Neither Global Nor Standard: Corporate Strategies in the New Era Of Labor Standards

"Neither Global Nor Standard: Corporate Strategies in the New Era Of Labor Standards," a report from Cornell University, examines the implications of regulating labor standards through corporations, rather than national law. From the introduction:

"Two multi-national retail firms, IKEA and Wal-mart, illuminate the implications of a new era of labor standards -- focused on the transnational firm. Global labor standards are increasingly enforced through transnational corporation (TNC) adherence to voluntary codes rather than through national labor regulation. Nonetheless, privatized labor standards regimes within TNCs retain strong influences from the national market governance framework in the transnational corporation’s country of origin. While, in principle, labor standards are arrived at through global political processes, in practice they are applied in conjunction with TNC production and marketing strategies. The way in which corporate objectives intersect with labor practices is different from one TNCs to another, depending in large part on political and regulatory influences in a particular TNC’s country of origin.

The emergence of TNCs as the subject of International Labor Standards, promulgated by the OECD and The United Nations as well as private standards organizations, overtly responds to the limited capacity of TNC host countries to enforce labor standards. It may also reflect a fear among TNCs that changing norms in their originating countries may produce national action to restrict trade (and production) in countries with poor records of labor standards enforcement."

Click here to download "Neither Global Nor Standard: Corporate Strategies in the New Era of Labor Standards."