Child labour and supply chain : profitability or (mis)management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a realistic assessment, with an historical perspective, of the current practises and progress made by organisations towards elimination of child labour in global supply chains.

Design/methodology/approach – Literature review in the area of use of child labour within the global supply chain was combined with additional information obtained from the company searches of the GRI database, company ranking tables, and other sources.

Findings – Child labour is one of a number of areas of concern in global supply chains. Continued exploitation of child labour indicates an imbalanced state and consequently forces can be unleashed through standardization, collaboration and communication amongst all stakeholders to ensure protection of the vulnerable. This paper is part of the broader analysis informing incremental changes to supply chain management to preserve the rights and welfare of children in the present and future generations. Research/limitations/implications – The analysis is based on secondary data sources and further research is thus needed to verify the individual weightings of the criteria used in the primary ranking of the companies.

Practical implications – The findings provide encouragement for policy and decision makers to implement incremental changes to global supply chains in order to protect the rights and welfare of children, according to the standards of Social Accountability (SA) 8000, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and other world trade stakeholders.

Originality/value – This paper questions the view that child labour incidences have diminished proportional to economic development. A swinging fulcrum with hidden traps for developed and developing nations in light of cross border transactions through supply chains has been proposed.

A preliminary evaluation of the world's largest skills enhancement program for entrepreneurs

Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) is an entrepreneurial training program created, sponsored and disseminated by the International Labour Organization. SIYB is, arguably, the world’s largest skills enhancement program for entrepreneurs. SIYB has been in operation since the early 1970s and currently operates in almost 80 countries. During the last decade, more than 100,000 entrepreneurs, thousands of trainers and hundreds of small enterprise development organizations around the world have participated in it (Samuelsen 2003). Surprisingly for an education program of this magnitude and potential global importance, there has been relatively little program evaluation performed. What evaluation has been conducted has been unsystematic, qualitative and unsatisfactory (Harper 1985).

Meanwhile, in the nation of Botswana, since the mid seventies, there has been a huge growth in programs devoted to the training of small and medium entrepreneurs. The SIYB program has formed a significant component of this entrepreneurial training effort in Botswana (ILO 1996). SIYB training was initially supported by the United Nations and later by the Botswana government. Since its introduction into Botswana in1983, the SIYB program has been evaluated only once, in 1993 (Samuelsen 2003). The methods used (subjective questionnaire administered to an unsystematic sample of past participants) fails to provide a satisfactory evaluation of the program. So, in Botswana and worldwide, the world’s largest entrepreneurial training program continues to run in the absence of any knowledge concerning its efficacy. This paper describes the various elements of the SIYB program and places it in the context of the data-rich Botswanan environment. The descriptive work is a necessary predicate to creation of a research design capable of providing the detailed, critical program evaluation that has been so conspicuously lacking throughout the history of the SIYB initiative.

Intellectual property rights in indigenous cultural heritage : basic concepts and continuing controversies

The developments at international level in the debate on what intellectual property (IP) lawyers refer to as traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) have to be seen in the context of the decolonisation movements after the Second World War. Post-war developments saw the formation of the United Nations (UN) and the emphasis on human rights in the UN Charter. With this emphasis came development programmes for indigenous peoples and the recognition of indigenous rights in the ILO Convention No. 107 of the 1957 Concerning the Protection and Intergration of Indigenous and Other Tribal and Semi-Tribal Populations in the Independant Countries. The decolonisation movements also initiated or renewed a parallel debate about the repatriation of items of cultural heritage. There was a remarkable shift in this discussion from 'cultural heritage of mankind' to cultural particularism and an emphasis on 'cultural property' ....

Trade union internationalism and political change in Myanmar

Networks of trade union activists working as part of the global union movement have played a central role in political change in Myanmar. In response to trade union advocacy, compliance with International Labour Organization (ILO) standards was made a key condition for the lifting of sanctions on Myanmar, leading the current civilian government to pass revised labour laws allowing the formation of independent trade unions. Union activists have taken advantage of this new freedom, with a rapid growth in registration of local union organizations since 2011. Based on recent fieldwork in Myanmar, including interviews with union leaders and ILO officials, this paper presents an empirical analysis of political relationships formed by local and international union organizations in the context of multi-level political change. In this case study of translating international norms into domestic political change, local and international trade union networks are shown to have a significant impact on achieving compliance with international labour standards.