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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations

Labor Rights In The Generalized System Of Preferences: A 20-Year Review, Lance A. Compa, Jeffrey S. Vogt Dec 2008

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 …


A Second Look At The Hormel Strike, Lance Compa Dec 2008

A Second Look At The Hormel Strike, Lance Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] The dispute between the United Food and Commercial Workers and its Local P-9 over the long strike at Geo. A. Hormel & Co.'s meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota has put labor activists on two sides of an emotional and strategic divide. P-9 supporters see the strike, which began in August, 1985, as the labor battle of the decade, with a valiant local union taking a stand against unjust concession demands. But besides facing an arrogant boss, a plant full of strikebreakers and the Minnesota National Guard, the local has had to contend with a betrayal of its effort by …


...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa Dec 2008

...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 Dec 2008

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 …