Over the last decades, the internationalization of the value chain has allowed firms to exploit cross-country differences in environmental and labor regulation (and enforcement) in ways that have led to a large number of NGO campaigns and consumer boycotts criticizing "unethical" practices. How...

Aktuell wird gefordert, die Sozialstandards in Freihandelsabkommen der EU deutlich zu verschärfen und Verstöße mit scharfen Sanktionen zu ahnden. Damit droht das wichtige Ziel, den Arbeitnehmern in Entwicklungsländern zu helfen, durchkreuzt zu werden.

The issue of global labour standards has been at the forefront of both regional and multilateral trade negotiations over the past two decades, and will likely remain high on the agenda of future trade talks as North-South trade flows continue to increase. Labour interests in high-standards...

Die Reinigungskräfte sind eine besonders gefährdete Arbeitnehmergruppe, die vor Ausbeutung wenig gefeit ist. Gerade dort, wo gering Qualifizierte und Personen mit Migrationshintergrund arbeiten, kann davon ausgegangen werden, dass Sozialstandards unterlaufen werden, da sich diese Gruppe ihrer...

A large and growing literature has identified several conditions, including exporting, that contribute to plant survival. A prevailing sentiment suggests that anti-sweatshop activity against plants in developing countries adds the risk of making survival more difficult by imposing external...

his paper attempts to perform an empirical analysis of the effects of “labor clauses” provided in bilateral or plurilateral trade agreements (or regional trade agreements: RTAs) on working conditions that laborers in the RTA signatory countries actually face, using macro-level data for a...

Introduction -- The chain and the sweatshop -- The commodity & the sweatshop -- Difference & the sweatshop -- The regional lord & the sweatshop -- The broker & the sweatshop -- The body & the sweatshop -- Conclusions

Introduction : dis-organizing labour in the clothing industry in the Asia Pacific / Vicki Crinis and Adrian Vickers -- The fragmentation of the clothing and textile trade union movement in Malaysia / Vicki Crinis -- Scrutinizing the effectiveness of trade unions in post-socialist Vietnam / Anne...

The difference between heaven and earth -- From factory favorite to fighter -- Unlikely alliance, risky proposition -- Ideals into action -- Escaping scripted roles -- Stories of transformation -- Deconstructing the business model -- New dreams and wider hopes -- Afterword: taking action

Unfettered market forces tend to violate basic universal concepts like justice, dignity or fairness. Therefore we suggest moving to a new concept of markets, which we label 'civilized markets'. A civilized market tries to ensure that free entrepreneurship and open markets are eventually...

An increasing number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) include “labor clauses” that require or urge the signatory countries to commit to maintaining a certain level of labor standards. This paper, starting by classifying more than 200 currently effective RTAs depending on the nature and...

Seasonal worker programs are increasingly seen as offering the potential to be part of international development policy. New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer program is one of the first and most prominent of programs designed with this perspective. This paper provides a detailed...

This study empirically examines diffusion of labor standards from origin to host countries by investigating whether better labor standards of MNCs’ origin countries are correlated with higher wages of workers in host countries in Africa. MNCs originating from countries with more rights of...

This paper provides novel evidence on the causal effect on female employment of labor market deregulation by using the 1985 amendments to the Labor Standards Law (LSL) in Japan as a natural experiment. The original LSL of 1947 prohibited women from working overtime exceeding two hours a day; six...

An effect of the informalization of production and distribution processes affecting the garment industry has been the spread of sweatshops in areas of industrial eclipse. Whilst the proliferation of these economies is usually analyzed as an outcome of sweeping macro trends, such as the...

Unfettered market forces tend to violate basic universal concepts like justice, dignity or fairness. Therefore we suggest moving to a new concept of markets, which we label 'civilized markets'. A civilized market tries to ensure that free entrepreneurship and open markets are eventually...