Are Worker Rights Human Rights?
(University of Michigan Press, 2008) Abstract: The controversy over labor standards is one of the central controversies in the globalization debate. This book draws on the Institutional and Marxist traditions to present an economic analysis of labor standards that takes both moral questions and class relations and interests seriously. It argues that a prime tendency in the contemporary world economy is the lengthening of commodity chains through which the employer washes his hands of moral responsibility. This is true in globalized production networks and in temporary and subcontracted work in the United States. Although popular organizations assert the rights of workers against such practices, supporters of such slogans as “worker rights are human rights” often fail to distinguish between individual and collective rights and the the effect of class interest on the definition of rights. The author examines the practices of the International Labor Organization (ILO), interaction between
