Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Following the offshoring of production to developing countries by transnational corporations (TNCs), unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have criticised working conditions at TNCs’ offshore factories. This has led to the emergence of two different approaches to operationalising TNC responsibilities for workers’ rights in developing countries: codes of conduct and global agreements. Despite the importance of this development, few studies have systematically compared the effects of these two different ways of dealing with workers’ rights. This article addresses this gap by analysing how codes of conduct and global agreements both independently and interactively affect workers’ rights. We do this based on a qualitative study of the Sri Lankan operations of a Swedish TNC in Sri?Lanka, and on interviews with union and NGO representatives actively involved in codes of conduct and global agreements. Our results indicate that global agreements independently address all the aspects included in codes of conduct, while also addressing additional, more process-oriented aspects of workers’ rights. Hence, on their own, global agreements seem to comprise the superior approach to promoting workers’ rights. Furthermore, our results indicate that promoting codes of conduct has negative interactive effects on global agreements. Based on these results, we argue that the current focus on codes of conduct is counterproductive for the promotion of workers’ rights.     

透视“民工荒”——当前我国农村劳动力转移态势的人口经济学分析

改革开放以来沿海地区持续了二十多年的“民工潮”,近年来却悄然退去,演变成了令人震惊的“民工荒”。原因究竟何在?劳动力无限供给不等于有效供给,进城民工人力资本存量不足,在劳动力市场上缺乏就业竞争能力,“民工荒”表现为“数量荒”,实际上是“质量荒”,来源于民工的“教育荒”。从一定意义上说,“民工荒”反映的又是“权利荒”。善待民工,规范用工行为,切实维护民工的合法权益, 才能营造出一个留住民工的良好就业环境。     

Corporations as agents of social change: A case study of diversity at Cummins Inc.

This case study on the American multinational Cummins Inc. calls into question traditional, normative theories of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although the dominant literature views CSR as a response to society, Cummins’ promotion of diversity dates back to the 1940s, making their efforts well in advance of society’s expectations. The article shows that Cummins’ management pushed for civil and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights at times when society viewed these actions as being illegitimate and against community values. The study suggests that leaders for diversity at Cummins were able to gain support during these difficult times due to their high level of influence and by connecting the value of diversity to Cummins’ organisational identity.     

Progressive labour policy, ageing Marxism and unrepentant early capitalism in the Chinese industrial revolution

The institutional guarantees of modern labour law, that provide the keystone of progressive liberalism, are often only reactionary to the entrenched concepts of socialist law. Adoption of institutions of “workers rights”, and employment protection based upon contract, inevitably nullify the ideological promise of the inalienable “right to work”. China, among the last bastions of theoretical Marxist socialism, and among the first socialist countries ready to accept that it has been in desperate need of reforming uneconomical state enterprises, seems willing to sacrifice ideological purity for economic development. Yet, if economic turnaround requires enterprise rationalisation in a market economy, it is understandable that Chinese labour requires the same kinds of protection against unbridled capitalism as progressive labour movements elsewhere. Doubtless, for those who have enjoyed no such institutional guarantees in the past, official commitment to improvement of labour conditions is better than no acknowledgment of need for reform of social policy whatever. Yet, the real question for students of social change is “Are these legislated reforms effective policy guides for local administration and the courts?”“|Or are they merely regulations for licensing compliance – primarily for foreign invested enterprises?”. In brief, “... to what extent are the new ‘workers’ rights’ realistically attainable sources of judicial remedies for individual workers?”     

Models of the relationship of the firm to society

Authors of books on business ethics and corporate social responsibility fall into two general approaches when they answer the question: ‘Why should a business firm, which represents private property, have greater obligations to the local community than an ordinary citizen?’ Authors generally subscribe to a ‘rights’ approach or to a ‘power’ model. This paper will present four rights approaches and three power models which are used to describe the relationship of the firm to society. Introducing these different approaches and models will be two brief expositions which provide the setting for determining the relationship of a firm to society. The first traces two lines to the development of the contemporary American corporation. The second views the business corporation as a quasi-public institution.     

Who Supports Free Trade in Latin America?

This paper examines individual trade policy preferences across 17 countries in Latin America. The focus is on whether skilled or unskilled workers are more likely to support liberalised trade and on whether country characteristics, such as factor endowments, alter the preferences of skilled and unskilled workers. Based on the standard Heckscher‐Ohlin model and the Stolper‐Samuelson theorem, wage inequality in developing countries will decrease under free trade and unskilled workers will benefit. We find that on average skilled workers are more likely than unskilled workers to support free trade in Latin American countries. Separate country regressions reveal that this pattern is only statistically significant in 8 out of 17 Latin American countries. However, there are no countries in our sample in which unskilled workers are statistically more likely to support free trade than skilled workers, not even in the lowest skill‐endowed country in the sample. We also find that people from Latin American countries with higher GDP, faster growth, more cropland and a longer period of time since reform were more likely on average to support free trade.     

农民工工伤保险问题实证研究

参加工伤保险是农民工的基本权益之一,本研究以杭州市农民工为例,进行了专项调查,调查发现,农民工对工伤保险制度还不大了解,有70%多的没有参加工伤保险,而且高危行业参保的比例反而不高,分析了影响农民工参加工伤保险其它因素。最后提出了相关对策建议。     

Shareholder voting rights in early American corporations

In early American corporations, the power of large shareholders was frequently limited by voting rules that partially disenfranchised them. In particular, stock held in an individual's name was granted a number of votes per share that decreased with the number of shares held. Using data from the corporations created in New York up to 1825, this paper analyses the use of these ‘graduated’ voting rights. Consistent with the view that they were intended to help small investors protect themselves against the predations of controlling shareholders, the data indicate that graduated voting rights were imposed in industries that attracted small investments from ordinary households. The results highlight the importance of concerns over the controlling influence of large shareholders in early corporate governance.     

Private Regulation and Trade Union Rights: Why Codes of Conduct Have Limited Impact on Trade Union Rights

Codes of conduct are the main tools to privately regulate worker rights in global value chains. Scholars have shown that while codes may improve outcome standards (such as occupational health and safety), they have had limited impact on process rights (such as freedom of association and collective bargaining). Scholars have, though, only provided vague or general explanations for this empirical finding. We address this shortcoming by providing a holistic and detailed explanation, and argue that codes, in their current form, have limited impact on trade union rights due to (i) buyers paying lip service to trade union rights, (ii) workers being treated as passive objects of regulation in codes of conduct, (iii) auditing being unable to detect and remediate violations of trade union rights, (iv) codes emphasizing parallel means of organizing, (v) suppliers having limited incentives for compliance, and (vi) codes being unable to open up space for union organizing when leveraged in grassroots struggles. Our arguments suggest that there is no quick fix for codes’ limited impact on trade union rights, and that codes, in their current form, have limited potential to improve trade union rights. We conclude by discussing ways in which codes of conduct, and private regulation of worker rights more generally, could be transformed to more effectively address trade union rights.     

Impact of International Business Education on Ethnocentricity

Abstract

As evidenced by recent surveys of American managers, there is a serious shortage of qualified candidates on the US job market. This shortage is most evident in two specialization areas: high-technology knowledge workers and internationally competent managers. Indeed, American companies rate lack of qualified high-technology personnel as their number one reason for slower than desired business expansion. The other less glamorized, yet serious shortcoming of the American educational system is its inadequate training of cross-culturally competent workers for this truly global post-industrial era. In response to this human resources crisis, realizing that “the future economic welfare of the US will depend substantially on increasing international skills in the business community,” the United States Department of Education began an active campaign of promoting international education and research in several major American universities in the late 1980s. Since 1988, nearly 40 universities have been awarded tens of millions of dollars to engage in such activities as developing formal international business curricula, offering foreign language courses, promoting internationally-oriented research, provoking international education and research dialogues among the faculty, exchange programs between American and foreign universities for students and the faculty and similar activities. This research is a first attempt in evaluating the impact of one such program on the internationalization level of American students. It will be shown that the international education program at one major American university has successfully produced a cadre of more global and less ethnocentric workforce for American corporations.     

A comparative analysis of patients’ rights: an international perspective

Consumer rights are used as a framework comparing the patients’ rights of selected countries. Patients’ right documents of geographically dispersed countries, regional coalitions and international organizations were selected for analysis and comparison reflecting health and consumer policy. The content of patients’ rights policies, including populations addressed, basic consumer rights, dignity and privacy or confidentiality were analysed. The inclusion of consumer responsibilities and enforcement of patients’ rights was evaluated. Countries used comprehensive laws and charters to address patients’ rights. The consumer rights most often noted in the patients’ rights analysed were the rights to information, choice and redress. Five countries lacked inclusion of consumer responsibilities and the responsibility for enforcement. Suggestions for action on the part of family and consumer educators and scientists were offered.     

The Narrow Application of Rawls in Business Ethics: A Political Conception of Both Stakeholder Theory and the Morality of Markets

This paper argues that Rawls’ principles of justice provide a normative foundation for stakeholder theory. The principles articulate (at an abstract level) citizens’ rights; these rights create interests across all aspects of society, including in the space of economic activity; and therefore, stakeholders – as citizens – have legitimate interests in the space of economic activity. This approach to stakeholder theory suggests a political interpretation of Boatright’s Moral Market approach, one that emphasizes the rights/place of citizens. And this approach to stakeholder theory – in terms of citizens – raises a further question, what rights and obligations do economic agents have, beyond those attached to their roles as citizens? Rawls would reject additional rights and obligations of this sort for two reasons, one tied to freedom and one tied to pluralism. Rawls’ work therefore presses us to re-conceptualize the place of ethical claims in the economic context.     

农民工劳动权益保护的法律救济探析

在当前我国社会经济飞速发展和城镇化水平快速提高的进程中,农民工在做出巨大贡献的同时,其权益保护也面临着许多问题,除农民工自身素质不高、维权意识不强、维权能力弱等原因外,现有体制问题和法律救济渠道不畅也是当前农民工权益保护不力的重要原因。为此,应通过尽快出台专门的《农民工权益保护法》、加大劳动监察的监察力度、建立健全专门的农民工法律援助站、为农民工诉讼开辟“绿色通道”等措施,加大对农民工权益保护的法律救济。     

Workers’ participation in management in the EC countries

In the last few years the whole area of workers’ participation in management has been much discussed in the countries of the European Community (EC). There are, essentially, two ways of participation, i.e. at shop-floor level where works councils are widespread — though in a variety of types — and at the company board level by representative systems involving workers’ participation in management decisions of a policy nature. The latter will be the main subject of this survey.     

The World Is Watching: Polaroid and South Africa

This article examines the Polaroid Corporation’s "experiment"in South Africa during the 1970s, which began after AfricanAmerican workers pressured the company to pull its operationsout of South Africa in protest of the white minority government’sapartheid policies. It argues that Polaroid’s initiatives,little studied until now, led other American companies to questiontheir presence in South Africa and inspired both student divestmentmovements at Harvard and other colleges and universities andthe efforts of Leon Sullivan, whose 1977 "Sullivan Principles"urged American companies to treat their workers in South Africaas they would treat their counterparts in the United Statesin an effort to battle racism and apartheid. Despite Polaroid’sefforts, engagement with South Africa and apartheid proved futile,which initiated a larger movement to completely disengage fromSouth Africa.     

美国“监控门事件”中网络隐私权保护之反思--以网络隐私权与国家安全之间的冲突为视角

隐私权作为宪法上的基本权利之一,在网络环境下的保护面临诸多挑战。美国“监控门事件”突出反映了网络环境下隐私权保护与国家安全之间的冲突,以及国际互联网企业在隐私权保护中的责任空缺。实现网络隐私权的充分保护,必须解决网络隐私权与国家安全之间的冲突,明确国际互联网企业在网络隐私权保护中的责任,并通过国际合作与国际协调,构建网络世界的新秩序。     

Should we let employees contract away their rights against arbitrary discharge?

This article argues that the moral right to be discharged only for good cause and like rights can be contracted away by employees in appropriate circumstances. It maintains that the rights in question are not inalienable, and that there is nothing irrational about an employee's wishing to deal them away. It also maintains that inequalities in bargaining power between employers and employees are insufficiently pervasive to justify a flat ban on the alienation of these rights. For a waiver of such rights to be valid, however, employees must have full knowledge of its terms.The question addressed here bears on several legal and policy issues affecting termination of the employment relation. If employees can contract away their right to a goodcause discharge, the American doctrine of employment at willmight find justification in the face of that right. In addition, the alienability of such discharge rights may be necessary to justify express disclaimers of wrongful discharge liability and the waiver provision of the new U.S. Draft Uniform Employment-Termination Act.Michael J. Phillips is Professor of Business Law and Chairman of the Business Law Department of Indiana University's School of Business. He is a former editor-in-chief of theAmerican Business Law Journal, and has authored numerous law journal articles.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTION,TECHNICAL CHANGE AND THE DYNAMICS OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

This paper explores the features of a dynamic multisectoral model that focuses on the relationship between income distribution, growth and international specialization. The model is explored both for the steady‐state properties and the transitory dynamics of integrated economies. Income inequality affects the patterns of growth and international specialization as the model uses non‐linear Engel curves and hence different income groups are characterized by different expenditure patterns. At the same time income distribution is also reflected in the relative wage rates of skilled to unskilled workers, i.e. the skill premium, and hence the wage structure affects comparative costs of industries which have different skill intensities. The model is applied to a situation that analyses qualitatively different economic development strategies of catching‐up economies (a ‘Latin American’ scenario and a ‘East Asian’ scenario).     

Sweatshop Regulation and Workers’ Choices

The choice argument against sweatshop regulations states that public officials should not prohibit workers from accepting jobs that require long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions, because enforcing such regulations would be disrespectful to the workers who choose to work in sweatshops. Critics of the choice argument reply that these regulations can be justified when workers only choose to work in sweatshops because they lack acceptable alternatives and are unable to coordinate to achieve better conditions for all workers. My thesis is that the presence of unacceptable alternatives to sweatshop labor or barriers to coordination cannot justify sweatshop regulations such as minimum wage and maximum hour laws. Although officials should promote alternatives to difficult and dangerous sweatshop labor, they should not do so by limiting workers’ and employers’ options through coercive regulation. And the fact that sweatshop workers may face coordination problems does not undermine the claim that sweatshop workers choose to work in sweatshops, just as other workers face coordination problems but nevertheless make occupational choices. Furthermore, efforts to restrict sweatshop workers’ choices are morally risky and may not promote workers’ wellbeing or wellbeing in general.     

试析劳动者合法权益保护存在缺陷及解决方案——以《劳动合同法》的理论上的精确解读为视角

劳动者权益保护的问题既是重要法律问题,也是重要社会问题。当前,现行《劳动合同法》劳动者权益保护存在缺陷,企业裁员对劳动者权益损害严重,过渡条款适用对劳动者产生不利影响。完善《劳动合同法》对劳动者合法权益保护,应重视农民工权益的保护,提高裁员后对劳动者的经济补偿水平,加强对过渡条款适用范围限制,从劳动合同签订的主体入手,加强其法律意识,从根本上解决法律缺陷对劳动者权益带来损害。