Just Supply Chains

Led by Richard Locke and Joshua Cohen, the Just Supply Chains project explores the conditions under which a variety of public and private strategies might succeed in promoting a more just global economy.

Globalization, with its volatile mix of economic opportunity and social disruption, is reorganizing production, redefining work, and provoking fundamental changes in the institutions of economic governance. In a world of global supply chains — with links extending across cultural and political boundaries — corporations, unions, NGOs, national governments, and even international labor, trade and financial organizations are all casting about, searching for new strategic directions and/or novel institutional arrangements. But there is enormous uncertainty about their likely success — in particular, about their success in addressing three basic concerns about employment relations in the global economy: fair compensation, decent and healthy working conditions, and rights of association. These issues are considered in connection with supply chains in agriculture, apparel, electronics, and footwear.