Global companies and the private regulation of global labor standards

This chapter analyzes what contribution the private regulation of global labor standards makes to the global governance of labor standards. It discusses the role that global companies play in creating, applying, governing, or resisting this private standard-setting effort, and the major indicators of its effectiveness: the institutional design of standards; the business demand; and the impact of standard-setting efforts at farm and factory sites. The chapter argues that private regulation offers mixed results in terms of protecting or advancing worker rights. Although the effectiveness of private regulation varies slightly across sectors, the economic conditions of production, the national-institutional features discouraging worker organization, and the uneven and often half-hearted engagement of global industry players with private regulation offer a too unfavorable opportunity structure for private regulatory organizations to deliver results.