Organized labor faces enormous challenges in the increasingly global economy. The effect of multinational corporations, the portability of technology and capital, and lowered trade barriers in international commerce have all sparked widespread prophecies of trade union demise. This book, however, presents compelling evidence that unions can survive and grow if labor is willing to cooperate across national borders. Transnational Cooperation among Labor Unions is a seminal study of such cooperation as an effective weapon against the exploitation of workers in today's world.After assessing the challenges confronting organized labor, the authors turn their attention to specifics. They describe and evaluate the most important transnational labor associations, campaigns, and transnational cooperatives in a variety of industries. Contributors include academics who have assessed the status of union-management relations and international labor organizations as well as participants in union campaigns organized across national boundaries.

A study of the impact of the Sullivan Code in South Africa, the Rugmark social labeling effort in the Indian handwoven carpet industry, and the COVERCO monitoring of the Guatemalan apparel industry.

This volume offers a systematic overview of the different tools through which the human rights accountability of transnational corporations may be improved. It first examines the responsibility of States in controlling transnational corporations, emphasizing both the limits imposed by the protection of the rights of investors under investment treaties and the potential of the US Alien Tort Claims Act and other similar extra-territorial legislations. It then turns to self-regulation by transnational corporations, through the use of codes of conduct or international framework agreements. It then discusses recent attempts at the global level to improve the human rights accountability of corporations by the direct imposition on corporations of obligations under international law. Finally, it considers the use of public procurement policies or of conditionalities in the lending policies of multilateral lending institutions in order to incentivize TNCs to behave ethically. Altogether, the book offers a rigorous legal analysis of these different developments and critically appraises their potential.