings in the WCC's approach to international issues which excluded excluded a place for consideration and debate on worker rights as part of human rights, there might also be an issue of resources.   How is it possible for a small unit with limited resources, based in Geneva, to respond to the complexity of the whole issue of human rights, the globalisation of the market and a perception that, "economic systems, capitalism and monetary and financial systems....have become more and more hidden, covered up, faceless and especially unaccountable". (P. Potter, Canberra, 1991, p 49)? Certainly such a "small unit" would need to manage resources effectively and creatively involve member churches and their resources.

Another significant clue to the ambivalence of the ecumenical movement towards organised labour and the role of trade unions in the debate on economic issues, may be found in what has been suggested is a major flaw in the WCC's approach to power.  Assembly after Assembly, WCC unit after unit commission, and workshop after workshop, ends up with an almost total dependence on "the local" and "the network" as the primary foci for church action. The Urban Rural Mission unit of the WCC epitomises and highlights the dilemmas the WCC brings to its approach.

From its beginnings, URM defined local initiatives in contrast to and "demphasising" international consultations and conferences (G. Todd, Mission and Justice , International Review of Mission, July 1976, p 259). And at the same time it talked of  "networks of solidarity"; "global sharing of resources" (international conferences!) and affirmed "the supporting role" played by "progressive trade unions", although no detail was developed as to the meaning of such a suggestion. Later, URM mounted a largely unsubstantiated attack on trade unions "as facilitating the concentration of wealth and thus being a necessary instrument of the system. It will be very difficult for the unions to set up their own supra national organisation." (Europe 1992, URM 1992 p 42).

The ambivalence in WCC response has also been exacerbated by the fact that for most of their history, the two primary units concerned with the churches' response to economic issues, including industrial issues (Commission on Churches' Participation in Development and Urban and Rural Mission), were in conflictual and/or less than cooperative approaches to analysis and action within the WCC itself. For example, for much of my time with the WCC (Migration Office), URM and CCPD were in an outright competition beyond the capacity of the Council to manage or minimize.

Another a clue to this denial of the role of organised labour and the absence of the churches from the debate on labour standards and trade, is found in the seduction of the Council by economists and academics. Nowhere has this been so obvious than in the unit specifically responsible for the churches' response to economic issues (Church and Society). At one level this is understandable. At another level, there are indications that this did not go unnoticed by the WCC constituency.  For example, Ronald Preston felt compelled to respond to criticism that the networks used by Church and Society were too elitist . Such criticism he says,

No organisation, and certainly not the trade union movement, has provided such a significant role for the economist and the academic as the WCC. A commentator in Australia reflecting on the role of the economist, quotes Alfred Marsh at Cambridge in the 1890's:

A final clue to the current distance from the debate perhaps lies in the constituency of the WCC.

The American union movement attempt to provide a basis for church involvement in industrial issues had great difficulty in locating current documents supporting such a role. The most recent American Baptist statement was 1966; Disciples of Christ 1938, (Resolution on the Church and Labour); Evangelical Lutheran Church 1989; Presbyterian Church 1980 (Labour Relations); Seventh Day Adventists 1972 (Labour Unions); United Church of Christ 1960 (Ethical Issues in Industrial Relations of Concern to Christians); and the United Methodist Church 1992 (Rights of Workers).  In Australia only the Uniting Church has actively promoted trade union membership.

VIII. Conclusion

Today there is an international debate on the human, worker and trade union rights; trade unions in their role of protecting and defending the rights of workers are under sustained attack; the globalisation of the market is a brutal instrument of that attack, and the churches through the ecumenical movement are not to be seen. The locus of the debate is increasingly Asia, a region in which both the church and the trade union movement are most vulnerable.

Whether the ecumenical movement and its members can move beyond their history and creatively enter the debate remains a question awaiting an answer.