Raymond Torres of the ILO argued in a session in WTO public forum that the possibility of outsourcing has caused fear in workers and an increase in informal employment, and called for new economic theories that do not assume full employment. The public perception of globalization and income inequality and job insecurity need to be addressed by coordinated policy.

Victor do Prado of the WTO emphasized the WTO embrace of employment and called for coherence between trade and labour policies and organizations. This coherence is promoted by WTO/ILO co-publications in 2007, 2009 and 2011.

Yorgos Altintizis of ITUC called for countries to adopt “Industrial Policy”, although admitting challenges from political divisions and weak institutions. The WTO may play a role in its trade facilitation by identifying comparative advantages to promote trade. The ITUC produces a report in parallel with trade policy reviews that highlight the failure to promote just working conditions. Mauritania has 20 per cent of its population living under slavery, with only weakly enforced laws against it, said Yorgos Altintizis. Public moral considerations could become a condition for trade.

The floor discussion emphasized the challenges of social protection policy in the current crisis, the problems of evaluating the economic and environmental implications of liberalization and concerns about migrant workers.

The consensus from the panel was that there is a fundamental need to regulate the source of the crisis, the financial system. While all agreed that the real economy is corrupted by financial speculation, the member states are the masters.