Ratcheting Labor Standards: Regulation for Continuous Improvement in the Global Workplace

Abstract

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Codes of Conduct and Standard Setting in the Forest Sector

“…Some ask whether these decentralizing strategies for setting standards can be more effective, legitimate or democratic than state regulation or collective bargaining (Compa 2001;Sabel, O'Rourke and Fung 2000).…”

Globalization and Workers in Developing Countries

“…Marketbased incentives rest on the fact that consumers in industrial countries are ready to pay a higher price for goods produced in compliance with labor standards. Monitoring that they actually are is however difficult, and requires an active involvement of the civil society (Sabel et al, 2000).…”

International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, and National Government Roles

“…The basic purpose of the Ratcheting Labor Standards approach (developed by Sabel, O'Rourke and Fung, 2000) is to establish a systematic competition between firms based on their treatment of workers. The idea is to use monitoring and public disclosure of working conditions to create official, social, and financial incentives for firms to monitor and improve labor standards through out the supply chain.…”

“…The idea is to use monitoring and public disclosure of working conditions to create official, social, and financial incentives for firms to monitor and improve labor standards through out the supply chain. Thus, Sabel, O'rourke and Fung (2000) argue that this transparency would enable firms to document their accomplishments in such ways that will compel emulation by "laggards". Essentially, the process would work as follows: First, firms in a particular industry would be required to adopt some existing certified provisions (codes of conduct or SA8000 for example) for monitoring their labor standards performance.…”