Conference Agenda

Strategies for addressing decent work deficits in global value chains include global labor campaigns (Brookes 2019, McCullum 2014), labor reform and enforcement (Anner 2008, Cook 2010), labor clauses in free trade agreements (Polaski, Nolan García and Rioux 2022), and enforceable brand agreements (Blasi and Bair 2019; Donaghey and Reinecke 2018). In this paper, I argue interactions among different mechanisms constitute regulatory innovations that account for the most successful efforts to reduce decent work deficits.

Public governance includes labor law reforms, national institution building, and labor rights clauses in free trade agreements. Enforceable Brand Agreements are negotiated between labor and MNCs. And grassroots labor organizing includes efforts to establish trade unions and bargain collectively. Which combination of regulatory mechanisms matter most and how they interact to ensure innovation outcomes is shaped by national and sector contexts and actor strategies. To explore this argument, the author examines the case studies of textiles in Honduras and auto parts in Mexico.

In Honduras, worker mobilization following a factory closure led to an Enforceable Brand Agreement between labor and Fruit of the Loom (FOTL) that contributed to unionization at multiple FOTL factories. Organizing expanded further following a CAFTA labor complaint, modest labor law reforms, and intense worker mobilizing. By 2021, 44% of garment export workers enjoyed the benefits of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). Based on an original survey of 387 workers administered by the author, findings indicate that, when compared to workers who do not have a CBA, Honduran garment workers with CBAs are significantly more likely to earn better wages, work fewer hours, have lunch subsidies, and enjoy company-provided transportation to work. They are also 20.3% less likely to face verbal abuse and 10.7% less likely to experience sexual harassment.

In Mexico, worker organizing, significant labor reform, and an innovative FTA labor complaint mechanism --which includes a rapid response mechanism and sanctions on individual firms—contributed to favorable outcomes for labor. Fourteen new independent unions were formed between 2019 and 2022. Several of these unions are now bargaining their first collective bargaining agreement. The author will conduct field research in Mexico in March and April 2023 to gather more detailed data on outcomes and be able to present those findings at the June 2023 RDW conference and compare and contrast them with the findings on Honduras.

As an essential component of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, cobalt is a critical raw material that is paramount in technologies for a low-carbon and green economy. The global cobalt market is highly concentrated, with more than half of the cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than half of the cobalt refined by Chinese refiners, and most cobalt-containing batteries sourced by large companies in Asia, Europe and North America. A research report released by Amnesty International in 2016 highlighted the severity of the problem of child labour in the artisanal and small-scale mining sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Moreover, disruptions caused by COVID-19 further impact the initiatives and processes aiming for responsible mineral supply chains. The refocused international attention on labour and human rights issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has triggered a rapid co-evolution of various public and private governance responses to governance deficits on decent work in the global cobalt supply chain.

While increasing literature started to pay attention to the changing dynamics of the global cobalt supply chain, little scholarship has questioned the recent labour governance initiatives’ legitimacy and effectiveness and their implications for decent work in a globalized economy. To address these research gaps, this paper critically examines the co-evolution of various initiatives and their implications for decent work in the global cobalt supply chain. The paper incorporates literature review, legal analysis and qualitative document analysis to verify data and findings. Taking a transnational labour law approach, it examines the development of public and private labour governance initiatives across various levels and sites of law: international, regional, national, and subnational (e.g. the workplace, local communities, and corporations) levels.

The paper identifies an emerging multi-level governance framework initiated to eliminate child labour in the artisanal mining sector at the bottom of the global cobalt supply chain. It finds that the framework is complex, pluralistic, and decentred. The various actors seem hardly coordinated, considering their different mandates, interests, and approaches. The various initiatives and promoted labour norms have been highly diverse and fragmented. Furthermore, this paper identifies three notable limitations that must be addressed carefully for the multi-level governance framework to benefit workers in the global cobalt supply chain: (a) the lack of a coherent approach to ensuring decent work, (b) a worker-centred approach to developing governance initiatives, and (c) the questionable effectiveness and hidden costs of private governance initiatives.

The expansion of domestic and regional value chains (DVCs/RVCs) within the global South is increasingly recognised, with Southern lead firms playing an important role shaping them. Global Value Chain (GVC) research has long analysed private governance by Northern lead firms, and decent work outcomes in sourcing countries. More recently GVC analysis has shifted towards analysing power relations under more diverse forms of private and public governance. However, we have limited understanding of the implications for the relation between public and private governance of decent work within expanding DVCs and RVCs across sectors within the global South. This paper draws on cross-country and sectoral analysis of horticultural and garments DVCs/RVCs in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It focuses on horticultural production in South Africa and Kenya, and garments production in South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. The following questions are addressed: What are the implications of expanding DVCs and RVCs in SSA for public-private governance of decent work? Who or what are the drivers of governance across expanding DVCs and RVCs in SSA? We reveal that limited private governance of decent work across all RVCs/DVCs is starting a ‘benign transition’ towards public regulation of value chains involving deeper integration of public-private standards. Whilst this is more pronounced in horticulture (due to health and trade risks), nascent shifts are also occurring in African garments. This emerging trend towards ‘polycentric governance’ in RVCs/DVCs is underpinned by a shift away from northern lead firms’ dyadic and direct power, towards a more diffuse and collective form of power, wherein nation states and national civil society organisations (CSOs) potentially play increasingly significant roles in the governance of decent work across value chains.