Labor Relations Commons^™

Replantar Un Campo: Derecho Internacional Del Trabajo Para El Siglo Xxi, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

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Re-Planting A Field: International Labour Law For The Twenty-First Century, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] In this talk I want to trace the development of the field and how international labour law has taken root in five areas: 1) trade legislation (namely, the US and EU Generalized System of Preferences), 2) trade agreements, 3) international organizations, 4) corporate social responsibility, and 5) lawsuits in national courts. In each, I try to give one or two examples of how international labour law works in practice. But first, some background on the international labour law field and my involvement with it.

Coming Together For Human Rights, Lance A. Compa

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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

Corporate Hypocrisy: Violations Of Trade Union Rights By European Multinational Companies In The United States, Lance A. Compa

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Many European corporations adopt American management-style attitudes toward trade unions, notwithstanding their publicly-declared support for global norms on workers’ freedom of association. They exploit US labor laws that violate international standards and interfere with trade union formation. Case studies examine several examples of this anti-union hypocrisy on the part of European firms. At the same time, some European companies have chosen to respect workers’ organizing rights in the United States. The conclusion contains recommendations for securing multinational companies’ respect for workers’ freedom of association in the United States, including application of ILO core standards, UN Guiding Principles, OECD Guidelines, and …

The Wagner Model And International Freedom Of Association Standards, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] I first met Pierre Verge just before beginning my service with the NAFTA labour commission in 1995. Not long after that, Pierre Verge and my own labour law professor at Yale in 1972, Clyde Summers, jointly wrote a penetrating evaluation of the first years of the NAFTA labour side accord, which still serves as the best single analysis of that seminal but flawed instrument linking labour standards and a trade agreement (Summers, Verge and Medina, 1998; Verge, 1999; Verge, 2002). Since then, my understanding of international labour standards and how they relate to labour law in North America has …

An Overview Of Collective Bargaining In The United States, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] American history reflects a long cycle of trade union decline and growth. Analysts routinely predict the death of the labor movement. (Yeselson 2012). Heralds of labor’s demise often argue that unions were needed in the past, but modem, enlightened management and the need for economic competitiveness make them obsolete. (Troy 1999). But then, workers fed up with employers’ exploitation decide to find new ways to defend themselves. History does not repeat itself, and conditions now are not the same as those spurring the great organizing drives of the 1930s and ‘40s. Still, American workers have shown deep resourcefulness over …

[Review Of The Book The Promise And Limits Of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards In The Global Economy], Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] In The Promise and Limits of Private Power, Richard Locke analyzes and evaluates private sector corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on working conditions in global supply chain factories. The book synthesizes findings from a multi-year project that has already generated several important articles on various aspects of supply chain labor dynamics. The book is structured around a strong central theme. Corporate codes of conduct and other private, voluntary steps indeed can have some positive effects on working conditions in supply chain factories, but results are mixed. They are not sufficient for sustained improvements. Public regulation through effectively enforced legal …

Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa

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[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.

After Bangladesh, Labor Unions Can Save Lives, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] The factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 workers should be a pivot point for the global apparel industry, moving consumers to demand more accountability from brand-name companies that subcontract production to supply-chain factories around the world. Sadly, the history of workplace tragedies in so many of these factories suggests that after consumers in rich countries express horror and call for reforms, the demands for better worker protections die down and the marketplace for cheap apparel abides. But this cycle can finally be broken if demands for change start to focus on workers’ right to form trade …

Do International Freedom Of Association Standards Apply To Public Sector Labor Relations In The United States?, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] After November 2010 elections in the United States, human rights aspects of labor policy suddenly emerged at sub-federal levels. Elections in many states brought a sharp turn to conservative Republican rule. In this new climate, conflicts over workers’ rights took shape not at the ozone layer of high international policy, but at the oozing landfill level of local labor politics. Governors and legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and other states moved to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, blaming their wages and benefits for budget shortfalls. A vindictive North Carolina legislature made it unlawful for public school …

Enforcing European Corporate Commitments To Freedom Of Association By Legal And Industrial Action In The United States: Enforcement By Industrial Action, Lance A. Compa, Fred Feinstein

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[Excerpt] We believe it is important to discuss industrial action as one way to enforce commitments to abide by international labor standards in part because of the challenges of "hard" law enforcement, not only in an international context but also in the enforcement of domestic labor policies. Because of the challenges presented by "hard" enforcement of labor policy in both the domestic and international context, it is important to examine the dynamics that initially motivate the adoption of IFAs and other commitments to abide by international labor standards as an important aspect of their enforcement. What unions and other advocates …

Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance A. Compa, Lowell Turner

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[Excerpt] For American proponents of global justice, social Europe appears distant yet inspirational, with all its weaknesses still a "vanguard" model for the social regulation of the global economy. We believe that a great deal can be learned by other countries, regions and the global economy as a whole from the ongoing experience of European economic and social integration. We also believe, however, that American experiences with NAFTA as well as with contemporary labor movement revitalization and coalition building offer positive lessons for Europeans and other actors in the global North and South.

As much as we admire the European …

Violations De La Liberté D’Association Des Travailleurs Aux États-Unis Et Normes Internationales Des Droits De L’Homme, Lance Compa

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A culture of near-impunity has taken shape in much of U.S. labor law and practice. Any employer intent on resisting workers' self-organization can drag out legal proceedings for years, fearing little more than an order to post a written notice in the workplace promising not to repeat unlawful conduct. Many employers have come to view remedies like back pay for workers fired because of union activity as a routine cost of doing business, well worth it to get rid of organizing leaders and derail workers' organizing efforts. [Article in French]

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

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[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."

Trade Unions And Human Rights, Lance Compa

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[Excerpt] In the 1990s the parallel but separate tracks of the labor movement and the human rights movement began to converge. This chapter examines how trade union advocates adopted human rights analyses and arguments in their work, and human rights organizations began including workers' rights in their mandates. The first section, "Looking In," reviews the U.S. labor movement's traditional domestic focus and the historical absence of a rights-based foundation for American workers' collective action. The second section, "Looking Out," covers a corresponding deficit in labor's international perspective and action. The third section, "Labor Rights Through the Side Door," deals with …

Legal Protection Of Workers’ Human Rights: Regulatory Changes And Challenges In The United States, Lance Compa

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[Excerpt] In a 2002 study, the US Government Accountability Office reported that more than 32 million workers in the United States lack protection of the right to organise and to bargain collectively. But since then, the situation has worsened. A series of decisions by the federal authorities under President George Bush has stripped many more workers of organising and bargaining rights. The administration took away bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of employees in the new Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department.18 In the years before the 2009 change of administration, a controlling majority of the five-member National …

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

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[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

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[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

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[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 …

Free Trade, Fair Trade, And The Battle For Labor Rights, Lance A. Compa

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[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 …

Works In Progress: Constructing The Social Dimension Of Trade In The Americas, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] This paper reviews labor rights in the trade arrangements of four regional and binational settings in the Americas: • the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Canada, Mexico and the United States; • the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay; • the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA); and • the Caribbean Community (Caricom) embracing several island nations in a common market. The labor rights agreements, charters and declarations examined here are at different levels of development and experience. They are "works in progress," just beginning to experiment with the central challenge of …

El Acuerdo De Cooperación Laboral Del Tratado De Libre Comercio De América Del Norte: ¿Dimensión Social O Decepción Social?, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] En este país los sindicatos continúan criticando los puntos débiles del Acuerdo, especialmente la exclusión de asuntos referentes a la sindicalización, la negociación y las huelgas, los mecanismos de solución de controversias, y la carencia de soluciones ejecutorias bajo el ACL. Al mismo tiempo, se han dado cuenta de que resulta un foro muy útil para exponer casos de violaciones de los derechos de los trabajadores por parte de corporaciones multinacionales que operan en el marco del TLC. Con ello intentan promover una presión popular dirigida a detener la ampliación del TLC a Chile y el resto de América …

[Review Of The Book From Consent To Coercion: The Assault On Trade Union Freedoms], Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Even in disagreement with some of its policy prescriptions, I find From Consent to Coercion a strong, meticulously documented, powerfully argued, thought-provoking work that serious scholars and practitioners of trade unionism and labour law should read and engage. We Americans can still look at Canadian labour law and practice as a model compared with our own, but thanks to Panitch and Swartz's work we can see it with eyes open, not eyes wide

Author’S Reply To Wheeler-Getman-Brody Papers, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] The contributions of Hoyt Wheeler, Julius Getman and David Brody in the December issue of this journal give important insights into strengths and weaknesses of the Human Rights Watch Report on workers' rights in the United States. Stephen Wood, Sheldon Friedman and the editors are to be commended for advancing a debate on the Report's approach, findings and recommendations. Each of these three major figures in American labour scholarship brings the power of decades of research and analysis on these issues. Together, their critiques stretch the Report backward and forward: back to unstated assumptions that underlie the Report (or …

Globalizíación, Class Actions Y Derecho De Trabajo, Antonio Ojeda Avilés, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] El objeto principal de este artículo consiste en analizar la larga experiencia acumulada al otro lado del Atlántico, en Estados Unidos, en material de demandas extraterritoriales contra empresas norteamericanas ya desde los años setenta. Realizaremos una síntesis de los rasgos característicos de las class actions en ese país, en primer lugar, seguida por una breve Mirada al context internacional del Derecho del trabajo y la jurisprudencia en EE.UU., de los efectos extraterritoriales del Derecho del trabajo estadounidense, en segundo término, y un análisis pormenorizado de tales litigious en Europa.

Workers’ Freedom Of Association In The United States: The Gap Between Ideals And Practice, Lance Compa

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[Excerpt] What is most needed is a new spirit of commitment by the labor law community and the government to give effect to both international human rights norms and the still-vital affirmation in the United States' own basic labor law of full freedom of association for workers. A way to begin fostering such a change of spirit is for the United States to ratify ILO conventions 87 and 98. This will send a strong signal to workers, employers, labor law authorities, and to the international community that the United States is serious about holding itself to international human rights and …

Labor’S New Opening To International Human Rights Standards, Lance Compa

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Most trade unionists were oblivious to international human rights movement in the last half of the twentieth century. For their part, human rights advocates did not include workers’ rights on their agenda. But in the late 1990s, labor and human rights advocates came together to reframe workers’ collective action as a human rights mission rather than a self-interested syndical action. A new labor–human rights alliance built a wide-ranging discourse of workers’ rights as human rights. The expertise and knowledge attributable to human rights actors gave their critique of workers’ rights violations in the U.S. a high measure of authoritativeness compared …

U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused, Lance A. Compa

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[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 …

Labor’S Weight Beyond Its Numbers, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] Beyond numbers, what unions are doing on the ground reflects their vitality. Unions are allying with new grass-roots support groups in creative public advocacy for workers' rights generally, not just for their own members. Unions are also experimenting with new forms of social bargaining, using leverage such as pension fund investments and shareholder resolutions. They do this for their own organizational goals, but also for public goals such as transparent corporate governance and honest corporate accounting.

To Cure Labor’S Ills Bigger Unions, Fewer Of Them, Lance A. Compa

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[Excerpt] Only big, coordinated unions can stop employers from playing off one group of workers against another. Only strong national union organizations that prove they can stand up to the power of the big corporations will attract unorganized workers to the labor movement.