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The International Trade Union Confederation has condemned the World Bank’s newly launched Business Ready Index, for its “dangerous” ranking of countries’ labour policies.
The World Bank’s Business Ready Index ranked countries on their alleged ease of doing business.
In the lead-up to its development, the ITUC had previously criticised the B-Ready Index’s proposed methodology, and for effectively promoting a race to the bottom in labour rights, working conditions and social protection.
ITUC General Secretary, Luc Triangle, said, “As workers around the world face brutal retaliation for exercising their right to organise a union and improve their working conditions, it is deeply troubling for the World Bank to rank countries in a way that stimulates competition to erode labour standards.
“There is no shortcut for democratic consultation and social dialogue on labour market practices. Reforms based on such an unbalanced analysis will be misguided at best and dangerous at worst.
“Labour policies are not simple inputs, like business licenses or utility hook-ups, and they can’t be ranked in the same fashion. Trade unions globally argue that labour is not an appropriate topic for the B-Ready Index and should be removed.”
According to Triangle, ITUC is disappointed by the process that developed the index, despite repeated requests by trade unions to engage with the Bank on this, and on other initiatives that have major implications for workers.
He noted that the bank went ahead with the index with its flawed labour topic, ignoring the concerns of democratic workers’ representatives.
‘The B-Ready Index has critical flaws, particularly in its superficial evaluation of workers’ rights, allowing countries like the Philippines and Indonesia to score high despite poor records. This undermines its credibility and encourages superficial reforms,” the ITUC general secretary said.
Triangle noted that the index penalised contribution-based social protection systems, promoting an unrealistic shift to tax-financed schemes that could widen protection gaps.
“Its approach also encourages harmful flexibility, such as unlimited fixed-term contracts and inadequate wages, while eroding collective bargaining, ultimately contradicting the goal of inclusive development,” he mentioned.
“The B-Ready Index is a renewal of the World Bank’s previously discredited Doing Business Report, which was discontinued in 2020 following serious methodological and data failures and widespread criticism by academics, trade unions and civil society,” he stated.
