The role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the governance of global supply chains is typically neglected or simply dismissed as ineffective. This is understandable as global supply chains have undermined the traditional nation state (horizontal) paradigm of global labour governance, most notably the international Conventions agreed by the tripartite constituents (governments, employers and workers’ representatives) of the ILO. But this simply poses the question of whether, and if so how, the ILO can reframe the system of global labour governance to include the (vertical) global supply chains that all too often fail to deliver ‘decent work for all’. Based on an extended ethnographic study, we demonstrate how policy entrepreneurs (international civil servants) within the ILO can play a pivotal role in not only reframing the discourse in a way that resonates with the ‘lived experiences’ of constituents but also ‘orchestrate’ the social partners in order to secure majority support for a process that might ultimately lead to a new standard (Convention) for decent work in global supply chains. A new approach to employment relationships in global supply chains is ‘in the making’, with the potential to improve working conditions and rights at work for millions across the globe.

Collective action on the part of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has always been dependent on the ability of the International Labour Office, the permanent secretariat of the ILO, to orchestrate a consensus between the Organization's tripartite constituents of Government, Employer and Worker representatives. This consensus fell with the Berlin Wall, prompting the Office to bypass states by engaging with external interactants in order to promote international labour standards and decent work. Most recently, in order to shift the emphasis from 'moral commentary' to 'determined action', the Office has reverted to managing states, albeit in the face of determined Employer counterframing. Employer opposition, supported by several member States, cannot be underestimated, as any orchestration within the international industrial relations field is contingent on concerted action.

Consumers are increasingly seen as playing an important role in global labour governance through the establishment of voluntary certification programmes that promise better economic and social conditions for workers in global value chains. In the Sri Lankan tea sector, however, these private forms of governance (Rainforest Alliance, UTZ Certified and the Ethical Tea Partnership) at best have no effect and at worst are associated with indecent forms of work. Rather, conditions of work are defended by powerful trade unions that exercise structural power via their strategic position in the value chain and associational power through links with political parties and residual ethnic ties within and between nation states. It is evident that through close collaboration between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the tea sector unions, workers are able to leverage institutional power through both national and international labour standards to reinforce decent work for those at the very bottom of the global value chain.

Participatory action research (PAR) has been offered up as a methodological orientation for public sociology. The challenges of PAR at the local level have been well documented. In contrast, PAR with the labour movement, in particular international meta-organisations such as global trade union federations, has received short shrift. We demonstrate how partisan scholars working with the labour movement can engage with both the different logics of collective action and the different levels of worker representation in pursuit of (political) emancipation. To illustrate how PAR can be ‘scaled up’ from the local to the global, we reflect on our participation with the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF). This revealed three particular perils of PAR – personal, purpose and political – that partisan scholars must navigate in order to foster action and emancipation by research. While PAR is an affirming process for our research partners, it is not a panacea for their problems.

Global supply chains (GSCs) present the International Labour Organization (ILO) with a challenge that goes to the heart of its founding mandate and structure, one built on the prominence of nation states and national representatives of employers and workers. In February 2020, discussions in the ILO on the rise of GSCs reached deadlock. To fully understand why the ILO has been unable to address decent work deficits in GSCs greater attention needs to be paid to contestation, power and legitimacy in the deliberation of labour governance. Drawing on the concept of agonistic pluralism we examine the evolution of the ILO’s attempt to establish a new labour standard on GSCs under three empirical phases between 2002 and 2020. We argue that shifting power asymmetries between the tripartite constituents of governments, employers and workers, increased counter-hegemonic contestation, and intensified questioning of the deliberative legitimacy of the adversaries, explain the dissensual relations at the ILO. This article contributes to the literature on labour standards in GSCs in demonstrating how and why contestation underpins the evolution of labour governance over time.