Paradoxes of Transnational Labour Rights Campaigns: The Case of Play Fair in Indonesia

Abstract

Neoliberal globalization has moved industrial production to low-wage countries such as China or Indonesia, fuelling rapid economic growth and rising national income. New employment opportunities, however, have been underpinned by poverty wages and inhumane working conditions as states 'race to the bottom' in terms of labour rights and regulations in order to be competitive and attract capital investment. Labour agency at the bottom of transnational supply chains is often said to be structurally powerless because of the international mobility of capital. The 'boomerang effect' has often been presented as a remedy that increases local bargaining power in the global South by mobilizing consumer pressure in the global North through multi-stakeholder initiatives or transnational advocacy networks. The problem with this perspective is that it overstates the Northern dimension of this transnational politics and underestimates the local power base of Southern trade unions and labour movements. The incipient debate about Networks of Labour Activism (NOLA) aims to overcome this Northern bias. This article contributes to this debate by highlighting some of the limitations and unintended effects of multi-stakeholder initiatives and taking a closer look at the Play Fair alliance and the 'Freedom of Association Protocol' in Indonesia's athletic footwear industry.

The interplay between power structure and decision-making in supply chains: A systematic review

“…• On intra-organizational power (Li et al 2018), (Helin andBabri 2015, Souza et al 2015) • Feminist political economy / Exploitation of labour (Dragojlovic 2012, Hauf 2017, Lebaron 2015, Taylor 2011) • Political power in elite exporters of a country who has more rights to harvest certain commodities (Cunningham et al 2016), (Koenig-Archibugi and Macdonald 2017).…”

Sustaining transnational activism between Indonesia and Hong Kong

“…(2017) also cite the need to to consolidate and strengthen linkages between these and other organizations. Existing studies show how forming and sustaining NOLAs help effect policy changes in both migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries (Hsia, 2009; Yazid, 2013; Wui and Delias, 2015; Hauf, 2017; Brookes, 2017; Scheper, 2017; Piper, Rosewarne and Withers, 2017; and Piper and Rother, 2019). This article contributes to this knowledge by showing that rifts between organizations frustrate efforts to sustain those networks.…”

“…But the organizations’ shared agenda and cross-border solidarity can be undermined by differences in their strategies, affiliation with other organizations and the ideologies that inform their activism. Studies that use the concept of NOLA mostly focus on efforts to improve the protection of local workers in informal sector employment (see for example Brookes, 2017; Hauf, 2017; Scheper, 2017). This article acknowledges that TANs are necessary to achieve shared objectives.…”