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35 Comp. Lab. L. & Pol'y J. 1 (2013-2014)
Toward Joint Liability in Global Supply Chains: Addressing the Root Causes of Labor Violations in International Subcontracting Networks

handle is hein.journals/cllpj35 and id is 13 raw text is: TOWARD JOINT LIABILITY IN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS: ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF LABOR VIOLATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL SUBCONTRACTING NETWORKS Mark Annert Jennifer Bair,tt and Jeremy Blasiftt I. INTRODUCTION On the morning of April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story building in Bangladesh that housed five garment factories, collapsed, killing at least 1,129 workers.' The collapse was the most deadly disaster in the history of the global garment industry and, indeed, one of the worst industrial workplace disasters in history.2 Media coverage of the factory collapse and its aftermath fueled a long- standing campaign by a coalition of unions and NGOs to address what had become, well before this latest tragedy, a crisis in building and fire safety in Bangladesh. Under intense pressure, within a month of the Rana Plaza collapse, more than three dozen of the world's largest apparel brands and retailers, including H&M, Inditex (owner of the Zara brand), Tesco, and t Associate Professor of Labor Studies and Political Science, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University. tt Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder. ttt Law Clerk to the Hon. Judge Dean D. Pregerson, United States District Court for the Central District of California; Former Director of Investigations, Worker Rights Consortium. The authors would like to thank the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University for granting us access to the I.L.G.W.U archives; Ethan Erickson for his outstanding research assistance; and Professors Marty Wells and Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations for facilitating our research. The authors also wish to thank Tim Bartley, Gary Blasi, Peter Evans, Jeff Hermanson, Nina Pillard, Andrew Schrank, Jodi Short, David Weil, and the participants of the IBS Institutions working group at the University of Colorado at Boulder for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this Article. Author names are listed in alphabetical order. 1. See, e.g., Julfikar Ali Manik & Jim Yardley, Building Collapse in Bangladesh Leaves Scores Dead, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 25, 2013, at Al; Jim Yardley, Grim Task of Identifying Factories' Dead Overwhelms Bangladeshi Lab, N.Y. TIMES, May 31, 2013, at Al. 2. Ali & Yarkley, supra note 1; Yardley, supra note 1. 3. For example, just several months before, on November 24, 2012, in a fire eerily reminiscent of the one at New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist factory in March 1911, 112 workers lost their lives at the Tazreen garment factory, which produced for Wal-Mart among other brands. See, e.g., Vikas Bajaj, Fatal Fire in Bangladesh Highlights the Dangers Facing Garment Workers, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 26, 2012, at A6. Even prior to the Rana Plaza collapse, the death toll of garment workers killed in the workplace since 2006 exceeded 500. Id 1

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