The Evolution of a Global Labor Governance Regime

TLDR

Global labor governance has shifted over the past decade, with businesses, governments, and new actors creating international norms and voluntary initiatives that increasingly converge on shared labor standards. The article examines how self‑regulatory standards have evolved within the global labor governance debate. The authors argue that despite weak global legal frameworks, local self‑regulation, norm‑setting, and international codes create higher expectations for transnational firms and an indirect regulatory pattern. They find that the ILO’s core labor standards and the UN Global Compact act as convergence points for global labor governance.

Abstract

During the last decade, the approach by businesses and governments toward labor and social issues at the global level has fundamentally changed. Industrial relations are rapidly internationalizing by developing new actors and forms of governance to deal with the regulation of labor. This article looks at the evolution of self‐regulatory standards in the global labor governance debate. Key is that notwithstanding problems with the lacking legal framework of global regulation and enforceability, patterns of local self‐regulation, norm‐setting, and international codes lead not only to higher expectations of the behavior of transnationally operating firms but also to an indirect pattern of regulation. The article argues that particularly the adoption of the core labor standards by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the setup of the Global Compact by the UN serve as points of convergence. A plethora of voluntarist initiatives that converge over time toward a shared understanding of labor standards is part of the transformation of global labor governance institutions.