Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy

In Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy, Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein argue that industrial accidents, 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.

Richard P. Appelbaum is Research Professor and MacArthur Foundation Chair in the Departments of Sociology and Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The author or editor of many books, he is coeditor most recently of Can Emerging Technologies Make a Difference in Development? Nelson Lichtenstein is MacArthur Foundation Chair in History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. He is the author or editor of many books, including most recently State of the Union: A Century of American Labor.

Fourteen papers analyze the system of world capitalism under which the majority of workers labor, explaining how corporate social responsibility (CSR) has failed to achieve its professed objectives, different approaches to the governance of global suply chains, the prospects for workers' rights in China, and the way forward for labor rights.

Matthew Fischer-Daly:

Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy seeks to understand why sweatshops continue in the apparel industry despite the 20-year-long investment in private regulation (monitoring corporate codes of conduct) by major brands and retailers.... In sum, Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy is an important book that is particularly useful as a textbook for students learning about the barriers to effective improvements in labor standards, as well as for useful pathways to explore for the future. In addition, practitioners will gain from the discussion of potential avenues forward.

Edna M. Bonacich, University of California, Riverside:

This clear-headed analysis of efforts to achieve workers' rights is based on solid research and is particularly welcome because it offers a reasonable way forward. The multiple perspectives yield a rich analysis and realistic suggestions for solutions. Workers in the global supply chains that feed prosperous economies suffer unforgivably precarious working conditions, and I applaud the editors of this fine volume for moving quickly after the Rana Plaza tragedy to mobilize and make a difference.

Gay Seidman, University of Wisconsin–Madison:

Reflecting the impact of Bangladesh's 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, this volume may be the most significant contribution to transnational labor studies in a decade., The authors, widely respected as researchers and activists, offer critical perspectives on contemporary efforts to protect the world’s workers, in the context of an integrated global economy and stark inequalities. Drawing on the authors’ profound engagement in recent campaigns, the essays summarize current debates, problematize old assumptions, and propose new strategies, Achieving Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy is a must-read for labor advocates and policymakers: its insights and arguments will be central to activist debates and policy initiatives for the next decade and beyond.