Mar 14, 2017 - commodities â from iPhones to Nike shoes â are produced via global supply ..... International Labor Office, Geneva; Hammer, Nikolaus (2008).
Closing the Governance Gap: From CSR to enforceable agreements in the global garment industry Research proposal Jeroen Merk, March 14, 2017 Abstract This research starts with a simple premise: namely, that the statist model of labour regulation is increasingly anachronistic as it fails to cover transnational corporations (TNCs) and their global supply chains. The garment industry has not only become a textbook example of how economic globalisation has led to poor and unsafe working conditions; it has also become a laboratory for new forms of transnational collective bargaining. This research will look at five different worker-driven strategies for engaging TNCs in a system of negotiated supply chain accountability. It will examine the counter-hegemonic potential of these initiatives to challenge corporate-led globalisation and to chart alternative paths of corporate accountability. As such, it seeks to contribute to new discourses and socio-legal strategies on advancing social justice within global supply chains.
The governance gap of ‘subcontracted capitalism’ The last few decades have seen a huge restructuring of how production is organised. National production systems have been broken down and organised at a global scale. As a result of these organisational shifts, more and more of our everyday commodities – from iPhones to Nike shoes – are produced via global supply chains. While the magnitude of transnational outsourcing is notoriously difficult to calculate, it has been estimated that ‘at least 40 per cent of the world trade is linked to outsourcing.’1 ILO research even suggests – studying the data of 40 countries – that one in five jobs can be linked to global supply chains.2 The TNCs that organise these global supply chains are often referred to as ‘lead firms’, who externalise productive activities while maintaining ‘a level of control … exercised through contracts and bargaining power’, as the World Investment Report 2011 so aptly describes it.3 Transnational outsourcing to low wage countries enables lead companies to benefit from poverty wages and the weak enforcement of labour laws. It gives them access to cheap and unprotected labour reserves in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, etc., without ever having to enter into any contractual relations with these workers. The task of imposing control over large labour forces is left to formally independent contractors. This creates two main challenges for labour regulations. First, under these conditions there is no legal cause of action or jurisdiction regarding these TNCs (or lead firms) when a violation is caused by one of 1
their suppliers with whom they have a contractual relationship. This allows them to evade responsibility for damages that occur in their global supply chains, while legal redress is often unattainable for workers at the national level. Secondly, these transformations in the world of work also put a strain on the protection of labour rights because the lead firm remains out of (legal) reach in most collective bargaining efforts. As a result, transnational outsourcing has progressively de-coupled the scale of worker organizing efforts within national unions.4 This is particularly evident in labour-intensive industries like garments where ‘actual contractual employers are not influential negotiating parties’.5 At the same time, lead firms can ‘…play off workers in different places against one another for jobs and investment’, often referred to as the ‘race to the bottom’.6 The different approaches that have thus far been presented to bridge the governance gap include:
a. Public approaches Attempts to create binding international rules for transnational corporations go back to the 1970s.7 More recently, global union confederations have turned to lobbying for a new ILO Convention on Global Supply Chains or the establishment of a global labour inspectorate.8 Not surprisingly, labour rights advocates and anti-sweatshop activists would generally support initiatives in the direction of binding regulations. However, government and corporate opposition have made any current prospects for a binding international treaty very slim indeed; even if, within national jurisdictions, some progress has been made in the development of mandatory due diligence obligations regarding human and labour rights at parent companies as applied to their extra-territorial relationships with subsidiaries, suppliers and subcontractors.9 The Dutch Parliament, for example, recently adopted a law that requires corporations selling merchandize in the Netherlands to pro-actively avoid child labour situations in their supply chains (Wet Zorgplicht Kinderarbeid). Other examples of home-state regulations include the UK Anti-Slavery Legislation and the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law.
b. Voluntary approaches In the absence of binding rules for transnational corporations, this rights vacuum has been filled by a series of voluntary guidelines, principles and recommendations10 as well as a large variety of private standard setting and regulatory initiatives such as codes of conduct, labelling, certification, and social auditing.11 Compliance with labour standards here depends on soft mechanisms, such as market penalties, reputational damage and the ‘courts of public opinion’ (i.e., normative and social expectations).12 Although hundreds of ethical codes have been adopted and corporate social responsibility has turned into a ‘routine management function’;13 the resultant kaleidoscope or ‘norm cascade’ of voluntary initiatives and corporate 2
self-regulation has overwhelmingly failed to address the root causes of workers’ rights abuses in global supply chains.14 Two decades of codes of conduct, monitoring and social auditing may have created a new billion-dollar CSR industry; many have questioned its effectiveness in addressing labour rights concerns.15 Criticasters point out that CSR has done very little to nothing to help prevent such factory disasters as the ones at Rana Plaza and Ali Enterprises from happening.16 Research also shows disappointing results in addressing concerns such as excessive overtime; the widespread use of informal and insecure forms of employment; the pervasiveness of poverty wages, irregular and unfair wage practices (‘wage theft’)17; and anti-union harassment and intimidation.18 As a result, there is widespread scepticism about the impact of voluntary instruments governing labour rights compliance. John Ruggie, the former United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, stated it succinctly: ‘Just about everyone, at least off the record, will tell you that monitoring doesn’t work’.19
c. Negotiated approaches Although CSR has failed to address poor working conditions, one positive effect has been that it has helped to erode and denaturalise the idea that TNCs are not responsible for third-party human and labour rights abuses.20 Some research suggests potential synergies between public regulation and private labour regulation.21 Another regulatory route, which is the focus of this research proposal, concentrates on how this growing recognition of supply chain responsibility may provide new opportunities to establish cross-border triangular bargaining structures that include lead firms in negotiated – and, preferably, legally enforceable – agreements on how to protect labour rights and advance social justice across borders.22 The aim here is to conclude agreements which enables workers to ‘become partners in a decision-making process on matters of common interest’,23 rather than corporations unilaterally choosing which rights they will apply to their supply chain operations and how they are implemented and enforced. This means that workers, union representatives and allies must not only have the power to veto or substantially alter outcomes, but also the power to impose regulations that lead firms are unlikely to voluntarily commit to.24 This may mean, for example, their suggesting a redistribution of financial resources or challenging management’s decision-making prerogatives. In other words, cross-border bargaining potentially transforms workers and their representatives into agents of social regulation instead of merely functioning as passive objects of corporate-controlled monitoring initiatives.25 This presupposes a central role for freedom of association and collective bargaining, often referred to as ‘enabling rights’, since these rights represent the ‘key institutional mechanisms to empower workers and thus mitigate power asymmetries’,26 and provide workers not only with the tools to ensure that other labour rights are upheld but also help to strengthen democratic processes, 3
inclusiveness and transparency of non-governmental labour governance, all muchdiscussed flaws of current corporate self-regulatory initiatives.27
Research objective and focus The reason why this research focuses on the garment industry has not only become a textbook example of how economic globalisation has devolved into poor and unsafe working conditions; it has also become a laboratory for new initiatives for the engagement of lead firms in triangular agreements that match not only the scale of today’s productive operations but also re-establishes labour as a representative force within this process. Rodríguez-Garavito has argued that the anti-sweatshop movement offers a privileged vantage point from which to examine the role of law in counterhegemonic globalisation. Not only have labour rights advocates framed their arguments and campaigns in legal terms, as a vindication of basic labour and human rights; these organisations are also a major ‘component of a broader movement to regulate the operation of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the global economy’.28 This research project seeks ‘to interpret these embryonic experiences in a prospective spirit that can be called the sociology of emergence’. 29 Toward this end, a thorough examination of the various labour-driven strategies can help us ‘render visible and credible the potential that lies implicit or remains embryonic in the experiences under examination’.30 It will distinguish between five different workerdriven strategies of constructing new spatialities of transnational labour governance in the global garment industry. What these strategies have in common is that they all seek to reorganise and renegotiate the triangle of interactions between lead firms, suppliers and workers. Each strategy covers both vertical and horizontal ties within the global supply chains. The horizontal axis concerns relations between workers’ and their direct or legal employer; the vertical axis concerns relations between workers and lead firms, on the one hand, and (commercial/legal) relations between lead firms and their suppliers, on the other (see figure 1). These interventions, while worker-driven, at the same time vary in terms of geographical scope: content, roles and responsibilities that are envisioned for the various parties, and implementation and enforcement mechanisms. The composition of the cross-border alliances driving them also varies.
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Lead +irms (indirect employers) Crossborder bargaining terrain workers and allies (unions)
Suppliers (direct employers)
Figure 1: Triangular supply chain bargaining
The following five forms of cross-border triangular bargaining, or attempts thereto, are: •
•
Single-site bargaining: focuses on a particular factory or workplace but involve ‘buyer’ leverage in order to arrive at an agreement (often referred to as the ‘brand boomerang’ approach).31 Each workplace provides a potential departure point for capital-labour conflicts involving, for example, workers locked-out after a strike; the illegal dismissal of union organisers or a factory that closes down without paying back wages and severance payments. In most cases, lead firms are not a formal party to the agreement although they often facilitate a resolution. The multi-sited activities developed by transnational solidarity networks provide an opportunity to expand the spatial horizon of a workplace conflict and directly interact with lead firms.32 In other words, these struggles are place-based but not place-bound. Grassroots-driven supply-chain bargaining: attempts to construct transnational agreements with lead firms, which apply equally across an entire region, driven by local worker organisations (e.g., Asia Floor Wage).33 It represents an attempt to denationalise wage bargaining and to address the problem of capital’s ‘cut and run’ strategies. The AFW proposal is thus an explicit attempt to come to terms with the unevenly developed geography of garment production and the role lead firms play in it. Other campaign organisations also propose programs of grassroots bargaining with global brands that involves grassroots unions in the targeting of global lead firms at the top of the supply chain.34 These alliances operate largely independent of 5
existing national and international union structures as established by IndustriALL.
•
Reinvented national collective bargaining: international union bodies and groups of brands (e.g., lead firms in supply chains) come to an agreement covering individual production countries (e.g., IndustriAll’s ACT program with major brands). The emphasis here is on reviving ‘mature systems of industrial relations’ at the national level,35 but the bargaining agreements are linked to the reform of lead firms’ purchasing practices and are supported by ‘worldclass manufacturing standards’.36
•
Spatial reach agreements: between an international union body and a single TNC, potentially covering all of the production facilities in that firms’ supply chain, e.g., Global Framework Agreements (GFAs).37 These instruments are global in scope and typically refer to internationally recognized labour standards. GFAs can potentially cover a large number of workplaces: IndustriALL’s agreement with H&M cover 1.6 million workers and their GFA with Inditex 1.4 workers, employed throughout their chain of suppliers and subcontractors. Signing GFAs is an important strategic objective of GUFs, who perceive them as a tool for the creation of space within which to organise; strengthen cross-border solidarity, and institutionalise social dialogue.
•
Thematic Bargaining Agreements: Agreements that seek to address a specific labour-rights concern, for example the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety (the Accord)38 or the Indonesia Freedom of Association Protocol.39 These agreements focus on a specific issue, which entails an indepth and detailed approach that universal approaches for the prevention of labour rights violations typically lack. The Accord stands out because it includes a binding arbitration process ‘enforceable in a court of law of the domicile of the signatory against whom enforcement is sought’ pursuant to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, also known as the ‘New York Convention’.
More specifically, the research will be guided by the following questions: a) Under what conditions or circumstances do these initiatives emerge? We will look at: -
The historical/institutional context in which these instruments or proposals were developed.
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-
The role of different stakeholders – lead firms, suppliers, unions, labour advocacy groups, etc. – in the creation of these instruments?
b) How do these instruments differ from mainstream CSR initiatives in legal terms? In terms of content, scope, governance, transparency, legal enforceability and worker participation. -
How to translate these campaign objectives into (legal) practice. What possibilities does private law (or contract law) offer to make these agreements legally binding? What other possibilities exist to make these agreements legally binding? How do these initiatives seek to bridge the potential asymmetry between the scope of authority of the negotiating parties and the scope of coverage of the negotiated instrument?
c) What lessons can be drawn from these initiatives for advancing social justice in global supply chains? -
In other industrial sectors?
-
What difficulties or barriers would these kinds of initiatives face?
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Foster, J. & R. McChesney (2012) The Endless Crisis, New York: Monthly Review Press, p. 105. International Labor Office (ILO) (2015). World Employment Social Outlook (WESO): ‘The changing nature of jobs’, Geneva. 3 UNCTAD (2011) ‘World Investment Report 2011: Non-Equity Modes of International Production and Development’, United Nations, New York and Geneva., p. 125 (italics added). 4 Castree, N, N. Coe, k. Ward, K. & M. Samers (2004) Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and the Geographies of Labour. London: Sage Publications. 5 Ebisui, M (2012) ‘Non-standard Workers: Good Practices of Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining’, E-Journal of International and Comparative Labour Studies, Vol 1. (no. 3-4), pp.211-246 2
6 2 Castree,
N., N. Coe, K. Ward and M. Samers (2004) ‘Spaces of Work; global capitalism and International Labor Office (ILO) (2015). World Employment Social Outlook (WESO): ‘The changing geographies of labour’ Sage Publications: London, p.256 nature of jobs’, Geneva. 7 3 These efforts span four decades: from the New International Economic Order’s failed attempt to UNCTAD (2011) ‘World Investment Report 2011: Non-Equity Modes of International Production and negotiate a UN Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations (1975-1994) to the equally ill-fated Development’, United Nations, New York and Geneva., p. 125 (italics added). 4 Draft Norms (1998-2004). Castree, N, N. Coe, k. Ward, K. & M. Samers (2004) Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and the 8 ILO (2013) ‘‘Towards the ILO Centenary: Realities, Renewal and Tripartite Commitment’, ILC. Geographies of Labour. London: Sage Publications. 5 Ebisui, M (2012) ‘Non-standard Workers: Good Practices of Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining’, E-Journal of International and Comparative Labour Studies, Vol 1. (no. 3-4), pp.211-246 6
Castree, N., N. Coe, K. Ward and M. Samers (2004) ‘Spaces of Work; global capitalism and geographies of labour’ Sage Publications: London, p.256 7 These efforts span four decades: from the New International Economic Order’s failed attempt to negotiate a UN Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations (1975-1994) to the equally ill-fated Draft Norms (1998-2004). 8 ILO (2013) ‘‘Towards the ILO Centenary: Realities, Renewal and Tripartite Commitment’, ILC. 102/D/1A (2013); see also: Dahan, Y., H. Lerner and F. Milman-Sivan (2015) ‘The International Labor Organization, multinational enterprises, and shifting conceptions of responsibility in the global
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economy’, in: Marx, A. (ed.) ‘Global Governance of Labour Rights Assessing the Effectiveness of Transnational Public and Private Policy Initiatives’, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 9 For a discussion on the possibilities in this area see, De Schutter, O., A. Ramasastry, M. Taylor, & R. Thompson (2012) ‘Human Rights Due Diligence: The Role of States’, document available at: http://icar.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Human-Rights-Due-Diligence-The-Role-of-States.pdf [last accessed, March 10, 2017]. 10 This includes, inter alia, the ILO MNE Declaration, OECD Guidelines for Multi National Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 11 See, e.g.: Fransen, L. (2012) ‘Multi-stakeholder governance and voluntary programme interactions: legitimation politics in the institutional design of Corporate Social Responsibility’, Socio-Economic Review (2012) 10, 163–192; MacDonald, K. (2014) The Politics of Global Supply Chains: Power and Governance Beyond the State, Cambridge: Polity Press; O’Rourke, D. (2005) ‘Multi-stakeholder regulation: Privatizing or socializing global labor standards?’, World Development, 34(5), 899-918. 12 SRSG, ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’, no. 20, 54. Ruggie notes that the ‘courts of public opinion [include]’ employees, communities, consumers, civil society, as well as investors (ibid). 13 Miller, D. 2004. ‘Preparing for the long haul: Negotiating International Framework Agreements in the Global Textile, Garment and Footwear Sector’, Global Social Policy, 4 (2), 215-239. 14 Nova, S. and C. Wegenaar (2016) ‘Outsourcing Horror: Why Apparel Workers Are Still Dying, One Hundred Years After Triangle Shirtwaist’, in: Appelbaum, R.P. & N. Lichtenstein (eds.) Achieving Worker Rights in the Global Economy, IRL Press: Ithaca and London, p. 25; Clean Clothes Campaign (2005), Looking for a quick fix: How weak auditing is keeping workers in sweatshops’, Clean Clothes Campaign, Amsterdam; Egels-Zandén, N. & J. Merk (2013) ‘Private regulation and trade union rights: Why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights’, Journal of Business Ethnics, [Published online August 9, 2013.], 1-13; Anner, M. (2012). ‘Corporate social responsibility and freedom of association rights: The precarious quest for legitimacy and control in global supply chains‘, Politics & Society, 40(4), 609-644. 15 See, e.g.; Taylor, M. (2011) 'Race You to the Bottom... and Back again? the Uneven Development of Labour Codes of Conduct', New Political Economy 16(4): 445-462; Utting, P. (2008) 'The Struggle for Corporate Accountability', Development and Change 39(6): 959-975. 16 The collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 in Bangladesh, with a death toll of 1,138 and more than 2,000 injured. There is literature that discusses these factory disasters in more detail, see, e.g.: Ross, R. (2016) ‘The Twilight of CSR: Life and Death Illuminated by Fire’, in: Appelbaum, R.P. & N. Lichtenstein (eds.) Achieving Worker Rights in the Global Economy, IRL Press, Ithaca and London; Claeson, B. (2012) ‘Deadly Secrets: What companies know about dangerous workplaces and why exposing the truth can save workers’ lives in Bangladesh and beyond’. International Labor Rights Forum. http://laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/DeadlySecrets.pdf 17 Vaughan-Whitehead, D. (2011) ‘How ‘Fair’ are Wage Practices along the Supply Chain? Global Assessment in 2010-11’. Paper prepared for the Better Work Conference, 26–8 October 2011, Washington, DC; Workers Rights Consortium (July, 2013) Global Wage Trends for Apparel Workers, 2001 – 2011, Workers Rights Consortium, available at: http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/RealWageStudy-3.pdf [last accessed, February 15, 2017] 18 S. Barrientos & S. Smith, ‘Do Workers Benefit from Ethical Trade? Assessing codes of labor practice in global production systems’. Third World Quarterly, 28 (4) 2007, 713-729; Sethi P. & J.L. Rovenpor (2016) The Role of NGOs in Ameliorating Sweatshop-like Conditions in the Global Supply Chain: The Case of the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and Social Accountability International (SAI), Business and Society Review 121:1, 5–36; Starmanns, M. (2010) ‘The Grand Illusion? Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Garment Production Networks’, Inaugural dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultat der Universitat zu Koln. Lund-Thomsen, P. & A. Lindgreen (2014) ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Value Chains: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?’ Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 123, pp. 11–22; Pruett, D., J. Merk., E. De Haan & I. Zeldenrust (2005) ‘Looking For a Quick Fix: How Weak Social Auditing is Keeping Workers in Sweatshops,’ Clean Clothes Campaign, November 2005 19 John Ruggie cited in: Women Wear Daily, 2009, 21 October 2009, http://www.wwd.com/businessnews/government-trade/un-expert-raises-doubts-on-factory-monitoring-2156916 20 The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights state that corporations should ‘seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations,
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products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts’ (principle 13). In short, it establishes a responsibility to address adverse human rights impacts throughout a company’s supply chain, from conception to end-use. See: UNHR (2014) ‘Frequently Asked Question About the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FAQ_PrinciplesBussinessHR.pdf [last accessed, March 2, 2017] 21 See, e.g.: Amengual, M. (2010) 'Complementary Labor Regulation: The Uncoordinated Combination of State and Private Regulators in the Dominican Republic', World Development 38(3): 405-414; Locke, R.M., B.A. Rissing & T. Pal (2013) 'Complements Or Substitutes? Private Codes, State Regulation and the Enforcement of Labour Standards in Global Supply Chains', British Journal of Industrial Relations 51(3): 519-552. 22 AFL-CIO (2013) ‘Responsibility Outsourced, Social audits, Workplace Certification and Twenty Years of Failure to Protect Worker Rights’, 22, available at: http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/77061/1902391/CSReport.pdf ; Clean Clothes Campaigns, 23 ILO (2015) ‘Promoting Collective Bargaining: Collective Bargaining Convention, 1981 (no. 154) and Collective Bargaining Recommendation, 1981 (no. 163)’, International Labor Office, Geneva, 17-18 24 Melish, T J. & E. Meidinger (2011) ‘Protect, Respect, Remedy and Participate: ‘New Governance’ Lessons for the Ruggie Framework (August 8, 2011). The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Foundations and Implementation, Radu Mares, ed., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2012; Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2012-019. 25 There is a small body of research emphasizing labor-driven rather than corporate-driven approaches towards regulation, see, e.g.: Selwyn, B. (2013) 'Social Upgrading and Labour in Global Production Networks: A Critique and an Alternative Conception', Competition & Change 17(1): 75-90; Siegmann, K.A., J. Merk, & P. Knorringa (2016) ‘Civic Innovation in global value chains: Towards workers as agents in voluntary initiatives’, in: W. Harcour, B. Helmsing, & P. Knorringa, “The Meaning of Civic Innovation”, CIRI edited book volume. 26 Rodriguez-Garavito, C. A. (2005): ‘Global governance and Labor rights. Codes of conduct and antisweatshop struggles in global apparel factories in Mexico and Guatemala’. In: Politics & Society 33 (2), 203–233. 27 MacDonald, K. (2014) The Politics of Global Supply Chains: Power and Governance Beyond the State, Cambridge: Polity Press. 28 Rodríguez-Garavito, A. (2005) ‘Nike’s Law: the anti-sweatshop movement, transnational corporations, and the struggle over international labor rights in the Americas’, in: Santos, B. and Rodríguez-Garavito, A., (ed.) Law and globalization from below: towards a cosmopolitan legality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 64-91. 29 Santos, B. & A Rodríguez-Garavito (2005) Law, politics, and the subaltern in counter-hegemonic globalization. In Santos, B. and A. Rodríguez-Garavito (eds.) Law and globalization from below: towards a cosmopolitan legality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 16. 30 Ibid.,p. 17. 31 This means that workers and their allies search for the ‘corporation’s vulnerabilities beyond the immediate domain of labour relations and the shop floor, and to exploit them strategically’ Greven, T. & J. Russo (2003) ‘Transnational 'Corporate Campaigns'. A Tool for Labour Unions in the Global Economy? In:. IIRA. Berlin, 8.12.09, p.6. 32 For a general discussion of this strategy see e.g.: Den Hond, F. Stolwijk, S. & J. Merk, (2014) ‘A strategic-interaction analysis of the CCC urgent appeal system and its outcomes for garment workers’, Mobilisations: An International Quarterly, 19 (1), pp. 83-111; Merk, J. (2009) ‘Jumping Scale and Bridging Space in the era of Corporate Social Responsibility: Cross-border labour struggles in the global garment industry’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 30 (3), pp. 599-615; for individual cases see, e.g.: Armbruster-Sandoval, R. (2005) ‘Workers of the World Unite? The Contemporary Anti-Sweatshop Movement and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Americas’, Work and Occupations, 32(4): 464-485; Caraway, T.L. (2006) ‘Political Openness and Transnational Activism. Comparative Insights from Labor Activism’, Politics Society 34(2): 277-304; Carty V (2006) Transnational organizing and the race to the bottom. In: Almeida P and Johnston H (eds) Latin American Social Movements. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 215-230; Knight G. & D. Wells (2007) ‘Bringing the Local Back In: Trajectory of Contention and the Union Struggle at Kukdong/Mexmode’, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural
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and Political Protest, 6:1, 83-103; Ross, R. (2006) A Tale of Two Factories: Successful Resistance to Sweatshops and the Limits of Firefighting, Labor Studies Journal 30(4) pp. 65–85. 33 Merk, J. (2010) ‘Cross-border Wage Struggles in the Global Garment Industry: The campaign for an Asia Floor Wage’, in: A. Bieler and I. Lindberg (eds.) Global Restructuring, Labour and the Challenges for Transnational Solidarity, (New York and London, Routledge). See also: Bhattacharjee, A. & A. Roy. (2012) ‘Asia Floor Wage and Global Industrial Collective Bargaining’, International Journal of Labour Research, 4(1): 67-82. Bhattacharjee Anannya and Roy, Ashim (2015) ‘The Asia Floor Wage Strategy’, in: Anannya Bhattacharjee, Ashim Roy, Kajal Bhardwaj, Sangeeta Ghosh, ‘Towards An Asia Floor Wage: A Global South Labour Initiative for Garment Workers’, Books For Change, Bangalore 34 Hermanson, J. (2016) ‘Workers of the World, Unite! The Strategy of the International Union League for Brand Responsibility’, in: Appelbaum, Richard P. & Nelson Lichtenstein (eds.) Achieving Worker Rights in the Global Economy, IRL Press, Ithaca and London; Kumar, A. & J. Mahoney (2014) ‘Stitching Together: How Workers Are Hemming Down Transnational Capital in the Hyper-Global Apparel Industry’, The Journal of Labour & Society, Vol. 17, pp. 187–210. 35 Miller D. S. Turner & T. Grinter, Tom (2011) 'Back to the Future? A critical reflection on Neil Kearney’s mature systems of industrial relations perspective on the governance of outsourced apparel supply chains', Capturing the Gains, Working Paper, 2011/8 36 For a discussion on the strategy behind ACT: Holdcroft, J. (2015): “Transforming supply chain industrial relations”, in International Journal of Labour Research (2015, Vol. 7(1-2)), pp. 95–104, 37 Fichter, M. (2015) ‘Organising In and Along Value Chains: What Does It Mean for Trade Unions?’ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Berlin; Hadwiger, F. (2016) ‘Global framework agreements: Achieving decent work in global supply chains’, International Labor Office, Geneva; Hammer, Nikolaus (2008) ‘International framework agreements in the context of global production’, in: Konstantinos, Papadakis (eds) Cross-Border Social Dialogue and Agreements: An emerging global industrial relations framework? International Labour Organization (International Institute for Labour Studies), Geneve; Steves, D. & T. Boswell (2007) ‘International Framework Agreements: Opportunities and Challenges for Global Unionism’, in: Bronfenbrenner, Kate (ed.) Global Unions: Challenging transnational capital through cross-border campaigns, ILR Press, Ithaca and London, pp. 174-194 38 For a copy of the The Accord, p.1, http://bangladeshaccord.org/wp38 content/uploads/2013/10/the_accord.pdf ; For discussions: Hensler B. & J. Blasi (2013) ‘Making Global Corporations’ Labor Rights Commitments Legally Enforceable: The Bangladesh Breakthrough’, Workers Rights Consortium, http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/recommended-reading/makingglobal-corporations2019-labor-rights-commitments-legally-enforceable-the-bangladeshbreakthrough [last accessed, February 27, 2017]; Reinecke, J. & J. Donaghey (2015) 'After Rana Plaza: Building coalitional power for labour rights between unions and (consumption-based) social movement organisations', Organization, …; Anner, M., J, Bair & J. Blasi (2013) ‘Toward joint liability in global supply chains: addressing the root causes of labor violations in international subcontracting networks’, Comp. labor law & pol’y journal, vol. 35 (1), pp. 1-43 39 For a copy of the FoA protocol: http://www.ituccsi.org/IMG/pdf/FOA_Protocol_English_translation_May_2011.pdf ; For discussions: Gardener D (2012) Workers’ Rights and Corporate Accountability - The Move Towards Practical, Worker-driven, Change for Sportswear Workers in Indonesia. Gender & Development 20(1): 49-65; Siegmann, K.A, Merk, J. & P. Knorringa, (2016) ‘Positive class compromise in globalized production? The freedom of association protocol in the Indonesian sportswear industry", International Labour Review; Delaney, A. T. Connor, & S. Rennie (2016) ‘The Freedom of Association Protocol: A localised non-judical mechanism for workers' rights in global supply chains’, working paper, 2016. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309767718_The_Freedom_of_Association_Protocol_A_lo calised_non-judical_mechanism_for_workers%27_rights_in_global_supply_chains
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