Varieties of Capitalists? Mosley, Layna
Labor Rights and Multinational Production,
11/2010
Book Chapter
In the first five chapters of this book, I advance the argument that economic globalization generally, and multinational production specifically, is a diverse phenomenon. Some low- and middle-income ...nations have high levels of MNC-owned production, whereas foreign direct investment plays a much more limited role in other nations. Similarly, some developing nations are highly involved in regional and global trade markets, whereas other nations maintain both legal and practical barriers to imports and exports. In some instances, high levels of trade activity coexist with low levels of FDI inflows. These cases are marked by high levels of trade competition and subcontracting activity but by little directly owned production. In other situations, multinational corporations own significant production facilities in the host nation, in which they produce goods that largely service local consumer markets – a high level of direct investment but a low level of trade openness.These differences should generate diversity in labor rights outcomes, according to the theoretical and empirical claims advanced in Chapters 3 and 5. Trade openness tends to put negative pressures on collective labor rights, whereas foreign direct investment augurs positively for this same set of rights. As a result, how a given nation participates in the global economy – and how MNCs enter host economies – has important consequences for workers in that country. However, this heterogeneity captures only part of the diversity inherent in contemporary multinational production. Whereas the preceding chapters advance our understanding of the links between the global economy and workers’ rights, they leave many elements of global production unexplored.
Multinational companies have turned back the clock, transferring production to countries with labor conditions that resemble those in the early period of America’s own industrialization. ...(Collinsworth et al. 1994, p. 9)In every region of the world, workers often are treated poorly: Some are denied the rights to unionize and strike by their governments, while others are blacklisted from employment if they assert their legally mandated right to organize. Still others work very long hours with no overtime pay, with exposure to noxious chemicals or to sexual harassment by management. For instance, in its 2007 annual survey of trade union rights, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documents the deaths of 144 trade unionists; nearly 5,000 arrests for union-related activities; and over 8,000 dismissals from employment for reasons related to unionization. These violations of collective labor rights are concentrated in some countries; for instance, Colombia leads the world in trade unionist disappearances and deaths. At the same time, though, the ITUC documents denials of collective labor rights in 138 nations, including both developed and developing countries, and in sectors ranging from bananas and coffee to electronics and pharmaceuticals.Violations of individual labor rights – working hours, overtime pay, health, and safety – are similarly widespread. A decade ago, reports of abuses in many of Nike’s supplier factories received widespread public attention; these included the underpayment of wages by subcontractors in Indonesia, the use of child labor in the production of soccer balls in Pakistan, and exposure of workers in China and Vietnam to a variety of dangerous chemicals (Locke 2001). Activists routinely document the abuse of agricultural sector workers, such as the widespread use (and abuse) of child workers in Ecuador’s banana sector (Human Rights Watch 2002). Additionally, the expansion of China’s exports has been accompanied by a growth in reports of abuses in Chinese factories, in sectors ranging from apparel to toys to electronics.
The systematic, cross-national assessment of collective labor rights outcomes, and their causal determinants, is the central aim of this book. As such, much of the evidence presented is quantitative ...in nature, and it is cast at the country level of analysis. Whereas I discuss the importance of domestic economic and political variables as independent and intervening variables in Chapters 3 and 5, the explanations advanced focus on the impact (or lack thereof) of the global economy on national-level labor rights outcomes. Yet, despite the need (both from the point of view of international political economy and that of economic policymakers) for systematic, large-N treatments of the linkages between global production and labor rights, such an analytical approach also has limitations. Some of these are identified in the preceding chapter, which highlights problems of data availability among low- and middle-income nations.Another drawback relates to the difficulty of gaining a sense of the longer-term (and often domestically driven) processes linking the global economy, domestic politics and institutions, and the rights of workers. Such causal processes often unfold over many years, and they may unfold in a path-dependent fashion. This longer-term dynamic process may relate to the hypotheses introduced in Chapter 3 as well as to the sector and source arguments discussed in the previous chapter. As the nature of a country’s engagement in global production networks changes (in terms of the extent of its involvement, the sectors in which it is involved, or the developed nations from which investment and subcontracting come), labor rights outcomes also should change. Such changes, though, may happen over several years or even decades, making their impact easier to trace in qualitative analyses. Qualitative analyses not only facilitate the consideration of longer-term processes; they also allow for the possibility of unit heterogeneity (Sambanis 2004). That is, the medium- and longer-term processes linking labor rights, domestic politics, and the global economy may vary across units. Given these considerations, it is useful to complement quantitatively based approaches to understanding collective labor rights with qualitative analyses, either by industry (i.e., Silver 2003) or by country and region (i.e., Murillo 2001). By investigating a single case or set of cases over a longer period of time, we can assess the ways in which external variables (here, multinational production) are linked with outcome variables (labor rights) via various domestic political and economic institutions.
Multinational corporations often are the targets of human and labor rights activists. Whereas some activists view MNCs as partners in corporate social responsibility efforts, the relationship more ...often is an adversarial one. Labor rights activists are suspicious of MNCs’ commitments to improving workers’ rights, and they often treat MNCs as agents of repression in developing nations.The activists, in fact, may have a point. Indeed, some types of global production in which MNCs are involved have negative consequences for workers’ rights. We observe these most easily where subcontracting and arm’s-length relationships with suppliers are the tools of market entry. In these situations, the cost concerns associated with global competition can generate downward pressures on labor standards. The activists’ point lacks nuance, however, as this downward pressure is only part of the story. Directly owned production often has positive consequences for labor rights, as MNCs bring their best practices to their subsidiaries, and as MNCs strive to hire and retain the most productive workers in host economies.
The Overall Picture Mosley, Layna
Labor Rights and Multinational Production,
11/2010
Book Chapter
The contrast between anecdotes of sweatshop labor and the actual development of labor conditions around the world is striking. (Flanagan 2006, 23).In Chapter 3, I present several hypotheses linking ...labor rights outcomes with international economic and domestic political variables. The first two center upon the mixed effects of multinational production on labor rights outcomes: I predict that, all else equal, trade openness will be associated with greater violations of workers’ collective rights and that foreign direct investment will be positively linked with these same rights. The remaining hypotheses developed in Chapter 3 concern domestic economic and political dynamics: I expect fewer violations of collective rights in country-years characterized by democratic political regimes and left-leaning governments. Additionally, where labor market conditions are more favorable to workers, collective rights also should be better protected.This chapter presents statistical analyses that assess these hypotheses using quantitative indicators of key variables for approximately ninety low- and middle-income nations and relying on annual observations during the 1986–2002 time frame. The dependent variable for these analyses is the newly developed indicator of overall labor rights as well as the disaggregated measures of labor rights in law and in practice. I estimate cross-sectional time series (CSTS) models. The late 1980s and 1990s are periods of growing – and often high – economic openness in which the impact of globalization on labor rights should be quite pronounced; these years also provide broad coverage for key variables.
Data and Coding Mosley, Layna
Labor Rights and Multinational Production,
11/2010
Book Chapter
Variable Names and DescriptionsUnless otherwise indicated, data are from the World Bank, World Development Indicators.Asia and Pacific: Dichotomous variable, coded one for Asian and Pacific region ...nations, zero otherwise.
