Principles for Worker-Driven Remedy

Workers in global supply chains face forced labour, hazardous working conditions, excessive overtime, violence, union busting, and other abuses. They may be cheated of wages and bonuses promised by recruiters or dismissed without due process. They need remedy and, in fact, have a right to an effective remedy, but remedy for business-related harms in global supply chains is rare. The Principles for Worker-Driven Remedy offer a framework for making remedy a reality for workers when their rights are violated and when they are harmed in global supply chains. Developed by Electronics Watch in consultation with trade unions, labour rights organizations, and public buyers, the Principles put affected workers at the heart of the remedy process. Electronics Watch will develop tools and procedures to help public buyers to use the Principles in supplier engagement, tenders, and contract management. We encourage companies and other organizations to adopt and adapt them to address harm to workers in supply chains.

Creating resilient supply chains through a culture of measuring

The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing disruptions to global supply chains have brought risk management to the fore. While guidance on risk management is proliferating, an area that is largely untapped is risk measurement. The pandemic has made us realize the criticality of risk measurement and the need to develop a culture of continuous measuring. Based on our interviews with purchasing and supply management (PSM) professionals about how they measure and manage risk, we offer a framework integrating how to rethink risk measurement, how to continuously measure risk, how to translate measurement into action, and how to establish a culture of continuous measuring. It captures a shift in mindset that is needed to truly take risk measurement to the next level. Once this is accomplished, it can help PSM professionals build more resilient supply chains in a post-pandemic world, and serve as a foundation for PSM scholars to provide further guidance enabling practitioners to “walk the talk” when it comes to risk management.

International trade and Covid-19: City-level evidence from China's lockdown policy

This paper examines the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on exports by Chinese cities. We use city-level export data at a monthly frequency from January 2018 through April 2020. Differences-in-differences estimates suggest cities in lockdown experienced a ceteris paribus 34 percentage points reduction in the year-on-year growth rate of exports. The lockdown impacted the intensive and extensive margin, with higher exit and lower new entry into foreign markets. The drop in exports was smaller in (i) coastal cities; (ii) cities with better-developed ICT infrastructure; and (iii) cities with a larger share of potential teleworkers. Time-sensitive and differentiated goods experienced a more pronounced decline in export growth. Global supply chain characteristics matter, with more upstream products and industries that had accumulated larger inventories experiencing a smaller decline in export growth. Also, products that relied more on imported (domestic) intermediates experienced a sharper (flatter) slowdown in export growth. The rapid recovery in cities' exports after lockdowns were lifted suggests the policy was cost-effective in terms of its effects on trade.

Power relations in global supply chains and the unequal distribution of costs during crises: Abandoning garment suppliers and workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

In early 2020, apparel brands and retailers cancelled US$40 billion worth of orders, with critical consequences for suppliers and workers. Their actions illustrate the power asymmetries in global supply chains and the unequal distribution of costs during crises. This article explores these dynamics through original survey data, supplier questionnaires, stakeholder interviews, a time-line analysis and trade data analysis. Findings point to certain limits of buyer power, reflected in the effective collaboration between suppliers and worker rights advocates in the "#PayUp" campaign. Yet buyers retain the power to squeeze suppliers with adverse impacts on workers, thus leading to calls for binding agreements.

From Rana Plaza to COVID-19: Deficiencies and opportunities for a new labour governance system in garment global supply chains

The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster highlighted the failure of labour regulation in global garment value chains. Eight years on, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, what changes have occurred in labour regulation and with what consequences for workers? Using the concept of a labour governance system (LGS), the authors show that, despite improvements in building and worker safety regulation, the garment LGS remains weak and wages, working hours and the treatment of workers show little improvement. The pandemic appears to have exacerbated these deficiencies but it may also offer an opportunity to strengthen the LGS along lines proposed in this article.

Women Garment Workers Face Huge Inequities in Global Supply Chain Factories Made Worse by COVID-19

Women make up the large majority of workers in global supply chains, especially factories in the apparel supply chain. These workers face significant inequalities in wages, workplace hazards, and a special burden of gender-based violence and harassment. These "normal" conditions have been compounded by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated long-standing structural inequities. Decades of well-financed "corporate social responsibility" programs have failed because they do not address the underlying causes of illegal and abusive working conditions. New initiatives in the past half-decade offer promise in putting the needs and rights of workers front and center. Occupational health and safety professionals can assist in the global effort to improve working and social conditions, and respect for the rights and dignity of women workers, through advocacy and action on the job, in their professional associations, and in society at large.

Multinational enterprises and the governance of sustainability practices in emerging market supply chains: An agile governance perspective

Advanced economy multinational enterprises (AMNEs) face idiosyncratic challenges related to the governance of their sustainability practices in their emerging market supply chains. One way for AMNEs to address these challenges would be by adopting agile sustainability governance mechanisms. Drawing on the theories of experimentalist governance and deliberation, we propose a processual framework suited to develop agile sustainability governance mechanisms. We explore the challenges to supplier participation and the factors that enable an authentic dialogue in the process. We contribute to the scholarship on transnational governance and strategic agility, and offer practical implications which are also relevant for disruptions like COVID-19.

Going digital multinationals: Navigating economic and social imperatives in a post-pandemic world

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the economic imperative facing brick-and-mortar MNEs; i.e., their need to build commercial resilience in response to Industry 4.0 (4IR). The pandemic has also undone progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), widened income inequalities, and created a new backlash against digital globalization such that the UN social imperative – the pledge to leave no one behind by achieving the SDGs by 2030 – now appears an impossible task. Could the “going digital” MNEs that are making substantial investments in 4IR technologies take a socially proactive stance and thereby provide a window of opportunity that would rebuild momentum on the UN social imperative? Our paper explores the possible social impacts of MNE digitalization initiatives, both directly through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and indirectly through their global value and supply chains. Because digitalization can be used for the good but requires adequate harnessing, we argue that three changes are needed to ensure that the going digitals, with the assistance of UN agencies, can simultaneously address their economic imperative and facilitate progress on the UN’s social imperative: (i) revamping the CSR function; (ii) making SDGs “matter”; and (iii) building a new UN–MNE coalition.