New moves in transnational advocacy: Getting labor and economic rights on the agenda in unexpected ways

Global Governance

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 263-281

  Hertel, Shareen ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

^b Human Rights Institute   (United States)

Author keywords

Bangladesh; Child labor; Economic rights; Mexico; Transnational advocacy

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749253376     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01203004     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston, International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics and Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 261;
2. Tony Evans, ed., Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).
3. Other work on power dynamics within transnational advocacy networks includes Jonathan Fox, "Assessing Binational Civil Society Coalitions: Lessons from the US-Mexico Experience," Working Paper No. 26, April 2000 (Santa Cruz: University of California-Santa Cruz);
4. David Brooks and Jonathan Fox, eds., Cross-Border Dialogues: US-Mexico Social Movement Networking (La Jolla: Center for US-Mexico Studies, University of California-San Diego, 2002);
5. Heather Williams, "Mobile Capital and Transborder Labor Rights Mobilization," Politics and Society 27, no. 1 (March 1999): 139-166;
6. and Center for the Study of Human Rights, Capacity Building by Human Rights Organizations: Challenges and Strategies (Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, September 2002), pp. 9, 14-19.
7. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
8. See also Keck and Sikkink, "Transnational Advocacy Networks in Movement Society," in David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow, eds., The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
9. Jon Elster, Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 24-26.
10. Albert S. Yee, "The Causal Effects of Ideas on Policies," International Organization 50, no. 1 (winter 1996): 68-109, especially pp. 82-85.
11. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 24.
12. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, p. 13.
13. The boomerang is cited in numerous academic articles as well as in non-published dissertations, working papers, and research grant proposals. It centrally informs the work of leading scholarship on normative theory, including Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, The Power of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
14. Mayer Zald, "Culture, Ideology, and Strategic Framing," in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 262.
15. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink have developed a three-stage model of norms evolution that is segmented as follows: emergence, tipping point to cascade, and internalization. See Finnemore and Sikkink, "Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization 52, no. 4 (autumn 1998): 887-917.
16. For example, Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (New York: Scribner, 1890).
17. Darlene Adkins (vice-president for public policy, National Consumers League), telephone interview by author, 13 March 2001; Linda Golodner (president, Child Labor Coalition), interview by author, Washington, DC, 14 August 2001.
18. Congressional Record, 100th Cong., 1st sess. (14 July 1987), Vol. 133, pt. 27: 19818; correspondence from Representatives George Miller and Donald Pease to members of the House of Representatives, dated 28 October 1987, and correspondence from Representatives Pease, Lantos, Schumer, and Hall to members of the House of Representatives, 6 June 1989 (copies on file with author);
19. Congressional Record, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (15 November 1991), Vol. 137, pt. 25: 32144.
20. Full text of the Harkin bill (S 3133), introduced in the 102rd Cong., is available at http://thomas.loc.gov.
21. See the preamble to ILO 138, Minimum Age Convention (1973), available at www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/convdispl.htm.
22. Export Promotion Bureau of Bangladesh 1997, cited in Najmir Nur Begum, "Women in the Ready-Made Garment Industries: Issues and Concerns," unpublished working paper commissioned by the Ministry of Textiles, Textile Strategic Management Unit (Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, 1997), p. 1.
23. Paula L. Green, "Child Labor Coalition May Seek Bangladesh Boycott," Journal of Commerce, 15 May 1995.
24. Debapriya Bhattacharya, "International Trade, Social Labelling and Developing Countries: The Case of Bangladesh's Garments Export and Use of Child Labor," in J. Forster, ed., Annuaire Suisse-Tiers Monde (Geneva: University Institute of Developing Studies, 1996).
25. Rosaline Costa (coordinator, Hotline Human Rights Bangladesh), telephone interview by author from New York, 15 February 2002.
26. For full text of the CRC, see www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.
27. Hameeda Hossain (founder, Ain-o-Shalish Kendra, a human rights NGO), e-mail interview by author, 3 February 2002; Suraiya Haque (founder, Phulki, an NGO that provides factory-based day care), e-mail interview by author, 27 May 2002; Zina D'Costa (former staff member, Shoishab, a child rights NGO), e-mail interview by author, 28 May 2002.
28. William E. Myers (academic), telephone interview by author from New York, 28 May 2002.
29. See also William E. Myers, "The Right Rights? Child Labor in a Globalizing World," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 575 (May 2001): 38-55.
30. "BGMEA Warns Members of Dire Consequences of Employing Children," The Morning Sun (Dhaka), 31 December 1992.
31. "Activists Blast US Bill on Child Labor," United Press International, August 8, 1993.
32. Nur Khan Liton, "Harkin's Law: More Harm Than Good," Dhaka Courier, 18 September 1993,
33. reprinted in Ain-O-Salish-Kendra, Rights and Realities (Dhaka: ASK, September 1997).
34. ILO/IPEC, "BGMEA, ILO, UNICEF Child Labor Project Bangladesh: Case Study or 'Midterm' Review,'" internal working paper prepared by Rijk van Haarlem, July 1997.
35. ILO and UNICEF, "Addressing Child Labour in the Bangladesh Garment Industry, 1995-2001: A Synthesis of UNICEF and ILO Evaluation Studies of the Bangladesh Garment Sector Projects," August 2004, p. 12.
36. Keck and Sikkink, "Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics," International Social Science Journal 159 (March 1999): 98.
37. Darlene Adkins, telephone interview by author, 13 March 2001; Sonia Rosen (former US Department of Labor official), interviews by author in Washington, DC, 12 July 2001 and 19 March 2002.
38. See letters dated 14 April 1995 and 19 April 1995 from Pharis Harvey (cochair, Child Labor Coalition) to Redwan Ahmed (president, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association).
39. See letters dated 20 May 1995 and 26 May 1995 from Pharis Harvey to Redwan Ahmed (on file with author).
40. ILO/ IPEC, The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Between BGMEA, ILO, and UNICEF: A 'Quick Reference' Pamphlet (Dhaka, Bangladesh: ILO/IPEC, October 1996).
41. Memo from Andrew Samet to Peter Reinecke, 26 June 1995 (on file with author; emphasis added).
42. The US government made an $876,000 contribution to IPEC for follow-up programs to the MOU. US Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, "Labor Department Funds Governments for the Eradication of Child Labor," news release 96-207, 30 May 1996.
43. Birgitta Ling (Save the Children, Sweden), e-mail interview by author, 13 December 2001. See also Jo Boyden, Birgitta Ling, and William Myers, What Works for Working Children (Florence, Italy: Radda Barnen and UNICEF ICDC, 1998);
44. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 414-421, especially p. 420;
45. Susan Bissell, "Young Garment Workers in Bangladesh: Raising the Rights Question," Development 44, no. 2 (2001): 75-80, especially pp. 76-77;
46. and Shahidul Alam, "Thank You, Mr. Harkin, Sir!" New Internationalist, no. 292 (July 1997), available at www.newint.org/issue292/ content.html.
47. Full text of ILO Convention 182 is available at www.ilo.org/ilolex/ english/convdispl.htm.
48. Muhammad Asgar Ali (director, Bangladesh Shishu Adikar Forum), e-mail interview by author, 28 April 2002; Nazrul Islam Khan (general secretary, Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies), e-mail interview by author, 11 December 2001; Mohammad Bashiruz Zaman (executive director, Underprivileged Children's Education Program), e-mail interview by the author, 13 March 2002.
49. Article 170(11) of the Federal Labor Law of Mexico (Ley Federal del Trabajo, or LFT) guarantees women six weeks of paid maternity leave before delivery and six weeks afterward. Unless she has consistently paid into the social security system, a pregnant worker's employer must assume responsibility for her salary during this period. Full text of related laws is available at www.cddhcu.gob.mx/leyinfo/125/196.htm.
50. The number of maquiladoras has tripled in number since the passage of NAFTA in 1994; at the time of the campaign, they accounted for 23 percent of all Mexican export earnings. US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Factbook 2001, available at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook;
51. Héctor Vázquez-Tercero, "Medición de flujo de divisas de la balanza comercial de Mexico," Comercio Exterior 40, no. 10 (October 2000): 890-894.
52. Diana Velasco, "Despidos por embarazo en la mujer, no se denuncia en 90% de los casos," El Día. 21 October 1998.
53. Pilar Muriedas (founding member, Consorcio para el Diálogo Parliamentario y la Equidad), interview by author in Mexico City, 18 January 2002.
54. Human Rights Watch, No Guarantees: Sex Discrimination in Mexico's Maquiladora Sector (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), available at http://hrw.org/reports/1996/Mexi0896.htm.
55. Full text is available at www.naalc.org/english/objective.shtml.
56. Julia Quiñónez (director, Comité Fronterizo de Obreras), interview by author in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, 8 January 2002.
57. Elsa Jiménez (founding member, Yehuáni), interview by author in Tijuana, Baja California, 26 September 2001.
58. LaShawn Jefferson (then deputy director, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch), interview by author in Washington, DC, 14 March 2000.
59. María Santos Ramírez (Casa de la Mujer Lugar Tía Juana), interview by author in Tijuana, Baja California, 19 September 2001; Marcia Contreras López (founding member, Comité Desarrollo Comunitario de la Colonia Eusebio Kino, A.C.), interview by author in Hermosillo, Sonora, 1 November 2001; Julia Quiñónez and María Elena Garcia Sierra (Comité Fronterizo de Obreras), interview by author in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, 8 January 2002.
60. Widney Brown (then advocacy director, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch), interview by author in New York, 24 August 2001.
61. Julia Quiñónez, interview by author in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, 8 January 2002.
62. The author engaged in participant observation with members of Factor X, a Tijuana-based NGO, in September 2001. In October 2001, she made eleven visits to observe worker training sessions carried out by members of the Maquiladora Organizing Project, a grassroots NGO, in workers' homes in Agua Prieta, Sonora. In January 2002, she carried out participant observation with members of the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and made ten visits to workers' homes (or a neutral locale) in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, facilitated by Derechos Obreres y Democracia Sindical (DODS), a grassroots training organization.
63. Full text is available at www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/nao/submissions/ Sub9701.htm.
64. US National Administrative Office (NAO), Bureau of International Labor Affairs, United States Department of Labor, Public Report of Review of NAO Submission No. 9701, 12 January 1998, available at www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/ reports/nao/pubrep9701.htm.
65. Teresa Hernández (formerly of Comité Fronterizo de Obreras), interview by author in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, 11 January 2002.
66. Patricia Mercado (feminist political activist), interview by author in Mexico City, 15 January 2002.
67. Pilar Murieras, interview by author in Mexico City, 18 January 2002.
68. Yolanda Ramírez-León, interview by author in Mexico City, 15 January 2002 (emphasis added).
69. Fabiola Martínez, "Convocan a foro de conciliación entre la maternidad y el trabajo," La Jornada, 22 October 1998.
70. See also "Resumen de casos presentados en el marco del Tribunal de Conciliación entre la Maternidad y el Trabajo," unpublished collection of testimony presented at the Tribunal on Reconciling Maternity and Work, Mexico City, 22 October 1998 (on file with author).
71. Martínez, "Convocan a foro de conciliación entre la maternidad y el trabajo."
72. Miguel Angel Salazar, "Denuncian aplicación de exámen de no gravidez en mujeres recién contratadas," El Sol de Mexico, 22 October 1998.
73. US-NAO, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, US Department of Labor, "Status of Submissions Under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation," updated 11 January 2000, p. 4 (copy on file with author).
74. Human Rights Watch, A Job or Your Right: Continued Sex Discrimination in Mexico's Maquiladora Sector (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), available at www.hrw.org/reports98/women2.
75. Claudia Herrera-Beltrán, "Eliminan el certificado de ingravidez para mujeres en educación," La Jornada, 21 May 1999.
76. See also "Género: Avances de la igualdad," La Jornada, 22 May 1999.
77. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2000 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2000), available at www.hrw.org.
78. Consorcio para el Diálogo Parliamentario y la Equidad, "La equidad de género en la LVII legislatura," Agenda Afirmativa, undated pamphlet including analysis of forty-nine bills presented during the period 1997-2000, six of which focused directly on pregnancy-related discrimination.
79. Marcia Contreras-López, interview by author in Hermosillo, Sonora, 1 November 2001.
80. Michael Lipsky, Protest in City Politics: Rent Strikes, Housing, and the Power of the Poor (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969).
81. 1 owe this insight to Sidney Tarrow, who commented on an earlier draft of this article presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 28 August 2003.