Business Commons^™

Coming Together For Human Rights, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

Trade unionists and human rights advocates started analysing antiunion tactics as violations of international human rights standards. They decided to reargue American labour law on a human rights foundation

...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] No country or company should gain a commercial edge in international trade by jailing or killing union organizers, crushing independent union movements, or banning strikes. Gaining an advantage in labor costs should not depend on exploiting child labor or forced labor, or discriminating against women or oppressed ethnic groups. Deliberately exposing workers to life-threatening safety and health hazards, or holding wages and benefits below livable levels should not be permissible corporate strategies. But these are exactly the abuses that happen all too often in a rapidly globalized world trading system based on "free trade."

Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights (Chinese), Lance Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of …

Perspective Américaine Sur L'Alena Et Le Mouvement Syndical, Lance Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Le climat antisyndical qui a cours aux États-Unis a conduit de grandes enterprises européennes à déménager certaines de leurs installations dans ce pays. Par exemple, BMW construit présentement une vaste usine en Caroline du Nord, État qui possède le taux de syndicalisation le plus faible aux États-Unis, et Mercedes-Benz met sur pied une exploitation en Alabama, autre Etat antisyndical. Là où les syndicats existent encore, leurs membres subissent de vives pressions pour accepter une diminution des salaires et des avantages sociaux pour preserver leurs emplois. D'après le Department of Labor des États-Unis, le salaire réel des travailleurs américains a …

Labour Rights In The Ftaa, Lance Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Without an overall trade agreement containing stronger labour rights linkage than that of the NAALC model, advocates will have no central forum or mechanism for dealing with workers' rights in the Americas. This paper suggests that labour rights advocates can and should shape a new viable social dimension in hemispheric trade and demand its inclusion in the FTAA. The emphasis of this paper is on a viable, not a definitive or triumphant, solution. Workers and their advocates do not triumph in the current conjuncture of economic and political forces. They do not will their way to victory with the …

International Trade And Social Welfare: The New Agenda (Remarks), Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

This document is a transcript of Professor Lance Compa’s remarks at the January 7, 1995 meeting of the Section on International Law of the American Association of Law Schools.

[Excerpt] The fact that the International Law Section put this topic on its agenda at this annual meeting is an indication that the "linkage" between labor rights and international trade is an idea whose time has come. I don't want to overstate its novelty. There's a certain cycle to this dynamic, and in fact the post-World War II period and the early years of the GATT saw a flurry of interest …

International Labor Rights And The Sovereignty Question: Nafta And Guatemala, Two Case Studies, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Labor rights advocates in the United States and allied organizations abroad attempting to establish international fair labor standards run up against traditional notions of sovereignty in formulating national labor policies and development strategies. In the same way that entrenched sovereignty principles gradually yielded to international human rights claims after World War E, sovereignty is now being challenged by claims of international laborrights in the field of employment standards and industrial relations. This Article seeks to illuminate this challenge to sovereignty in two case studies of labor rights advocacy. Part I sets the stage with an overview of the growing …

Ensuring A Decent Global Workplace: Labor Rights Belong In Trade Agreements, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Linking workers' rights to international trade is an idea whose time has come and stayed, despite the best efforts of free trade ideologues to chase it away. In looming congressional debates about "fast track" negotiating authority, the Bush administration and Congress confront powerful demands from workers, trade unionists and a wider public for rules protecting human rights and labor rights, not just corporate investments, in trade agreements.

Stop Sending Mixed Signals To General Pinochet, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] We should not apologize for U.S. enforcement of the new labor rights laws against Chile. Critics have attacked them as "backdoor protectionism" aimed at keeping out foreign products. U.S. unionists, though, report a genuine enthusiasm among their rank-and-file members, not for the prospect of shutting out foreign goods but the hope of better pay and working conditions for their foreign counterparts.

Labor Rights In The Generalized System Of Preferences: A 20-Year Review, Lance A. Compa, Jeffrey S. Vogt

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt]In the fall of 1982, a small group of labor, religious, and human rights activists began charting a new course for human rights and workers' rights in American trade policy. The principles of these labor rights advocates were straightforward: 1. No country should attract investment or gain an edge in international trade by violating workers' rights; 2. No company operating in global trade should gain a competitive edge by violating workers' rights; and, 3. Workers have a right to demand protection for labor rights in the international trade system, and to have laws to accomplish it. The coalition that took …

...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] No country or company should gain a commercial edge in international trade by jailing or killing union organizers, crushing independent union movements, or banning strikes. Gaining an advantage in labor costs should not depend on exploiting child labor or forced labor, or discriminating against women or oppressed ethnic groups. Deliberately exposing workers to life-threatening safety and health hazards, or holding wages and benefits below livable levels should not be permissible corporate strategies. But these are exactly the abuses that happen all too often in a rapidly globalized world trading system based on "free trade."

Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of …