CITU in its Memorandum presented to the Government on this occasion pointed out that inspite of recommendation of Indian Labour Conference to the Govt. of India to include representatives of Labour in the delegation for Singapore Ministerial Meeting of WTO, no one was included. For the Seattle meeting, this time again the Central Trade Unions have requested the Government to include the representatives of Labour in the Indian delegation. In view of the fact that representatives of the Industry have been included in the delegation, CITU alongwith other Central Trade Unions exhorted the Government to ensure presence of Labour representative in the forthcoming ministerial meeting. Maran, without giving any assurance, agreed to take up the matter with the Prime Minister.

CITU in its memorandum strongly opposed against any attempts to link market access to non-trade related areas such as labour standards and protection of environment. No country should be coerced to set the standards at levels that are not sustainable, given its stage of development. Government of India should take the lead in mobilising all the developing countries on this issue to meet the threat of using trade measures to enforce labour standards, which should be addressed only by the ILO.

However, CITU made it clear that regarding core labour standards it does not agree with the Government position as enumerated in the background note furnished by the Ministry. CITU strongly calls for immediate ratification of all the ILO Conventions, specially the Convention No. 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Convention No. 98 concerning Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining, by the Government of India immediately. This would nullify/blunt the scope of linking these issues with the World Trade by the developed Countries. The Union Labour Minister agreed to convene a meeting on this issue shortly. Regarding the protection of environment CITU stated that the labour has a definite say in the matter and enforcing proper environmental norms in the workplaces and the surrounding is one of the major task before the unions but this cannot be another tool in the hands of developed countries to force a non-tariff barrier to protect the interest of the technologically developed countries.

Apart from the above, CITU called for immediate review of the various issues pertaining to the existing agreement under Uruguay round (UR) Treaty. As it is, the unequal world trading order has tilted more towards the developed countries, after this agreement. CITU asked the Government to apprise the trade unions on the present status relating to the following in the post-UR period from 1995 onwards:

1. The gains from increased access to foreign market vis-à-vis the loss of market within country because of greater international competition.
2. Tariff benefits gained vis-à-vis the loss by non-tariff barrier in areas where India and other Developing Countries have competitive advantage because of low wage cost.
3. Impact of TRIPS agreement on Chemicals, Drugs and Pharmaceutical Industries.
4. Impact of TRIMS with dependence on Trans-nationals and Multi-nationals, vis-à-vis the decline of indigenous industry.
5. Number of anti-dumping initiations in Developing Countries including India vis-à-vis Developed Countries.