Global Companies and the Private Regulation of Global Labor Standards

Civil Governance in Work and Employment Relations: How Civil Society Organizations Contribute to Systems of Labour Governance

“…Bartley 2003Bartley , 2007Bartley , 2011Donaghey et al 2014;Egels-Zandén 2007;Esbenshade 2012;Gulbrandsen 2010;Locke 2013;Pattberg 2005;Vogel 2010). This development is related to the emergence of global supply chains and pressure on multinationals to exhibit greater CSR (Fransen 2013;Fransen and Burgoon 2012;Knudsen 2013;Wells 2007). The rise of 'transnational private governance' (Pattberg 2005) or 'transnational private regulation' (Bartley 2007), is linked to the diminished regulatory capacities of nation-states and the absence of effective multilateral governance arrangements in a more globalized world; a response to the regulatory 'gap' or 'vacuum' evident at a global level (Esbenshade 2004;Wells 2007).…”

Who Fills the Global Governance Gap? Rethinking the Roles of Business and Government in Global Governance

“…The consensus in the literature is that private initiatives by themselves are not sufficient to even partially fill the governance gap. Based on the most thorough investigation to date of compliance efforts of major global corporations regarding labour standards in their global supply chains, Locke (2013, p. 174) concludes that ‘private compliance programs appear unable to deliver on their promise of enforcing labor standards in today’s new centers of global production’ (Locke, 2013, p. 174; see also Bartley, 2010; Fransen, 2013). ‘The most effective and sustainable approach (…) will require a mix of novel forms of private and public regulation’ (Locke, 2013, p. 2; also see Toffel, Short, & Ouellet, 2015).…”

“…While the four constellations are analytically distinct, a key premise of this framework is that they can and will be combined, as available; for example in global labour governance (e.g. Fransen, 2013): lending support to company codes of conduct or industry agreements that align with public policy objectives; invoking court rulings ( shadow of hierarchy ), and initiating and soft steering of intermediary private governance schemes such as the Ethical Trading Initiative.…”

Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining in Global Supply Chains: A Research Agenda

“…A puzzling general conclusion from two decades of research on corporate regulation of labor issues through their codes of conduct (also referred to as private regulation) is the absence of meaningful improvements in labor conditions in global supply chains in the developing world (Bartley et al, 2015; Locke, 2013; Kuruvilla, 2021). As Bartley et al (2015: 151) suggest, “Existing evidence suggests that corporate codes of conduct and monitoring have had some meaningful but narrow effects on working conditions and the management of human resources, but the rights of workers have been less affected, and even on the issues where codes tend to be most meaningful, standards in many parts of the (apparel) industry remain criminally low in an absolute sense.” Several new research studies focusing on the apparel and electronics industries in East and Southeast Asia show no improvement in freedom of association (FOA) and collective bargaining (CB) (Appelbaum & Lichtenstein, 2016; Bartley et al, 2015; Distelhorst & Locke, 2018; Fransen, 2013; Kuruvilla, Fischer‐Daly, & Raymond, 2021). It is also puzzling given that for over one hundred years since Sydney and Beatrice Webb’s Industrial Democracy (1897), social scientists have shown that providing workers with “voice” and collective bargaining is a key way to improve working conditions (Freeman & Medoff, 1984; Frege & Kelly, 2020; Reinecke & Donaghey, 2020).…”