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Labor Standards (labor + standards)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting33%

Selected Abstracts

Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2003
Archon Fung
Political theorists have argued that the methods of deliberative democracy can help to meet challenges such as legitimacy, effective governance, and citizen education in local and national contexts. These basic insights can also be applied to problems of international governance such as the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of labor standards. A participatory and deliberative democratic approach to labor standards would push the labor,standards debate into the global public sphere. It would seek to create broad discussion about labor standards that would include not only firms and regulators, but also consumers, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and others. This discussion could potentially improve (1) the quality of labor standards by incorporating considerations of economic context and firm capability, (2) their implementation by bringing to bear not only state sanctions but also political and market pressures, and (3) the education and understanding of citizens. Whereas the role of public agencies in state,centered approaches is to formulate and enforce labor standards, central authorities in the decentralized,deliberative approach would foster the transparency of workplace practices to spur an inclusive, broad, public conversation about labor standards. To the extent that a substantive consensus around acceptable behavior emerges from that conversation, public power should also enforce those minimum standards. [source]

Outsourcing Regulation: Analyzing Nongovernmental Systems of Labor Standards and Monitoring

POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2003
Dara O'Rourke
A range of new nongovernmental systems for advancing labor standards and enforcement have emerged over the last 5 years. This article comparatively assesses these multistakeholder systems of codes of conduct and monitoring, discusses their underlying models of regulation, and proposes a set of criteria for evaluating their effectiveness, including their legitimacy, rigor, accountability, and complementarity. Critical issues are raised about the transparency of existing initiatives, independence of monitors, convergence of standards, and dynamics among nongovernmental regulation, unions, and state enforcement. The article concludes by arguing that with increased transparency, improved technical capacities, and new mechanisms of accountability to workers and consumers, nongovernmental monitoring could complement existing state regulatory systems. [source]

Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2003
Archon Fung
Political theorists have argued that the methods of deliberative democracy can help to meet challenges such as legitimacy, effective governance, and citizen education in local and national contexts. These basic insights can also be applied to problems of international governance such as the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of labor standards. A participatory and deliberative democratic approach to labor standards would push the labor,standards debate into the global public sphere. It would seek to create broad discussion about labor standards that would include not only firms and regulators, but also consumers, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and others. This discussion could potentially improve (1) the quality of labor standards by incorporating considerations of economic context and firm capability, (2) their implementation by bringing to bear not only state sanctions but also political and market pressures, and (3) the education and understanding of citizens. Whereas the role of public agencies in state,centered approaches is to formulate and enforce labor standards, central authorities in the decentralized,deliberative approach would foster the transparency of workplace practices to spur an inclusive, broad, public conversation about labor standards. To the extent that a substantive consensus around acceptable behavior emerges from that conversation, public power should also enforce those minimum standards. [source]

Globalization, Financial Crisis, and Industrial Relations: The Case of South Korea

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2003
Dong-one Kim
The South Korean case shows that the globalization trend in the 1990s and the 1997,1998 financial crisis had two contrasting effects on labor rights. First, these developments resulted in negative labor market outcomes: increased unemployment, greater use of contingent workers, and widened income inequalities. On the other hand, they led international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) to play important roles in improving labor standards in Korea. Also, continued restructuring drives prompted unions to merge into industrial unions and wage strikes with increased frequency and intensity. Contrary to the common belief, the Korean case shows that globalization and intensified competition resulted in stronger and strategic responses from labor by stimulating employees' interest in and reliance on trade unionism. [source]

Trade and Domestic Policy Linkage in International Agreements,

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2002
Josh Ederington
A central question in discussions of integrating negotiations over domestic policy (e.g., environmental policy or labor standards) into traditional trade agreements is the degree to which the trade policy and domestic policy provisions of an agreement should be explicitly linked. For example, should the World Trade Organization enforce domestic policy obligations with the threat of the suspension of trade concessions? This article considers the conditions under which linking trade and domestic policy agreements within a self-enforcing agreement is beneficial, and argues that the benefits of such policy linkage may be lower than is commonly thought. [source]

Outsourcing Regulation: Analyzing Nongovernmental Systems of Labor Standards and Monitoring

POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2003
Dara O'Rourke
A range of new nongovernmental systems for advancing labor standards and enforcement have emerged over the last 5 years. This article comparatively assesses these multistakeholder systems of codes of conduct and monitoring, discusses their underlying models of regulation, and proposes a set of criteria for evaluating their effectiveness, including their legitimacy, rigor, accountability, and complementarity. Critical issues are raised about the transparency of existing initiatives, independence of monitors, convergence of standards, and dynamics among nongovernmental regulation, unions, and state enforcement. The article concludes by arguing that with increased transparency, improved technical capacities, and new mechanisms of accountability to workers and consumers, nongovernmental monitoring could complement existing state regulatory systems. [source]