Most other countries require paid time off for workers. Germany and Spain require 34 vacation days and paid holidays for each worker each year; Italy and France require 31 days of paid time off; Belgium and New Zealand require 30 days; Australia requires 28 days and Canada's federal law requires 19 paid days off. The most prominent example is European labor law, which sets standards that apply throughout the European Union. The most fundamental labor standards are contained in the “Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work”.
The guide sets out three hypothetical cases in order to compare the cost of individual dismissal in the different countries within scope. The analysis of the countries included in the scope of application showed that countries in all regions often recognize a number of similar concepts with regard to the individual termination of employment contracts. Forced labor and slavery are considered almost universally repugnant, but other labor safeguards that are considered vital in the richest countries of the world are not widely observed elsewhere. In the graphs for most countries, the upper threshold has been taken into account to illustrate the possible maximum cost attributable to the employer.
It could also encourage or require vendors to identify goods and services produced in countries that fully comply with ILO core labor standards. As a final option to enforce labor standards, U.S. consumers can apply their own private sanctions. Foreign nations that want to be granted free access to the world's largest and richest markets must be required to observe fundamental human values, including labor rights.
Similarly, when President Clinton and some EU leaders tried to include workers' rights in the next round of multilateral trade negotiations at the 1999 WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle, developing countries rejected the initiative. Many advocates of labor standards would expand the ILO's basic list of protections to cover workplace safety, working conditions and wages. In many countries, the total cost of the employer will depend on a number of variables or will even be subject to a court decision. More than 150 have ratified the four dealing with forced labor and discrimination in employment and wages.
Instead, it provides technical assistance to member countries to comply with their labor laws and enforcement procedures. Poor countries that agree to abide by ILO standards are sometimes challenged by representatives of rich countries more determined to protect their own workers from “unfair competition abroad” than to improve the lot of third-world workers.
