Global Collective agreements as a tool to improve labour rights in globalized production.

The globalization of consumer market has brought about a globalisation of the labour markets to an extent previously
unseen. Increased consumer – and indeed management – awareness of issues like employment conditions, minimum
wages and child labour is currently heavily influencing production behavior in numerous sectors, most prominently
textile and garment industry. The responses to these emerging perspectives can be related to both improved working
conditions and deepend scrutiny in relation to sub-contractors, but also to more direct actions or significant legal
interest, such as the concluding of global collective agreements, most recently the Swedish global clothing company
H&M, with the aim to secure the application of at least a minimum of labour standards, with application also in
contractor – subcontractor relations. The need to address labour and industrial relations on a supra-national level are
more and more obvious and also, at least from time to time, subject to major consumer influences. The current
project investigates this recent development and discusses the contractual aspects of such global contractual
arrangements (collective agreements), as well as their eventual, or possible, impact on the promotion of fundamental
labour rights in countries with poor or under developed industrial relations structures. Secondly, the project
emphasizes this development in the garment industry in Southeast Asia. The garment industry is extraordinarily
subtle to consumer perspectives, at least when it comes to western consumers, and the shortage of adequate local
industrial partners and legal “infrastructure” in production countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh and Vietnam makes
the garment industry there particularly interesting for this study.

The globalization of consumer market has brought about a globalisation of the labour markets to an extent previously
unseen. Increased consumer – and indeed management – awareness of issues like employment conditions, minimum
wages and child labour is currently heavily influencing production behavior in numerous sectors, most prominently
textile and garment industry. The responses to these emerging perspectives can be related to both improved working
conditions and deepend scrutiny in relation to sub-contractors, but also to more direct actions or significant legal
interest, such as the concluding of global collective agreements, most recently the Swedish global clothing company
H&M, with the aim to secure the application of at least a minimum of labour standards, with application also in
contractor – subcontractor relations. The need to address labour and industrial relations on a supra-national level are
more and more obvious and also, at least from time to time, subject to major consumer influences. The current
project investigates this recent development and discusses the contractual aspects of such global contractual
arrangements (collective agreements), as well as their eventual, or possible, impact on the promotion of fundamental
labour rights in countries with poor or under developed industrial relations structures. Secondly, the project
emphasizes this development in the garment industry in Southeast Asia. The garment industry is extraordinarily
subtle to consumer perspectives, at least when it comes to western consumers, and the shortage of adequate local
industrial partners and legal “infrastructure” in production countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh and Vietnam makes
the garment industry there particularly interesting for this study.