The Spotlight and the Bottom Line: How Multinationals Export Human Rights

Abstract

In 1996 Kathie Lee Gifford made frontpage news. The well-liked television personality had lent her name to a discount line of women's clothing that, it was discovered, had been made by underage Central American workers. That same year, the Walt Disney Company was exposed contracting with Haitian suppliers who paid their workers less than Haiti's minimum wage of $2.40 a day. Nike and Reebok, makers of perhaps the world's most popular athletic footwear, were similarly and repeatedly exposed. In all these cases, the companies accused were U.S. manufacturers of consumer products. They were being targeted for human rights violations committed abroad not by their own managers or in their own plants but by the subcontractors who produced their products in overseas facilities. Traditionally, the corporate response to this subcontractor problem has been predictable, if unfortunate. U.S. firms have argued that they cannot realistically or financially be held responsible for the labor practices of their foreign suppliers. "The problem is, we don't own the factories," a Disney spokesperson protested. "We are dealing with a licensee." Recently, though, this attitude has started to change. As a direct result of heightened human rights activism, sharper media scrutiny, and the increased communication facilitated by the Internet, U.S. corporations are finding it difficult to sustain their old hands-off policy. Under pressure, they are beginning to accept responsibility for the labor practices and human rights abuses of their foreign subcontractors. CODES OF CONDUCT Much of this new activity clusters around the promulgation of voluntary codes of conduct. In just the past several years, U.S. industry has proposed and accepted a rash of codes. In 1996 Labor Secretary Robert Reich launched a "No Sweat" campaign designed to force foreign garment makers to comply with U.S. labor laws and to expose retailers who might be purchasing garments made under sweatshop conditions. This was followed by the widespread publication of a Labor Department "Trendsetter" list of retailers that had publicly agreed to "demonstrate a commitment" to U.S. labor laws and to monitor the working conditions under which their garments were produced. In August 1996 the White House established an Apparel Industry Partnership, which devised a workplace code of conduct defining decent and humane working conditions, applicable to all participating companies as well as to their overseas contractors. To ensure that the code became more than a public relations exercise, members of the Partnership also proposed that the code's adherents open their facilities to periodic inspections by independent monitors. Even more striking is Social Accountability 8000, an ambitious attempt to compel firms to comply with a certifiable set of labor and human rights standards, launched last year by the Council on Economic Priorities and a group of influential companies. SA8000 rests on market acceptance, not legal coercion. Firms would comply with the standards and the monitoring necess...

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