Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy PDF Author: Richard P. Appelbaum
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150170334X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
The world was shocked in April 2013 when more than 1100 garment workers lost their lives in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka. It was the worst industrial tragedy in the two-hundred-year history of mass apparel manufacture. This so-called accident was, in fact, just waiting to happen, and not merely because of the corruption and exploitation of workers so common in the garment industry. In Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy, Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein argue that such tragic events, as well as the low wages, poor working conditions, and voicelessness endemic to the vast majority of workers who labor in the export industries of the global South arise from the very nature of world trade and production. Given their enormous power to squeeze prices and wages, northern brands and retailers today occupy the commanding heights of global capitalism. Retail-dominated supply chains—such as those with Walmart, Apple, and Nike at their heads—generate at least half of all world trade and include hundreds of millions of workers at thousands of contract manufacturers from Shenzhen and Shanghai to Sao Paulo and San Pedro Sula. This book offers an incisive analysis of this pernicious system along with essays that outline a set of practical guides to its radical reform.

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy PDF Author: Richard P. Appelbaum
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150170334X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
The world was shocked in April 2013 when more than 1100 garment workers lost their lives in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka. It was the worst industrial tragedy in the two-hundred-year history of mass apparel manufacture. This so-called accident was, in fact, just waiting to happen, and not merely because of the corruption and exploitation of workers so common in the garment industry. In Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy, Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein argue that such tragic events, as well as the low wages, poor working conditions, and voicelessness endemic to the vast majority of workers who labor in the export industries of the global South arise from the very nature of world trade and production. Given their enormous power to squeeze prices and wages, northern brands and retailers today occupy the commanding heights of global capitalism. Retail-dominated supply chains—such as those with Walmart, Apple, and Nike at their heads—generate at least half of all world trade and include hundreds of millions of workers at thousands of contract manufacturers from Shenzhen and Shanghai to Sao Paulo and San Pedro Sula. This book offers an incisive analysis of this pernicious system along with essays that outline a set of practical guides to its radical reform.

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy PDF Author: Richard Appelbaum
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501703358
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
The world was shocked in April 2013 when more than 1,100 garment workers lost their lives in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka. It was the worst industrial tragedy in the two-hundred-year history of mass apparel manufacture. This so-called accident was, in fact, just waiting to happen, and not merely because of the corruption and exploitation of workers so common in the garment industry. In Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy, Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein argue that such tragic events, as well as the low wages, poor working conditions, and voicelessness endemic to the vast majority of workers who labor in the export industries of the global South arise from the very nature of world trade and production. Given their enormous power to squeeze prices and wages, northern brands and retailers today occupy the commanding heights of global capitalism. Retail-dominated supply chains—such as those with Walmart, Apple, and Nike at their heads—generate at least half of all world trade and include hundreds of millions of workers at thousands of contract manufacturers from Shenzhen and Shanghai to Sao Paulo and San Pedro Sula. This book offers an incisive analysis of this pernicious system along with essays that outline a set of practical guides to its radical reform. Contributors: Mark Anner, Penn State University; Richard P. Appelbaum, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jennifer Bair, University of Colorado Boulder; Renato Bignami, labor inspector, Brazil; Jeremy Blasi, UNITE HERE Local 11, Los Angeles, and Penn State; Anita Chan, Australian National University; Jenny Chan, University of Oxford; Jill Esbenshade, San Diego State University; Gary Gereffi, Duke University; Jeff Hermanson, International Union League for Brand Responsibility; Jason Kibbey, Sustainable Apparel Coalition; Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara; Xubei Luo, World Bank; Anne Caroline Posthuma, International Labour Organization; Scott Nova, Worker Rights Consortium; Ngai Pun, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Katie Quan, University of California, Berkeley; Brishen Rogers, Temple University; Robert J. S. Ross, Clark University; Mark Selden, Cornell University and New York University; Chris Wegemer, Santa Barbara, California

Globalization and Poverty

Globalization and Poverty PDF Author: Ann Harrison
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226318001
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Book Description
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

A Fair Globalization

A Fair Globalization PDF Author: World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization
Publisher: International Labour Organization
ISBN: 9789221154266
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This report has been compiled by the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization, an independent body established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2002, and whose membership includes international politicians and government advisers from developed and developing countries, academics and representatives of business and multinational corporations, trade unions and civil society organisations. The report explores the social dimensions of globalisation and the need to build a fair and inclusive global economic system, and argues that the dominant perspective on globalisation must shift from a narrow focus on markets to encompass a broader recognition of the needs of people in the communities in which they live. Issues highlighted and recommendations made in the report include: better governance and accountability at both national and international levels to foster productive and equitable markets; empowerment of local communities, including gender equality; sustainable development based on the interdependent pillars of economic, social and environmental development; fairer rules for international trade, investment and finance; measures to overcome inequality and raise capacity to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and a stronger multilateral framework based on an effective United Nations.

Women Workers and Global Restructuring

Women Workers and Global Restructuring PDF Author: Kathryn B. Ward
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780875461625
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Since economists traditionally focus on market activities, women's non-wage labour has not been registered in works on economic development. On the other hand, women's wage labour has been described as supplementary or marginal to the household income as well as to economic development as a whole. The contributors to this collection did their research on women workers in countries from the core, the semiperiphery, and the periphery. The eight articles are introduced by Kathryn Ward, who presents a critical overview of the literature on women workers and globalization. In Ward's opinion we have to develop new definitions for some key concepts in our theories on women and work. These concepts should aim at including housework and work in the informal sector, and women's various acts of resistance. Ward also suggests new perspectives from which we should theorize about women's work in the process of global restructuring.

Stakeholder Capitalism

Stakeholder Capitalism PDF Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119756138
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.

Unions and Collective Bargaining

Unions and Collective Bargaining PDF Author: Toke Aidt
Publisher: Directions in Development
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book offers an extensive survey and synthesis of the economic literature on trade unions and collective bargaining and their impact on micro-and macro-economic outcomes. The authors demonstrate the effects of collective bargaining in different country settings and time periods. A comprehensive reference, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of labor policy as well as to policy makers and anyone with an interest in the economic consequences of unionism.

What We Owe Each Other

What We Owe Each Other PDF Author: Minouche Shafik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120764X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Fairness in Practice

Fairness in Practice PDF Author: Aaron James
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199846154
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
In this book, the author argues that to achieve a fair global economy, there must be compensation of people harmed by their exposure to the global economy, but also equal division of the "gains of trade" across societies.

Decent Work and the Informal Economy

Decent Work and the Informal Economy PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Describes the informal economy and highlights its decent work deficit. Proposes an integrated strategy to address underlying causes of informality and to promote decent work in all sectors of the economy, from formal to informal.