Improving Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Codes of Conduct, Monitoring, and Beyond

Date:  November 6, 2009 Time:  9:15 AM - 3:30 PM Location:  Capital Conference Room, 5120AB Grainger Hall, 975 University Avenue Sponsor:  A public workshop sponsored by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the UW-Madison Labor Licensing Policy Committee Cost:  Registration Requested, Free

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Please see the schedule below for links to videos of conference presentations.

Overview:
Over the past decade, efforts to improve labor standards in global supply chains have focused on encouraging retailers and manufacturing firms to adopt private voluntary codes of conduct monitored by professional auditors and NGOs. These codes are widely considered to have had a beneficial but limited impact in achieving the desired objectives of improving wages, working conditions, and rights of association for the workers concerned.  UW-Madison has been in the forefront of this movement through its participation in the Collegiate Licensing Consortium (CLC) and the Workers’ Rights Consortium.

This one-day workshop, open to the campus community and the general public, will bring together leading academic researchers and policy practitioners to review current approaches to improving labor standards in global supply chains, with particular reference to collegiate licensed apparel.  The workshop’s goals are to enrich public understanding of these issues and to lay the groundwork for an informed debate about alternative approaches to supply chain governance and collegiate labor licensing policy. 

Key questions to be explored in the workshop include:

•      What kinds of experiments and innovations are now underway in the worlds of private voluntary codes and audits, national-level regulation, and global rule making?

•      What are the results of these different initiatives for wages, working conditions, and rights of association, as well as for more conventional measures of firm performance?

•      Are there alternative ways of regulating labor standards in global supply chains that might plausibly achieve greater success than current efforts?

Schedule:

9:15-9:30          Welcome and Introduction (VIDEO Link)

       Jonathan Zeitlin (Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy 
       (WAGE))
       Dawn Crim (UW-Madison Chancellor’s Office and Labor Licensing          
       Policy Committee)

9:30-11:30     Improving Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains:  
                         Academic Research Perspectives
                         (VIDEO link)

      Margaret Levi (Universities of Washington and Sydney)
      Richard Locke (Sloan School of Management, MIT)
      Moderator: Jonathan Zeitlin (WAGE)

11:30-12:00    Informal lunch for speakers and registered participants

12:00-2:00      Improving Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains:
                          Activist and Practitioner Perspectives 
                          (VIDEO link)

    Scott Nova (Workers’ Rights Consortium)
    Jorge Perez-Lopez (Fair Labor Association)
    Bonnie Nixon (Global Social Compliance Program)
    Moderator: Jane Collins (UW-Madison)

2:00-2:15      Coffee Break

2:15-3:30      Roundtable: Where Do We Go From Here? Ways Forward 
                        for Research, Policy, and Practice 
                       (VIDEO link)

    Moderator: Jonathan Zeitlin (WAGE)


Speaker Biographies:

Jane Collins, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jane Collins is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Women’s Studies and Rural Sociology and Chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her teaching and research interests are in three areas: gender and work, the political economy of development, and cultural studies. She has conducted research in the U.S. and several Latin American countries (Peru, Brazil, Mexico). Most of Collins’ work lies at the intersection of political economy and cultural studies; her research on labor, for example focuses on the social and power relations that structure work, but also the experiential dimensions of the labor process and gendered cultural representations of labor’s value and skill. She has published numerous articles and books including Threads: Gender, Labor & Power in the Global Apparel Industry. 

Dawn Crim, University of Wisconsin –Madison Chancellor’s Office and Labor Licensing Policy Committee
Dawn Crim has served as the Special Assistant to the Chancellor, Director for Community Relations since 2007. As a member of the University Relations team, she supervises a staff of four while serving as the primary spokesperson for the chancellor on local governmental issues, alcohol issues and labor rights issues. Dawn has worked in various positions in the UW System for the past 13 years.

Margaret Levi, Universities of Washington and Sydney
Margaret Levi is the Jere L. Bacharach Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Washington, Seattle and, jointly, Professor of US Politics, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney. She is Director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center and formerly the Harry Bridges Chair and Director, the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.  She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the author of numerous publications.  Her current research focuses on: 1) the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law; and 2) how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest.  Concurrently, she is working on a range of issues having to do with labor unions and with global justice campaigns. Some of the work builds on the WTO History Project, which she co-directed. Levi also has served on the University of Washington’s equivalent of the UW-Madison’s Labor Licensing Committee.

Richard Locke, MIT
Richard Locke, the Alvin J. Siteman (1948) Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Political Science teaches in both the Sloan School of Management and the MIT Political Science Department. He is currently the Deputy Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Locke’s current research is focused on improving labor and environmental conditions in global supply chains. Working with leading firms like Nike, Coca Cola, and HP, Locke and his students have been showing how corporate profitability and sustainable business practices can be reconciled. Locke has published 3 books: Working in America with Paul Osterman, Thomas Kochan, and Michael Piore, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (2001), Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy with Thomas Kochan, Michael Piore, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (1995), and Remaking the Italian Economy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (1995) as well as numerous articles on economic development, labor relations, and corporate responsibility. He is currently working on a new book, Justice Beyond Compliance, based upon his labor standards in global supply chains research.

Bonnie Nixon, Global Social Compliance Program
As Director of Environmental Sustainability for Hewlett Packard, Bonnie Nixon and her green team of dedicated sustainability experts are responsible for the short and long term vision, strategy, marketing, messaging and stakeholder relations program for Hewlett Packard.  Over the last decade as Director of Ethical Sourcing at HP, Ms. Nixon has worked with top level management on environmental, health, safety and social policies and procedures and designed and implemented a world class ethical sourcing and supplier relationship management program.  She has played a strong lead in an effort of major competitors and suppliers on a common industry code of conduct and complimentary tools and processes that have helped raise the bar in the electronics industry.  As an experienced environmental mediator, she has spent more than 25 years working with business, government and non-governmental entities on environmental and social impact assessments and programs.  Her experience spans across several industries including technology, biotech, hazardous waste, financial, infrastructure and utilities, food processing and transportation.  Bonnie has her degree from Pennsylvania State University in Sociology where she began her environmental career on Three Mile Island.  She is also a Consulting Professor at Stanford and on the executive faculty for the Presidio’s Sustainability MBA. 

Scott Nova, Workers' Rights Consortium
Scott Nova is Executive Director of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a non-profit organization comprised of more than 100 colleges and universities.  The WRC's mission is to monitor the working conditions under which college-licensed products are manufactured around the world. The WRC is a collaboration of educational institutions, students and non-governmental organizations, all of whom share the common goal of promoting greater respect for the rights of workers in the global economy. Prior to joining the WRC, Nova was Executive Director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a national coalition of environmental, religious, human rights, labor and other public interest groups.  As a specialist on international trade and investment issues, Nova has been interviewed in a range of local and national broadcast forums and has written on international economic issues for the Journal of Commerce, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, the Miami Herald and many other publications. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Jorge Perez-Lopez, Fair Labor Association
Jorge Perez-Lopez is the Executive Director of the Fair Labor Association which aims to combine the efforts of industry, civil society organizations, and colleges and universities to protect workers’ rights and improve working conditions worldwide by promoting adherence to international labor standards. Prior to joining FLA, he spent 31 years in the U.S. government, where he developed extensive expertise in international economics and trade relations. For nearly two decades, Jorge directed the Office of International Economic Affairs at the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, a division of the Department of Labor’s. There, he was involved in the development, implementation and negotiation of U.S. trade policies — and directed a supporting research program in international economics. Most notably, he participated in the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), serving as the lead U.S. negotiator for the Safeguards Chapter on emergency action and coordinated the Department of Labor's overall involvement in the negotiations. Jorge has authored several books and numerous articles on international economics and trade relations. He holds a Master's and Ph.D. degree in economics from the State University of New York at Albany.

Jonathan Zeitlin, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jonathan Zeitlin is Professor of Public Affairs, Sociology, Political Science, and History; Director of the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE); and Founding Director of the European Union Center of Excellence, all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His research focuses on the comparative and historical analysis of socioeconomic governance, business organization, and employment relations. His current projects include a cross-sectoral analysis of the new architecture of experimentalist governance in the EU and a collaborative study of the globalization of manufacturing supply chains. He has published numerous books and articles, including Local Players in Global Games: The Strategic Constitution of a Multinational Corporation (Oxford University Press). He has served as an advisor and consultant to the International Labour Organization, United Nations Development Organization, Greater London Council, Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Programme, EU Social Protection Committee, German and Portuguese Presidencies of the EU, and the Platform of EU Social NGOs.


Parking:
Parking may be challenging, so if you drive please leave yourself plenty of time.

Paid parking may be available in the ramp below Grainger Hall (Lot 7). The entrance is located on Brooks Street between University Avenue and West Johnson Street. Parking may also be available under the Fluno Center for Executive Education (Lot 83). The entrance to the Fluno Center parking is located on Frances Street between University Avenue and West Johnson Street, just one block from Grainger Hall.

The nearest public parking lot is located one block away at the corner of University Avenue and Lake Street.

VIEW CAMPUS MAP

Registration:
This workshop is FREE and open to all, but we request that you register in advance by filling out the form available here or at http://wage.wisc.edu/events/signup/.  To the extent our budget and advance notice permits, we will provide box lunches to pre-registered participants.  We will definitely provide lunch for those registered by Oct. 29. You may still attend even if you did not register.

For further information, please contact WAGE at wage@intl-institute.wisc.edu. We invite you to learn more about WAGE at http://wage.wisc.edu/ and the Labor Licensing Policy Committee at http://www.news.wisc.edu/laborlicensing/.