This article contributes insights to the emerging literature on the potential interaction between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public regulation of labour standards in global and national value chains. Based on a case study of an endogenous CSR initiative recently introduced by the Brazilian Association of Apparel Retailers (ABVTEX), the article explores how this incipient experience may offer the potential to bridge two prevalent regulatory gaps in value chains. First, communication is being fostered gradually between a private sector audit programme and the public labour inspection, pointing toward ways in which private and public action can play complementary roles in the promotion of labour standards in value chains. Second, the design of this CSR initiative seeks to extend monitoring beyond first-tier suppliers to identify vulnerable workers in subcontracted firms at lower tiers within value chains, in response to a response to a commission report of the São Paulo City Council, which advised that retailers cannot use clauses in supplier contracts to outsource responsibility for labour standards in their value chains.
What happens to a country's system of labor laws when its government embraces market‐oriented reforms? In a twist on the prediction that labor regulations will be repealed, researchers find that laws remain in place but are not faithfully enforced, a phenomenon known as de facto flexibility. This article examines the case of Brazil to understand its near‐opposite; namely, resilience and renewal in the enforcement of labor regulations. It finds that labor unions have combined the corporatist authority they gained under state control with the autonomy they acquired under democratization to devise new modes of action and to safeguard existing regulations. Meanwhile, labor inspectors and prosecutors rely on existing laws to combat precarious work conditions and promote formal employment relations, which strengthen the unions. This mutually supportive arrangement is neither perfect nor free of tension, but it shows how workers can be protected even when employers are subjected to global competition.
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