Free Trade Agreements and Global Labour Governance

Free Trade Agreements and Global Labour Governance
Author: Adrian Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2020-09-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429535775

Exploring the contentious relationship between trade and labour, this book looks at the impact of the EU’s ‘new generation’ free trade agreements on workers. Drawing upon extensive original research, including over 200 interviews with key actors across the EU and its trading partners, it considers the effectiveness of the trade-labour linkage in an era of global value chains. The EU believes trade can work for all, claiming that labour provisions in its free trade agreements ensure that economic growth and high labour standards go hand-in-hand. Yet whether these actually make a difference to workers is strongly contested. This book explains why labour provisions have been profoundly limited in the EU’s agreements with the CARIFORUM group, South Korea and Moldova. It also shows how the provisions were mismatched with the most pressing workplace concerns in the key export industries of sugar, automobiles and clothing, and how these concerns were exacerbated by the agreements’ commercial provisions. This pioneering approach to studying the trade-labour linkage provides insights into key debates on the role of civil society in trade governance, the relationship between public and private labour regulation, and the progressive possibilities for trade policy in the twenty-first century. This book will appeal to research scholars, post-graduate students, trade policy practitioners, policy researchers allied to labour movements, and informed activists.

Transnational Cooperation Among Labor Unions

Transnational Cooperation Among Labor Unions
Author: Michael E. Gordon
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801437793

Organized labour faces many challenges in the increasingly global economy, including the portability of technology and capital, and lowered trade barriers. This text, however, presents evidence that unions can survive and grow if labour is willing to co-operate across national borders. The book is a study of such co-operation as an effective weapon against the exploitation of workers in today's world.

Free Trade and Transnational Labour

Free Trade and Transnational Labour
Author: Andreas Bieler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2016-04-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317678656

Resistance against free trade agreements based on an expanded trade agenda, including issues related to intellectual property rights, trade in services and trade-related investment measures, has increased since the demonstrations at the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle in 1999. While the WTO Doha negotiations have broken down, the EU and USA are increasingly engaged in bilateral free trade agreements, building on this expanded trade agenda. Free trade strategies have increasingly become a problem for the international labour movement. While trade unions in the North, especially in manufacturing, have supported free trade agreements to secure export markets for their companies, trade unions in the Global South oppose these agreements, since they often imply deindustrialisation. The purpose of this volume is to understand better these dynamics underlying free trade policy-making. Academics, trade union researchers and social movement activists analyse these issues in detail in order to explore possibilities for transnational labour solidarity. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.

Assessment of Labour Provisions in Trade and Investment Arrangements

Assessment of Labour Provisions in Trade and Investment Arrangements
Author: International Labor Office
Publisher: International Labor Office
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Nearly half of trade agreements concluded in the past five years included either a labor chapter or labor provision that makes reference to international labor standards and ILO instruments. The evidence so far suggests that labor provisions have been an important tool for raising awareness and improving laws and legislations with respect to workers' rights, increasing stakeholder involvement in negotiation and implementation phases, and developing domestic institutions to better monitor and enforce labor standards. But challenges remain, particularly with respect to sustainability of impacts, coherence, and cooperative efforts. This new report, part of the Studies on Growth with Equity series, gives a full examination of the scope and effectiveness of these labor provisions.

Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law

Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law
Author: Aneta Tyc
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2022-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9780367748012

This book provides a set of proposals for how best to guarantee effective enforcement of labour rights worldwide. The linkage between labour standards and global trade has been recurrent for some 200-years. At a time when the world is struggling to find a way out of crisis and is striving for economic growth, more than ever there is a need for up-to-date research on how to protect and promote labour rights in the global economy. This book explores the history of the fi eld and also provides an overview of emerging trends and opportunities. It discusses the most recent problems including: the effectiveness and the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the second century of its existence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its potential relevance in the protection of labour rights, the effectiveness of the US and the EU Generalised System of Preferences, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments on labour rights, and labour provisions in the international trade agreements concluded by the US and the EU. The book argues, inter alia, that trade agreements seem to be a useful tool to help pave the way out of the crisis and that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) can be perceived as a model agreement and a symbol of a shift in perspective from long global supply chains to a focus on regional ones, local production, jobs and a rise in wages. The book will be essential reading for academics and students in the fi elds of human rights law, international labour law, industrial relations law, international sustainable development law, international economic law and international trade law. It will also be of interest to practitioners, non-government organisations (NGOs) and policy makers.

Transnational Labour Solidarity

Transnational Labour Solidarity
Author: Katarzyna Gajewska
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2009-06-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 113401838X

Why and how to study European solidarity? -- Analytical categories in conceptualizing solidaristic behaviour -- Presentation of cases -- The vertical dimension of Europeanization of the trade union movement -- Interaction and action as transformational mechanisms -- Framing solidarity : interests, identification and reciprocity -- Situational mechanisms : market integration and trade unions.

Labour Laws and Global Trade

Labour Laws and Global Trade
Author: B. A. Hepple
Publisher: Hart Publishing
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2005-03-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1841131601

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the new methods of transnational labour regulation that are emerging in response to globalisation.

Global Governance of Labour Rights

Global Governance of Labour Rights
Author: Axel Marx
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2015-11-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1784711462

Stories and images of collapsed factories, burned down sweatshops, imprisoned migrant workers, child workers and many other violations of internationally recognized labour rights continue to spread across the globe. This highly topical book examines the different instruments which are intended to protect labour rights on a transnational scale, and asks whether they make a difference. With perspectives from law, management, sociology, political science and political economy, the topics discussed include the protection of international labour rights in a globalizing economy, the EU’s social dimension in its external trade relations, Asian and US perspectives on labour rights in international trade agreements, the role of (trade) unions in global labour governance and the transformative capacity of private labour governance regimes. Academics and advanced students from different disciplines will benefit from the up-to-date empirical material in this study. Policymakers, NGOs and Unions will find the discussions of the instruments used to protect labour rights of great value to their work.

Global Restructuring, Labour and the Challenges for Transnational Solidarity

Global Restructuring, Labour and the Challenges for Transnational Solidarity
Author: Andreas Bieler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2010-10-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136905804

This volume examines the possibilities and obstacles to transnational solidarity in a period of global restructuring. It brings together a range of international and transnational case studies, examining successful and failed transnational solidarity covering inter-trade union co-operation as well as co-operation between trade unions and social movements within the formal and informal economy, and the public and private sector.

Moving for Prosperity

Moving for Prosperity
Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2018-06-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464812829

Migration presents a stark policy dilemma. Research repeatedly confirms that migrants, their families back home, and the countries that welcome them experience large economic and social gains. Easing immigration restrictions is one of the most effective tools for ending poverty and sharing prosperity across the globe. Yet, we see widespread opposition in destination countries, where migrants are depicted as the primary cause of many of their economic problems, from high unemployment to declining social services. Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets addresses this dilemma. In addition to providing comprehensive data and empirical analysis of migration patterns and their impact, the report argues for a series of policies that work with, rather than against, labor market forces. Policy makers should aim to ease short-run dislocations and adjustment costs so that the substantial long-term benefits are shared more evenly. Only then can we avoid draconian migration restrictions that will hurt everybody. Moving for Prosperity aims to inform and stimulate policy debate, facilitate further research, and identify prominent knowledge gaps. It demonstrates why existing income gaps, demographic differences, and rapidly declining transportation costs mean that global mobility will continue to be a key feature of our lives for generations to come. Its audience includes anyone interested in one of the most controversial policy debates of our time.