SecU RN mabe. ae vs Are Worker Rights Human Rights? To Wines, te be pegged ADVANCES IN HETERODOX ECONOMICS Fred S. Lee, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Series Editor Rob Garnett, Texas Christian University, Series Editor Over the past two decades, the intellectual agendas of heterodox economists have taken a decidedly pluralist turn. Leading thinkers have begun to move beyond the established paradigms of Austrian, feminist, institutional-evolutionary, Marxian, post-Keynesian, radical, social, and Sraffian economics—opening up new lines of analysis, criticism, and dialogue among dissenting schools of thought. This cross- fertiliezation of ideas is creating a new generation of scholarship in which novel combinations of heterodox ideas are being brought to bear on important contem- porary and historical problems. Advances in Heterodox Economics aims to promote this new scholarship by publishing innovative books in heterodox economic theory, policy, philosophy, intellectual history, institutional history, and pedagogy. Syntheses or critical engagements of two or more heterodox traditions are especially encouraged. The editor and associate editors work closely with individual authors to ensure the quality of all published works. Economics in Real Time: A Theoretical Reconstruction John McDermott Socialism after Hayek Theodore A. Burczak Future Directions for Heterodox Economics John T. Harvey and Robert F. Garnett, Jr., editors Are Worker Rights Human Rights? Richard P. McIntyre Are Worker Rights Human Rights? RICHARD P. MCINTYRE The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2008 All rights reserved \ Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America @ Printed on acid-free paper 2011 2010 2009 2008 A Vase wel No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McIntyre, Richard P., 1955— Are worker rights human rights? / Richard P. McIntyre. p. cm.— (Advances in heterodox economics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-472-07042-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-472-07042-8 (cloth : alk. paper) iSBN-13: 978-0-472-05042-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-472-05042-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Employee rights. 2. Labor—Standards. 3. Labor laws and legislation. 4. Human rights. I. Title. HD6971.8.M38 2008 331.01'1—dc22 2008011490 CONTENTS a“ Preface and Acknowledgments vil CHAPTER 1. Class, Convention, and Worker Rights 1 CHAPTER 2. Class, Convention, and Economics 13 CHAPTER 3. Not Only Nike Is Doing It 33 CHAPTER 4. Are Worker Rights Human Rights (and does it matter if they are)? 53 CHAPTER 5. The International Organization of Worker Rights and Labor Standards 80 CHAPTER 6. The United States and Core Worker Rights: Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining 103 CHAPTER 7. The New Factory Inspectors ~ 134 CHAPTER 8. Think Locally, Act Globally 162 Notes 179 References 195 Index 209 77s SY ve , ih ede or eerer } Py als vie ‘ray Neh heth Ms Neh {Mowsths Mi ie Naan ore sy ot hades ih Get ae thank ae i a el Wed PE hatnk on ie ioc | Ao 4 ee I 4 ide “ ue feel * y — Ae - - f ry » >, ‘7 os i . We ar ia rey:w ap campy: ni ; ei 8 ie ae «hema aa ro "es ol Wi MOTE s eh nei ingy OA ri ne Ap, So Mey. oooh aoa a peiagditae aye int ae th hale ce ure j ES 2 ale eke aR iii Viak “i ap: el vieri ties j ye » apn) ‘ an 7 ; i “angie Rea al Nene, tp ; “op - Seggdenns,Pi ier ahiss ha 7 a ; *» wth were ain : ye Gas at ae as - x. ti 7a mean iefa tii e: ,M , oe puoal | 1 ( ‘ k “i r ey pa jt - w) l | - °. ~ “ I : abe z i ; a } 4 os s; a ; a ny 4 j ' nN ii ; * ‘ 7 se As aa j 3 i i ” ; q: 4 oMmiI YPy rEi v)Ye X peen , tahwi ee r A) 7 yt Me ' — i , od ie , the < PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. The controversy over labor standards is one of the central debates in the con- temporary period of economic globalization. Economists have generally en- tered this debate through cost-benefit analysis, but there are important ques- tions of morality and class that do not fit easily within the orthodox approach. In this book I draw on the Institutional and Marxist traditions in economics to present an analysis of worker rights and labor standards that takes both moral questions and class relations and interests seriously. I argue that a prime and imminent tendency in the contemporary world economy is the lengthening of commodity chains through which the ultimate employer is able to wash his hands of moral responsibility for the conditions of work. This is true in globalized production networks, such as those operated by Nike and other global manufacturers, as well as in temporary and subcon- tracted work situations in the United States and elsewhere. Asserting the rights of workers against such practices may be a promising strategy, but in failing to distinguish between the individual and collective meaning of rights the supporters of such slogans as “worker rights are human rights” may end up with something quite different from what they expected. The antislavery movement indirectly created support for capitalist forms of ex- ploitation, the push for individual employment equality in the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the undermining of workers’ collective rights, and contemporary corporate codes of conduct emphasize the rights of the individual but say little about collective rights. The definition of rights is influenced by class interest in ways that the supporters of such rights ignore at their own peril. Recognizing that what constitutes a right is influenced by class relations and interests, and that the assertion of rights will necessarily have contradictory rather than simple effects, I examine the practices of the International Labor Organization (JLO), the interaction between labor law and U.S. foreign policy, and the activities of labor-based nongovernmental organizations in creating worker rights and enforcing labor standards. I argue for the strengthening of the ILO as an authoritative institution. Opponents of including labor standards in trade agreements point to the ILO as the appropriate forum for dealing with labor problems, though the organization has little enforcement power. Critics Vill PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of the ILO contend that its weakness is by design, and there is something to this. But ofa ll the existing multilateral organizations the ILO comes closest to the kind of global regulatory commission that could produce reasonable values by bringing all interested parties to the table, and its( rather arbitrary) definition of core labor standards is gaining widespread acceptance. In the United States, workers have few legally guaranteed rights, and what rights they do have eroded over the last generation. The United States has an abysmal record in ratifying ILO conventions. Yet as the dominant economic ~ power, and with a self-image as a promoter of democracy and freedom, the U.S. government sometimes puts itself in the vanguard of the international worker rights movement. I argue that while the reasons generally given in the United States for not adopting ILO conventions are specious, particularly those con- cerning freedom of association and collective bargaining, the United States’ oc- casional support for international labor standards could be leveraged to im- prove worker rights domestically. There is a long history of popular movements challenging the idea that “human rights” are discarded once one enters the factory or office door. Over the past decade a vigorous student movement demanding that university-lo- goed apparel be made sweat free has developed across the United States. While its goals are modest, I argue that this movement could have a large impact, to the extent that it builds organizing capacity in the newly industrializing coun- tries while potentially creating a desire for class justice at home. The classical socialist dream of the common experience of proletarianiza- tion and exploitation leading to working-class unity and revolutionary social- ism was not realized. A desire for class justice must be cultivated; it does not flow inevitably from capitalist relations of production. In thinking openly and deeply about the constructed meaning of “worker rights as human rights” I hope to contribute to a positive, pragmatic discussion of how to improve ma- terial conditions and democratic participation for working people, not just to critique economic orthodoxy or deconstruct one of the sacred cows of the po- litical Left. A popular politics that is more theoretically sophisticated and con- scious of class than what is generally on offer in the United States has a real chance to make a concrete difference in twenty-first-century globalized labor markets, and also in the homely setting of the college classroom, as I argue at the end of this book. My thanks go especially to Yngve Ramstad and Matthew Bodah with whom I developed some of these ideas. | thank Michael Hillard and Patrick McHugh