Tim Connor

Time to scale up cooperation? Trade unions, NGOs, and the international anti-sweatshop movement

Between 1991 and 2002 the international anti‐sweatshop movement experienced significant growth. A series of interconnecting international networks developed, involving trade unions and NGOs in campaigns to persuade particular transnational corporations (TNCs) to ensure that labour rights are respected in the production of their goods. While the loose, networked form of organisation that characterises the movement has helped it to grow and progress despite its diverse constituency, arguably a lack of coordination has undermined its ability to achieve policy change. There is a need to develop new forms of global cooperation in order to avoid fractures within the movement and the loss of impetus.

Networked Regulation as a Solution to Human Rights Abuse in Global Supply Chains? The Case of Trade Union Rights Violations by Indonesian Sports Shoe Manufacturers

This article analyses the capacity of global networks of civil society actors to supplement effectively weak state regulation in reducing human rights abuse by multi-national companies (MNCs). The effectiveness of non-government organizations as part of a network of control finds support both in the radical criminological literature as well as those explicitly advocating for a networked regulatory approach. This case study of the Indonesian sport shoe industry demonstrates that networked regulation has had a positive short- to medium-term impact on respect for trade union rights among some manufacturers producing for western MNCs. However, inconsistent approaches by the MNCs and ongoing resistance by manufacturers has made this influence difficult to sustain. Critically, the Indonesian state apparatus emerges as a powerful and primarily—but far from completely—complicit set of actors: applying criminal sanctions for trade union rights violations but failing to enforce them, and influencing networked regulation in complex, contingent ways. This case study suggests both that advocates and practitioners of networked regulation need to find more effective ways to respond to the corporate drive to maximize profit and that networked regulation’s long-term usefulness will likely depend on the extent to which it draws from and operates to strengthen progressive regulatory elements within Asian states.

Antenarrative and Transnational Labour Rights Activism: Making Sense of Complexity and Ambiguity in the Interaction between Global Social Movements and Global Corporations

Abstract This paper draws on antenarrative research and writing techniques to analyse the long-running transnational campaign seeking to improve respect for human rights in the supply chains of Nike and other major sportswear companies. The antenarrative approach challenges scholars to look beyond pre-existing expectations, both in terms of which actors and processes are likely to be most influential and in terms of what is motivating participation in those processes which are significant. In this paper we construct antenarrative accounts of two aspects of the Nike campaign and counterpoint each of our antenarratives with an established scholarly account based on more traditional narrative approaches. We conclude antenarrative analysis can provide useful insights into interaction between global activist networks and global corporations, particularly by drawing attention to the generative possibilities of the complex combination of ordered and disordered processes which often characterise that interaction.

Positioning women homeworkers in a global footwear production network: How can homeworkers improve agency, influence and claim rights?

This article analyses the position of women footwear homeworkers, using global production networks as a conceptual lens. Using qualitative data collected in India during 2011 to 2014, it illustrates the asymmetry of power between network actors and attests to the poverty, invisibility and lack of acknowledgement and representation characterising leather footwear homework. It represents leather footwear homeworkers as working from the margins of these networks, with weak links to most other actors in the networks. The paper interrogates how marginalised and informal workers might increase their agency and participation capacity in global production networks, and proposes that this can occur through support and organising undertaken by appropriate non-governmental organisations.

REDISCOVERING LAW STUDENTS AS CITIZENS Critical thinking and the public value of legal education

In a series of publications over the last decade, Australian National University Professor Margaret Thornton has documented a disturbing change in the nature of legal education. This body of work culminates in a recently published book based on interviews with 145 legal academics in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada. In it, Thornton describes a feeling of widespread unease among legal academics that society, government, university administrators and students themselves are moving away from viewing legal education as a public good which benefits both students and society. Instead, legal education is increasingly being viewed as a purely private good, for consumption by the student in the quest for individual career enhancement.

Non-judicial mechanisms in global footwear and apparel supply chains: lessons from workers in Indonesia

This case study describes how Indonesian garment and footwear workers, and allied organisations have used a combination of strategies to pursue their rights, which includes engaging with local and international non-judicial mechanisms. The case study analyses their efforts to influence the local and global forces that determine their working conditions. Major footwear brands that sell their goods globally produce the factories under study.

Positioning Women Homeworkers in a Global Footwear Production Network: Identifying Barriers and Enablers to Claiming Rights

This paper theorises the position of women footwear homeworkers through the lens of global production networks. Using data collected in India during 2011 to 2014, it illustrates the asymmetry of power between network actors, and attests to the poverty, invisibility and lack of acknowledgement and representation characterising leather footwear homework. It represents leather footwear homeworkers as working from the margins of these networks, with weak links to most other actors in the networks. Drawing from the concept of social upgrading and bringing in concepts from network regulation, the paper asks questions relating to how marginalised and informal workers might increase the power and capacity of their participation in GPNs.