Unpacking the Logics of Labour Standards Enforcement: An Alternative Approach

Manifesto for a new Quality of Working Life

“…If the state acts as guarantor but has too few resources to adequately monitor job quality, other actors can support the state and make good the resource shortfall. Fine and Gordon (2012) suggest a partnership approach involving employer representative organisations and unions where they exist, and civil society organisation where unions do not exist. Interestingly, employer representative organisations often champion minimum standards in specific sectors in order to ensure a level playing field for their members (Murray and Stewart, 2015).…”

“…However, as Fine and Gordon (2012: 205) opine, ‘Just as there is nothing inevitable about bad jobs, there is nothing inevitable about faulty regulation.’ We believe that establishing an adequately resourced and empowered single agency with regulatory responsibility for all of the dimensions of job quality and their minimum standards is necessary. Having a single agency will enable co-ordination of the minima across the dimensions of job quality, provide economies of scale that might address the resourcing problem and provide a ‘one-stop’ shop for workers looking for information or redress.…”