The protection of international labour rights: a longitudinal analysis of the protection of the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining over 30 years in 73 countries

Marx, Axel; Soares, Jadir; Acker, Wouter Van

doi:10.4337/9781784711467.00008

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…This can result in malpractice (Davies et al, 2011;Fisher et al, 2010) ranging from unacceptable working conditions to human trafficking (ILO, 2008). Respect for labour rights (Levi et al, 2013) and freedom of association (Marx et al, 2015) has deteriorated in most regions of the world.…”

Section: The Emergence Of the Governance Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind the gap: Grass roots ‘brokering’ to improve labour standards in global supply chains

Kaine

Josserand

2017

Human Relations

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While governance and regulation are a first step in addressing worsening working conditions in global supply chains, improving implementation is also key to reversing this trend. In this article, after examining the nature of the existing governance and implementation gaps in labour standards in global supply chains, we explore how Viet Labor, an emerging grass-roots organization, has developed practices to help close them. This involves playing brokering roles between different workers and between workers and existing governance mechanisms. We identify an initial typology of six such roles: educating, organizing, supporting, collective action, whistle-blowing and documenting. This marks a significant shift in the way action to improve labour standards along the supply chain is analysed. Our case explores how predominantly top-down approaches can be supplemented by bottom-up ones centred on workers’ agency.

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Section: The Emergence Of the Governance Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind the gap: Grass roots ‘brokering’ to improve labour standards in global supply chains

Kaine

Josserand

2017

Human Relations

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“…They often leverage transnational institutional-led multi-stakeholder norms such as those defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO), guidelines from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or the United Nations (UN) Global Compact (Donaghey et al, 2014). Despite these developments, recent studies show a deterioration in labour rights (Levi et al, 2013), freedom of association, and collective bargaining (Marx et al, 2015). This is because in many cases neither labour nor consumer power are sufficient to trigger the emergence of a governance structure that would compensate for the failure of traditional regulation (Donaghey et al,2014).…”

Section: Résumé De L'articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Labour Standards in Global Value Chains: Disentangling Workers’ Voice, Vicarious Voice, Power Relations, and Regulation

Josserand

Kaine

2017

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Theoretical developments and case studies have started to explore the complexity and intricacies of new forms of labour regulation in Global Value Chains (GVCs). This paper builds on these to integrate what we know into a coherent framework that can guide practice and future research. We bring together existing knowledge on new forms of labour standards regulation—such as Private Social Standards (PSSs) and International Framework Agreements (IFAs)—into a framework that integrates and disentangles the contextual determinants, processes, regulatory mechanisms, and outcomes of such regulation in GVCs. Of special significance is the distinction between regulatory processes—vicarious voice, workers’ voice, coordinated international campaigns—, and regulatory mechanisms—IFAs and PSSs. Extant literature tends to deal with existing forms of regulation without much clarity on their respective roles. Our framework identifies two pathways from regulatory processes to regulatory mechanisms: the labour power and the customer power pathways. Our framework also establishes clear connections between concepts, underlining links of causality and moderating effects. We explore the impact of value chain structure, and specifically, the connections between workers’ and vicarious voice, on regulatory outcomes. With regard to the structure of supply chains, we examine the coupling of operations and the sensitivity of value chain participants to reputational risk and drive within value chains. We add the significant dimension of ‘internal drive’ to existing understandings of drive to capture the possible internal discrepancies leading managers in multinational companies (MNCs) to apply mixed incentives to their suppliers to comply with labour standards. Additionally, we introduce the concept of ‘vicarious voice’, which we define as a situation where workers’ voice is substituted by that of actors who, unlike local unions or activist unionism, do not have a close representative link with workers. Vicarious voice may be composed of ethical consumerism, social advocacy, and international union federations.

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Die IAO – eine ungewöhnliche Internationale Organisation

Senghaas-Knobloch

2019

"Arbeit Ist Keine Ware" - 100 Jahre Internationale Arbeitsorganisation

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The protection of international labour rights: a longitudinal analysis of the protection of the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining over 30 years in 73 countries

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Mind the gap: Grass roots ‘brokering’ to improve labour standards in global supply chains

Mind the gap: Grass roots ‘brokering’ to improve labour standards in global supply chains

Labour Standards in Global Value Chains: Disentangling Workers’ Voice, Vicarious Voice, Power Relations, and Regulation

Die IAO – eine ungewöhnliche Internationale Organisation

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