Global governance and labor rights: Codes of conduct and anti-sweatshop struggles in global apparel factories in Mexico and Guatemala

Politics and Society

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 203-233

  Rodríguez Garavito, César A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

Author keywords

Codes of conduct; Governance; International labor standards; Sweatshops; Transnational advocacy networks

Indexed keywords

EID: 20844437634     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329205275191     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. See, among others, Kimberly Elliot and Richard Freeman, Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 2003);
2. Theodore Moran, Beyond Sweatshops (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2002);
3. Archon Fung, Dara O'Rourke and Charles Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001);
4. Ellen I. Rosen, Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002);
5. Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum, Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
6. Mark Anner and Peter Evans, "Building Bridges Across a Double Divide: Alliances Between US and Latin American Labour and NGOs," Development in Practice 14, no. 1-2 (2004): 34-47;
7. Dana Frank, "Where are the Workers in Consumer-Worker Alliances? Class Dynamics and the History of Consumer-Labor Campaigns," Politics & Society 31, no. 3 (2003): 363-79;
8. Liza Featherstone and USAS, Students Against Sweatshops (London: Verso, 2002);
9. Andrew Ross, ed., No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade and the Rights of Garment Workers (London: Verso, 1997).
10. Margaret Levi and April Linton, "Fair Trade: A Cup at a Time?" Politics & Society 31, no. 3 (2003): 407-32;
11. Morton Winston, "NGO Strategies for Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility," Ethics & International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2002): 71-87;
12. Daniel Litvin, Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility (New York: Texere, 2003).
13. World Bank, "Company Codes of Conduct and International Standards: An Analytical Comparison" (October 2003), 2.
14. Andrew Wilson and Chris Gribben, Business Responses to Human Rights (Ashridge: Ashridge Centre for Human Rights, 2000), 9.
15. MSN, "Codes Update," no. 13 (www.maquilasolidarity.org, 2003).
16. From the union side, see Neil Kearney and Judy Gearhart, "Workplace Codes as Tools for Workers," Development in Practice 14, no. 1-2 (2004): 216-23.
17. Some notable exceptions are Dara O'Rourke, "Monitoring the Monitors: A Critique of Corporate Third-Party Monitoring," in R. Jenkins, R. Pearson, and G. Seyfang, eds., Corporate Responsibility and Labor Rights: Codes of Conduct in the Global Economy (London: Earthscan, 2002): 196-208;
18. Dara O'Rourke, "Outsourcing Regulation: Analyzing Non-Governmental Systems of Labor Standards Monitoring," Policy Studies Journal 31 (2003): 1-29;
19. Jill Esbenshade, "The Private Social Accountability Contract: Private Monitoring from Los Angeles to the Global Apparel Industry," Labor Studies Journal (Spring 2001): 98-120.
20. Tim Hartley, "Certifying Forests and Factories: States, Social Movements, and the Rise of Private Regulation in the Apparel and Forest Product Fields, "Politics & Society 31, no. 3 (2003): 433-64;
21. Litvin, Empires of Profit;
22. Fung, O'Rourke and Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?
23. Elliot and Freeman, Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization?, 69.
24. Fung, O'Rourke and Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?, 28.
25. Elliot and Freeman, Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization?, 31.
26. Bob Jessop, "The Rise of Governance and the Risk of Failure: The Case of Economic Development," International Social Science Journal 155 (1998): 29-45.
27. See, for instance, Trihne Duong, "Codes of Conduct Don't Work: A View from the Factory Floor," Human Rights Dialogue 4 (2000): 5-6.
28. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 24.
29. This view of the global regulation of labor as resulting from the struggle between TANs and TNCs is developed in César A. Rodríguez-Garavito, "Nike's Law: The Anti-Sweatshop Movement, Transnational Corporations, and the Struggle over International Labor Rights in the Americas," in B. Santos and C. Rodríguez-Garavito, eds. Law and Globalization From Below: Toward a Cosmopolitan Legality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
30. See also David Trubek, Jim Mosher and Jeffrey Rothstein, "Transnationalism in the Regulation of Labor Relations: International Regimes and Transnational Advocacy Networks," Law and Social Inquiry 25 (2000): 1187-1210.
31. George Marcus, "Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography," Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 95-117.
32. The Choishin and Cimatextiles factories, albeit physically and legally independent from each other, actually form a single productive complex owned and controlled by Choi & Shin International. For that reason, the unions at each factory (SINTRACHOI and SINTRACIMA, respectively) resulted from the same organizing drive and negotiations with management. Their fates are thus inextricably linked. To simplify the discussion, hereafter I will refer to the factory as Choishin and treat the unions as a single entity.
33. Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents (New York: The New Press, 1998), 155.
34. Bob Jessop, The Future of the Capitalist State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), 226-27.
35. Jessop, The Future of the Capitalist State, 230.
36. Michael Dorf and Charles Sabel, "A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism," Columbia Law Review 98, no. 2 (1998): 267-473;
37. Charles Sabel, "Learning by Monitoring: The Institutions of Economic Development," in Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994): 137-65;
38. Charles Sabel, "Bootstrapping Reform: Rebuilding Firms, the Welfare State, and Unions," Politics & Society 23, no. 1 (1995): 5-48.
39. Gunther Teubner, "After Legal Instrumentalism? Strategic Models of Post-Regulatory Law," in G. Teubner, ed., Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986): 299-326.
40. Francis Snyder, "Soft Law and Institutional Practice in the European Community," in S. Martin, ed., The Construction of Europe (Boston: Kluwer, 1994): 197-227.
41. Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
42. Jody Freeman, "Collaborative Governance in the Administrative State," UCLA Law Review 45, no. 1 (1997): 1-98.
43. Dara O'Rourke, "Outsourcing Regulation."
44. Gunther Teubner, "Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law," Law and Society Review 17, no. 2 (1983): 239-85;
45. Ralf Rogowski and Ton Wilthagen, eds. Reflexive Labour Law: Studies in Industrial Relations and Employment Regulation (Boston: Kluwer, 1994).
46. Michael Mac Neil, Neil Sargent, and Peter Swan, eds., Law, Regulation, and Governance (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2002);
47. Joseph Nye and John Donahue, eds., Governance in a Globalizing World (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000);
48. James Liebman and Charles Sabel, "A Public Laboratory Dewey Barely Imagined: The Emerging Model of School Governance and Legal Reform," NYU Journal of Law and Social Change 28 (2003-2004): 183-305.
49. Bradley Karkkainen, "Environmental Lawyering in the Age of Collaboration," Wisconsin Law Review 2002, no. 2: 555-74.
50. Jonathan Zetlin and David Trubek, eds. Governing Work and Welfare in a New Economy: European and American Experiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
51. Fung, O'Rourke and Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?
52. Dorf and Sabel, "A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism";
53. Jessop, The Future of the Capitalist State.
54. Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, "Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy," European Law Journal 3, no. 4 (1997): 313-42;
55. Dorf and Sabel, "A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism."
56. Dorf and Sabel, "A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism, " 409.
57. Sabel, "Learning by Monitoring," 158.
58. Fung, O'Rourke and Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?
59. Ibid., 5.
60. Archon Fung, personal communications to the author.
61. Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright, "Countervailing Power in Empowered Participatory Governance," in A. Fung and E. Wright, eds. Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance (London: Verso, 2003): 259-89;
62. Archon Fung, "Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards," Governance 16, no. 1 (2003): 51-71.
63. Ibid., 259.
64. Ibid., 265.
65. See Fung, O'Rourke, and Sabel, Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?, 29.
66. See Rodríguez-Garavito, "Nike's Law."
67. Jagdish Bhagwati, "Why Nike is on the Right Track" (www.columbia.edu/~jb38, 2000)
68. A biting and theoretically sophisticated assessment of this type is Ronen Shamir, "Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case of Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony," in B. Santos and C. Rodríguez-Garavito, eds. Law and Globalization From Below.
69. Interview with CUSG Secretary General, Guatemala City, August 1, 2002.
70. Interview with Ricardo Changala, Guatemala City, August 2, 2002 (his emphasis).
71. See, for instance, Bartley, "Certifying Forests and Factories."
72. See Peter Evans, "The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization" World Politics 50, no. 1 (1997): 62-87.
73. Interview with Arturo Alcalde (union-side labor lawyer), Mexico City, July 15, 2002; interview with Samuel Porras (Kukdong's union's lawyer), Puebla, Mexico, July 15, 2002.
74. Interview with UNSITRAGUA (national labor federation) leaders, Guatemala City, August 1, 2002; interview with CUSG Secretary General.
75. See, for instance, Huberto Juárez, Allá...Donde Viven los más Pobres: Cadenas Globales y Regiones Productoras en la Industria Maquiladora del Vestido (Puebla: BUAP, 2005);
76. Dan La Botz, Mask of Democracy: Labor Supression in Mexico Today (Boston: South End Press, 1992).
77. Interview with FESTRAS General Secretary, Guatemala City, July 29, 2002.
78. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 13.
79. MSN, "Codes Update;"
80. O'Rourke, "Outsourcing Regulation."
81. Morton Winston, "NGO Strategies for Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility."
82. Elliot and Freeman, "White Hats or Don Quixotes?"
83. O'Rourke, "Outsourcing Regulation."
84. MSN, "Codes Update," 17.
85. O'Rourke, "Monitoring the Monitors."
86. Fair Labor Association (FLA), "First Public Report: Towards Improving Workers' Lives" (www.fairlabor.org, 2003), 51.
87. Interview with Arturo Alcalde; interview with FESTRAS General Secretary; interview with Ken Kim (COVERCO), Guatemala City, August 2, 2002.
88. Interview with Huberto Juárez (Autonomous University of Puebla), Puebla, Mexico, July 8, 2002; interview with Luis Galicia (Avancso), Guatemala City, July 29, 2002.
89. David Gonzalez, "Latin Sweatshops Pressed by U.S. Campus Power," The New York Times (4 April 2003).
90. Thalia Kidder, "Networks in Transnational Labor Organizing," in S. Khagram, J. Riker, and K. Sikkink, eds., Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks and Norms (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002): 269-93.
91. Kearney and Gearhart, "Workplace Codes as Tools for Workers."
92. Elliot and Freeman, Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization ?, 50, 64.
93. MSN, "2003 Year End Review: Emerging Trends in Codes and Their Implementation," (www.maquilasolidarity.org, 2004).
94. A World Bank survey in Honduras, Kenya, China, and India reached a similar conclusion; see World Bank, "Strengthening the Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Supply Chains," (October 2003).
95. As recounted by Marco Santiago Pérez, one of the leaders of the campaign, in Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador, "La Lucha Sigue: Stories from the People of the Kukdong Factory" (Puebla: CAT, 2001).
96. Diario Síntesis (13 January 2001).
97. Ginger Thompson, "Mexican Labor Protest Gets Results," The New York Times (8 October 2001).
98. Collective interview with leaders of Choishin union, Guatemala City, August 5,2002.
99. COVERCO, "Un Informe Especial de COVERCO: El Código de Conducta de Liz Claiborne Inc. y la Sindicalización de Dos Fábricas Proveedoras en Guatemala," (www.coverco.org, 2001).
100. Collective interview with leaders of Choishin/Cimatextiles union. Guatemala City, August 5, 2002; interview with FESTRAS General Secretary.
101. Collective interview with leaders of Choishin/Cimatextiles union; interview with FESTRAS General Secretary.
102. See also COVERCO, "Un Informe Especial."
103. US/LEAP, "The Guatemala Surprise," (www.usleap.org., 2003).
104. Phone interview with Choishin union leader, July 17, 2003.
105. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 24-5.
106. Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York: Picador, 2000), 343.
107. Jane Collins, Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003), 190;
108. see also Fung, "Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards," 67-8.
109. Phone interview with Choishin union leader, July 17, 2003.
110. Interview with Blanca Velasquez and David Alvarado (CAT), Atlixco, Mexico, July 10, 2002; interview with FESTRAS General Secretary.
111. Interview with the Program Director of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center for the Americas, Dallas, March 28, 2003.
112. Interview with the Program Director of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center for the Americas.
113. Visit to Kukdong and interview with management, Atlixco, July 11, 2002.
114. Collective interview with Kukdong union leaders, Atlixco, July 12, 2002.
115. Phone interview with counsel to Choishin union, April 5, 2004.
116. MSN, "2003 Year End Review," 8.
117. I b i d.
118. Kearney and Gearhart, "Workplace Codes as Tools for Workers."
119. MSN "2003 Year End Review," 8.
120. Peter Evans, "Fighting Marginalization with Transnational Networks: Counter-Hegemonic Globalization," Contemporary Sociology 29, no. 1 (2000): 230-41, 235.