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This chapter evaluates the effect of globalization on the extent of a country’s labor regulation and the influence of national and international labor regulations on labor conditions. There is no evidence of an international race to the bottom in labor regulation. Other things considered equally, neither the size of a country's trade sector nor its trade policy appears to influence the extent of labor protection afforded by national labor legislation. The evidence also indicates that the system of international labor standards regulation administered by the International Labor Organization has not significantly improved labor conditions. Countries tend to ratify ILO labor standards that their domestic regulations already satisfy, rather than incurring the political costs of introducing or altering national legislation to meet higher standards. National labor regulations rarely benefit workers generally; instead some groups of workers gain at the expense of other workers.

This chapter starts by examining the labour standards and rights which exist in low-wage supplier countries and the role played by national institutions — particularly the state and unions, but also firms — in either strengthening or, more often, undermining them. The analysis focuses on the shortcomings of existing regulatory regimes in three sourcing countries: China, Mexico, and Turkey. The chapter additionally reviews the regulatory regimes adopted under initiatives by inter-governmental organizations, firms, industry associations, unions, and NGOs, singly or in transnational advocacy networks, to improve labour rights and standards in supplier countries and firms. It shows that because western firms' sourcing practices are complicit in causing the poor labour standards suppliers adopt, implementation and monitoring of the observance of labour standards and rights are highly problematic. Finally, the chapter indicates what kind of international regulatory regime might be effective in the future.

This chapter studies the effects of multinational companies on labor conditions around the world. The evidence shows that (1) the economic presence of multinationals in foreign countries is often overstated, (2) multinationals pay higher wages than host-country companies in both industrialized and developing countries, and (3) when multinationals acquire host country businesses, they institute changes in production methods and human resource management practices that raise productivity sufficiently to support higher wages. The evidence also rejects the race-to-the-bottom view that poor labor conditions attract multinational companies. Most flows of foreign direct investment occur between advanced countries with high labor standards and are influenced by market size and potential investment risk rather than labor conditions. The chapter also examines and evaluates the efficacy of corporate codes of conduct for improving labor conditions.

The International Labour Organisation's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work prioritised four core labour standards' principles and led to a burst of new ratifications of the international treaties that are the subject of those principles. Ten years on there are important identified gaps in state implementation of the ratified Conventions that are the subject of the four principles. These gaps leave important holes in public policy and legislation. In a number of important substantive areas, these gaps have the effect of leaving it to private actors to figure out what would amount to fulfilling the norms of fundamental labour principle inspired codes of conduct. Inescapably left on their own to figure out approaches, corporate social responsibility (CSR)-respecting enterprises are subject to criticism levelled on the basis of interpretations of these principles given by civil society organisations and labour rights' campaigners. This chapter details this situation. The first part provides the necessary background information. The second part gives concrete examples of how this governance gap raises challenges to implementing CSR initiatives. The third part suggests that, considering the arguable origins of CSR in neo-liberal deregulatory fervour, social dialogue and reform by non-compliant state actors is the only sustainable solution.

This chapter contrasts the predictions of globalization skeptics with international economic analysis regarding the effect of globalization on labor conditions. Skeptics argue that globalization encourages sweatshop labor conditions and increases world poverty and inequality, while economic analysis predicts that international competition produces a convergence of working conditions that reduces world inequality. The chapter makes a key semantic distinction between labor conditions (the actual working conditions and labor rights that workers experience) and labor standards (policy objectives or legal requirements regarding the treatment of labor). The chapter concludes by explaining the questions addressed in the rest of the book.

This volume aims to generate debate beyond the scope of previous literature relating to the justificatory basis of labour standards, so as to consider alternative ways of understanding their function. In so doing, it considers what this means for the governance of labour markets, whether at local, national, regional, or international levels. It also challenges mainstream assumptions relating to ‘sustainable development’. This introductory chapter first discusses the links between labour standards and development. An overview of the subsequent chapters is then presented.

This chapter traces the prehistory of the SER at the national and international levels, demonstrating its gendered roots. Building on scholarship in women's history illustrating how early attempts to establish minimum conditions of work at the national level centred on ‘protecting women’, it traces the emergence of a parallel emphasis in international labour legislation. The selection of initial subjects for international labour legislation was framed by contestation between and amongst trade unionists, working‐class and liberal feminists, women social reformers, and philanthropists over whether to pursue ‘equal protection’ for men and women or protection for women exclusively. The earliest international labour regulations, devised initially by the International Association for Labour Legislation and developed subsequently by the ILO, nevertheless included sex‐specific regulations on maternity and night work. By cultivating a male breadwinner/female caregiver gender contract, such regulations helped lay the foundation for the SER as a normative model of male employment.

This book examines the role of labour standards in sustainable development and this chapter addresses this issue at a fairly abstract level. It argues that if we could have clear thinking about labour standards and clear thinking about sustainable development, then we would say that there is an intimate connection and profound overlap between labour standards and development. This is because, first, there is an intimate and profound connection between human freedom on the one hand, and human capital on the other. Second, development is the process of the removal of obstacles to real human freedom conceived of as the real capacity to lead lives which we have reason to value. Third, labour law is that part of our law which structures and mobilises the deployment of human capital, that is, which structures and mobilises the ‘exploitation’ (in the best sense of the word) of human capital, which is at the core of human freedom. Thus, if development is about human freedom and labour law is about human capital, then labour law is a key to development.

This chapter reviews the various contributions made to this volume and interventions offered at the conference held at the British Academy in May 2009. Reflecting on how theory has been and could be put into practice, it recognises that current trends towards globalisation and the recent economic crisis have forced us ‘to be cognisant of growing (and unsustainable) inequality between and within countries’. We now need to envisage policies to counter this and seize the opportunity to ensure participation in the debates which could shape such policies. A better realisation of labour standards could ‘play an important role in diminishing the social consequences of the crisis and in building a better socio-economic system to avoid or face future crises’, so that it is ultimately sustainable.

The general issue of dealing with ’behind the border’ regulation is discussed in the WTO (World Trade Organization) context, and an introduction provided to the main issues that are likely to be prominent on the multilateral negotiating agenda in the coming decade. A key question is to identify the rationale for––and objectives behind––proposals to address a specific issue in the WTO, and determine what type of cooperation is appropriate, if any. Various issues that are likely to be on the negotiating agenda for some time to come, including competition (anti‐trust) policy, labour standards, trade facilitation, and investment and environmental policies, are discussed. The sections of the chapter are as follows: Contestability of markets as a criterion; Foreign direct investment policies; Competition law; Trade facilitation; Environmental policies; Social policies and labour standards; Domestic regulation; and Conclusion.

This chapter traces the changes in federal and state protective policies from the New Deal through the 1950s. In contrast to the setbacks of the 1920s, the New Deal revived the prospects of protective laws and of their proponents. The victory of the minimum wage for women workers in federal court in 1937 and the passage in 1938 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which extended labor standards to men, represented a peak of protectionist achievement. This achievement rested firmly on the precedent of single-sex labor laws for which social feminists—led by the NCL—had long campaigned. However, “equal rights” gained momentum in the postwar years, 1945–60. By the start of the 1960s, single-sex protective laws had resumed their role as a focus of contention in the women's movement.

The current discourse on globalization has tended to treat free trade and better working conditions as fundamentally at odds. This chapter argues that free trade and labor standards are complementary, rather than competitive ways to raise living conditions in less developed countries. The first section describes the labor standards at the heart of the debate, the rationale for global rather than local standards, and the conditions under which standards improve or worsen economic well-being in less developed countries. The second section provides evidence on the economic effects of standards and trade and their interconnection. The third section highlights the problem of delivering standards in less developed countries and argues for an increased role for global institutions, as well as efforts to improve standards in export processing zones, to demonstrate the positive effects of globalization on the well-being of workers.

T.S. Srinivasan addresses the linkages between trade and labor standards and trade. He finds that the assertion that increasing competition from trade with developing countries with low labor standards threatens the prevailing higher labor standards in developed countries has weak analytical foundations and empirical support. Srinivasan notes that most countries have ratified conventions covering the ILO’s core labor standards, so expanding the definition of labor standards beyond these is not appropriate. He argues that the claim of universality and eternity for a narrow set of rights to be included in a social clause is overblown and ahistorical, as such standards are conditional on national and temporal contexts like a nation’s stage of development. He claims there are better alternatives than using trade policy interventions to prevent a “race to the bottom” in standards or the use of child labor. Finally, he questions whether trade and labor standards should be linked in the WTO.

This chapter analyzes the first successful unionization of home care as part of the civil rights surge among black women domestics. Central to this process were the reorganization of domestic work and feminist efforts to improve the job through the National Committee on Household Employment and the Household Technicians of America. The legal status of home care and domestic service diverged in 1975 when the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) classified home care workers as elder companions outside the law. But, as invisible as home care workers appeared, they proved more traceable than domestics laboring for individual families. So when service sector unions sought to organize domestics, they found home attendants instead by untangling the administrative maze and money trail of federal and local programs. Their strategies reflected the prior contracting of home care by the state, with community organizers in California, notably the United Domestic Workers of America in San Diego, pressuring county supervisors and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in New York City bargaining with individual agencies. By the early 1980s, SEIU formally acknowledged that these workers were caregivers more than cleaners, part of health care unionism.

Brings theoretical arguments and empirical evidence to the effect that international trade may reduce child labour in countries endowed with a comparatively well educated labour force, and increase it elsewhere. Lowering trade barriers can thus help reduce child labour only if educational and other policies have created the right initial conditions. An international ban on goods produced with child labour can be effective if it is applied on a multilateral basis, and accompanied by compensatory payments to the countries exporting such goods.

This chapter accounts for the significance of “external” moral issues, with special concern for labor exploitation and environmental degradation. Standard economic arguments for “sweatshops” do not take the charge of exploitation seriously. The charge can in principle be answered, but not without significant international and transnational efforts to advance prospects for developing country workers. Concerns of environmental degradation potentially pose a more fundamental problem to the very existence of a global economy. It is suggested that its socioeconomic benefits, especially to poor people, are sufficiently important to preserve its basic legitimacy.

This chapter assesses Muller v. Oregon (1908), its significance, and the law it upheld: Oregon's ten-hour law of 1903. Convicted of violating Oregon's law of 1903 that barred the employment of women in factories and laundries for more than ten hours a day, Curt Muller—the owner of a Portland laundry—challenged the constitutionality of the law, which he claimed violated his right of freedom to contract under the due process of the Fourteenth Amendment. On February 24, 1908, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Oregon law. This decision marked a momentous triumph for progressive reformers and a turning point in the movement for protective laws. At the same time, by declaring woman “in a class by herself,” the Supreme Court embedded in constitutional law an axiom of female difference. The Muller decision thus pushed public policy forward toward modern labor standards and simultaneously distanced it from sexual equality.