Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling the Myth That We Can't Afford Good Working Conditions for

257 Pages·2009·3.05 MB·English

R aising the g lobal FlooR

R a i s i n g t h e g lo b a l Flo o R
Dismantling the Myth that We Can’t Afford
Good Working Conditions for Everyone
Jody heymann and alison earle
stanFoRD PolitiCs anD PoliCY
an imprint of stanford University Press
stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2010 by Jody Heymann and Alison Earle. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heymann, Jody, 1959-
Raising the global floor : dismantling the myth that we can’t afford good working
conditions for everyone / Jody Heymann and Alison Earle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8047-6890-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Employee rights. 2. Labor policy. 3. Labor laws and legislation. 4. Labor
economics. I. Earle, Alison. II. Title.
HD6971.8.H49 2010
331.2--dc22 2009029789
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion
to Margaret Mead, for reminding us all of the potential of small
groups of people to begin to change the world in ways that matter
to our research team, for living this belief and
to you, for carrying the ball the next yard
the natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that
persons are born into society at some particular position. these are
simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions
deal with these facts.
John Rawls (1921–2002)
Contents
Preface ix
1 the struggle below the surface:
Declining Working Conditions 1
PaRt i: eXaMining the Contentions FeeDing inaCtion
2 the argument that humane Working Conditions
lead to higher Unemployment 23
3 the Contention that Countries Can’t Compete
if they Protect Working adults 46
4 the Myth that labor laws Do not Make a Difference 70
PaRt ii: ReQUiReMents FoR Change
5 achieving global Consensus 89
6 addressing Where the World lags behind 121
7 Moving from evidence to action:
Raising the Floor of Working Conditions and equity 147
viii Contents
appendix 163
acknowledgments 171
notes 177
index 227
Preface
Making Fundamental Rights Count
While the twentieth century was marred by some of history’s worst violence—
repeated genocides underscoring one group’s ability to utterly dehumanize
another—and by neglect that led to millions of preventable deaths each year,
it was also a century in which people from every nation, religion, and ethnic
group around the world came together for the first time to recognize com-
mon human rights. Hopes turned into promises. These collective aspirations
were embodied in global agreements through the United Nations and other
international organizations, but those same bodies had little direct control
over translating the dreams of basic rights into daily realities. The respon-
sibility to ensure equal rights irrespective of gender, class, race, ethnicity, or
religion; to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability; and to ensure
access to health, education, and decent working conditions continues to fall
primarily on the shoulders of individual countries.
Have the promises been kept? Little information has been systematically
gathered regarding countries’ efforts to improve equity. Through human
rights organizations and other like-minded institutions, civil society has be-
gun to document and publicize violations of political and civil rights; how-
ever, far fewer efforts have been made to track progress in achieving social
and economic rights across societies. In the first decade of the twenty-first
century, there are few places to which one may turn for readily accessible,
ix