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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Thanks to Joseph McCartin for advancing this debate with an insightful critique of the workers’-rights-as-human-rights framework and for his generous treatment of the series of Human Rights Watch reports in which I had a hand. McCartin so fairly presents the human rights case, even while disagreeing with it, that it’s hard to respond without simply borrowing from his framing of my own views. But I’ll try.
...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa
...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."
Free Trade, Fair Trade, And The Battle For Labor Rights, Lance A. Compa
Free Trade, Fair Trade, And The Battle For Labor Rights, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Labor rights advocacy is the most direct challenge to the primacy of a marketplace ideology in which efficiency and profit are the highest values. Labor rights advocates promote values of fairness, justice, and solidarity in global commerce. The battle to achieve enforceable hard law that protects workers' rights in the global economy is an important contribution to the labor movement's revitalization. Can a beleaguered movement take on multinational companies and the governments that appease them on these varied international grounds when there is so much still to do on organizing, collective bargaining, and domestic political action? There really is …
U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused, Lance A. Compa
U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] The 200-page Human Rights Watch report is based on case studies across a range of industries, occupations and regions of the United States. The report recognizes that U.S. workers generally do not confront gross human rights violations where death squads assassinate union activists or collective bargaining is outlawed. But the absence of systematic government repression does not mean that workers have effective exercise of the right to freedom of association. The case studies in the Human Rights Watch report uncover a distressing pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system …
International Labor Rights And The Sovereignty Question: Nafta And Guatemala, Two Case Studies, Lance A. Compa
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 …
A Strange Case: Violations Of Workers’ Freedom Of Association In The United States By European Multinational Corporations, Lance A. Compa
A Strange Case: Violations Of Workers’ Freedom Of Association In The United States By European Multinational Corporations, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] A central conclusion of this report is that firms’ voluntary principles and policies are not enough to safeguard workers’ freedom of association. They can be important initiatives, but only when they contain effective due diligence, oversight, and control mechanisms. Otherwise, as shown here, shortcomings in US labor law create enormous temptation - especially among US managers not sufficiently overseen by European parent company officials - to take advantage of them by acts inconsistent with international norms. The pattern that emerges in the examples presented here suggests inadequate due diligence and internal performance controls to prevent and correct US management …
Should Labor Defend Worker Rights As Human Rights? A Debate, Jay Youngdahl, Lance A. Compa
Should Labor Defend Worker Rights As Human Rights? A Debate, Jay Youngdahl, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
The authors debate the relative merits and drawbacks of defining the labor movement under the umbrella of human rights, and the virtues of the rights of the individual versus the solidarity of the community.
Stop Sending Mixed Signals To General Pinochet, Lance A. Compa
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.
...And The Twain Shall Meet?, Lance A. Compa
...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
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 …