The Social Accountability Contract: Private Monitoring From Los Angeles To the Global Apparel Industry

Abstract

This article examines the burgeoning practice of &dquo;social accounting&dquo; and analyzes its effect on labor relations in the apparel industry. In the past five years transnational apparel corporations have begun to accept some measure of accountability for the conditions under which their garments are made by monitoring their contracting facilities for compliance with labor and health and safety standards. While such monitoring is meant to benefit production workers, mainly third-world women, it does not actively engage these workers in any participatory defense of their rights.The clothing industry has always played an important role in capitalist development and the configuration of relations between workers and employers. The first wave of industrialization in the United States was based on textile production and it is argued that garment was the first production process to become truly globalized (Dicken, 1992). Moreover, the &dquo;prototype of collective bargaining agreements&dquo; emerged in the garment industry (Ross, 1997: 30). In 1910, in the wake cf the uprising of 20,000 shirtwaist makers in New York, more than 40,000 cloak-makers sustained a two-month strike that ended in a general agreement signed between union and manufacturer representatives. The Protocols of Peace mandated preferential hiring for union members, guaranteed workers' participation in overseeing factory conditions, and instituted a joint grievance procedure (Stein, 1977). This pact began the movement toward America's own social contract built on an industrial democracy that involved workers in the regulation of the industry (Ross, 1997;Howard, 1997;Brandeis, 1977).It is not surprising then that a new form of labor relations is now developing within the apparel industry in response to changing economic conditions. Whereas the &dquo;social contract&dquo; that prevailed in the post World War II period brought workers, business, and the government into an alliance, what I am calling the Social accountability contract is a pact strictly between employers, their contractors, and the government, or public interest non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the

TNC Motives for Signing International Framework Agreements: A Continuous Bargaining Model of Stakeholder Pressure

“…For example, Esbenshade (2001) argues that adopting codes of conduct provides a way for corporations both to prevent the enforcement of existing labour laws and forestall future legal reforms. Similar claims are readily found in previous research (e.g., Diller, 1999;Bondy et al, 2004;Royle, 2005;Arya and Salk, 2006), and, as Bartley (2005, p. 212) points out, a common argument is that " one unfortunate effect of the rise of private regulation will be to displace or 'crowd out' public regulation and legal accountability" .…”

“…In practice, this means that when transnational corporations (TNCs) offshore operations, mainly to Asian countries, they are involving themselves in national industrial relations systems characterised by only limited enforcement of workers' rights. This lack of enforcement of national labour laws and limited protection of workers' rights has led workers' rights representatives (both labour unions and non-governmental organisations) to attempt to establish transnational industrial relations systems to complement existing national systems (Esbenshade, 2001;Riisgaard, 2005;Anner et al, 2006;Kuruvilla and Verma, 2006).…”

Governing Global Supply Chain Sustainability through the Ethical Audit Regime

“…The early audit literature-especially the work of Dara O'Rourke (2000 and Jill Esbenshade (2001Esbenshade ( , 2004)-documented structural flaws inherent in the use of private audit firms to monitor and improve standards in supply chains. O'Rourke's study of PricewaterhouseCoopers noted that factory audits 'miss many major issues, and paint a false impression of the factory's compliance with local laws ' (O'Rourke, 2000, p. 6; see also Power, 1997Power, , 2003.…”

Transnational Governance of Workers’ Rights: Outlining a Research Agenda

“…In this way, the issue of transnational governance of workers' rights came to coincide with the increasingly powerful CSR trend towards voluntary 'soft law' regulation (cf. Esbenshade, 2001;O' Rourke, 2003;Bartley, 2005;Kuruvilla and Verma, 2006). This linkage between the shift to voluntary governance of workers' rights on an individual corporate level and the CSR trend is frequently noted in the industrial relations literature (e.g., Miller, 2004;Riisgaard, 2005;Shanahan and Khagram, 2006;Waddington, 2006).…”

“…Regarding the first of these three research areas, there is ample research into why firms adopt codes of conduct (e.g., Weaver, 1993;Esbenshade, 2001;van Tulder and Kolk, 2001;Bondy et al, 2004;Graafland, 2004), and some emerging research into why firms adopt IFAs (Miller, 2004;Riisgaard, 2005;Egels-Zandén, 2008a). There is also some research into why labour unions prefer IFAs (Justice, 2003;Frundt, 2004;Miller, 2004;Lipschutz, 2004;Roman, 2004;Riisgaard, 2005); existing research, however, provides few answers as to why NGOs promote codes rather than IFAs.…”