Labor Rights Violation In Global Supply Chains

Der Autor wählt einen Multi-Stakeholder-Ansatz, um das Thema Arbeitsrechte in globalen Lieferketten zu untersuchen. Er analysiert potenzielle Ursachen für die Verletzung von Arbeitsrechten und schlägt dann einen neuartigen, partizipatorischen arbeitnehmerseitigen Ansatz zur Messung dieser Arbeitsrechtsverletzungen vor. Anschließend wird anhand von drei Fallstudien aus China, Bangladesch und Jordanien diskutiert, wie ArbeiterInnen und deren RepräsentantInnen die Verletzung von Rechten in einem kompetitiven Umfeld beseitigen und die Rechte von ArbeiterInnen und ArbeitnehmerInnen stärken können.

The authors examine developments in labor standards in global supply chains over the past thirty years, analyzing factors that create challenges and opportunities for improving working conditions. They illustrate the complex dynamics within and among key groups, including brands, suppliers, governments, workers and consumers.

This book showcases the inequalities experienced between the Global North and the Global South by exploring the production and distribution model of goods and services worldwide through an analysis of why the structure, framework, and interconnectedness of global supply chains increases the persistence of worker rights’ violations. The narrative explains the power relationships between multinational corporations, their subcontractors, governments, non-governmental organizations, labor unions, and workers. The text focuses primarily on competition between workers in the Global South and the Global North who are compelled to work in global supply chains for their survival and takes a macro-look at how global supply chains operate, how they are governed, who invests and why, and who wins and who loses. From the workers’ perspective, the text highlights the millions of low-wage workers who suffer exploitation and abuse at the hands of greedy multi-national corporations who are able to distance themselves from any liability for workers’ welfare through an institutional system created by national/state governments, trade agreements, and tax and investment strategies which protect property rights over workers’ rights. The fragile plight of workers crescendos through examples of exploitation and abuse in the fishing, mining, apparel, electronic and manufacturing industries, focusing events of workplace disasters, and slave-like working conditions, then climaxes by providing strategies to help strengthen workers through legislative and policy initiatives, collective action, and social and public pressure.

"This book outlines the major problems in corporate voluntary regulation of labor standards in global supply chains, and shows the progress such regulation has made thus far in improving the lives of workers in the global supply chain. It then presents pathways by which private regulation can be improved"--Provided by publisher.

This open access book documents and analyses the various interventions - legal, political, and even artistic - that followed the Ali Enterprises factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2012. It illuminates the different substantive and procedural aspects of the legal proceedings and negotiations between the various local and transnational actors implicated in the Ali Enterprises fire, as well as the legal and policy reforms sparked by the incident. This endeavour serves to embed these legal cases and reform efforts in the larger context of human and labour rights protection and global value chain governance. It also offers a concrete case study relevant for ongoing debates around the role of transnational approaches in making human rights litigation, advocacy, and law reform more effective. In this regard, the book interrogates and critically reflects on such legal campaigns and local and transnational reform work with a view to future transformative legal and social activism. .

Closely based on background studies commisiioned together with Oxfam's partners in 12 countries [acknowledgements].

This book provides insight into the potential for the market to protect and improve labour standards and working conditions in global apparel supply chains. It examines the possibilities and limitations of market approaches to securing social compliance in global manufacturing industries. It does so by tracing the historic origins of social labelling both in trade union and consumer constituencies, considering industry and consumer perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of social labelling, comparing efforts to develop and implement labelling initiatives in various countries, and locating social labelling within contemporary debates and controversies about the implications of globalization for workers worldwide. Scholars and students of globalisation, development, corporate social responsibility, human geography, labour and industrial relations, business ethics, consumer behaviour and fashion will find its contents of relevance. CSR practitioners in the clothing and other industries will also find this useful in developing policy with respect to supply chain assurance.