The failure of U.S. labor law to protect America’s workers from pervasive unionbusting is well-documented. Yet little attention has been paid to the practice of foreign companies operating in cooperation with their employees in their home countries, where labor laws are stronger, while failing to respect the rights of their workers in the United States. The same company, under two different systems of law, results in two very different situations for workers.

This report exposes a systematic campaign to prevent employees from forming a union by T-Mobile USA and its parent company, German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom (DT), presenting overwhelming evidence that DT is guilty of operating by a double standard: The company respects workers’ rights in Germany, where it cooperates closely with unions, but mistreats workers in the United States and interferes with their right to organize.

» Statement by U.S. Rep. George Miller

This report documents Tesco Fresh & Easy's "poor labor practices" in the United States. It was written in response to complaints from Fresh and Easy workers and information and testimony obtained by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).

» UNI press release

This paper examines ways that labor educators have modified global value chains to teach workers about their industries, and uses two case studies to illustrate the application that global value chains have to comprehensive organizing campaigns. The paper argues that labor organizers should go one step further by using global value chains to conceptualize global plans to stabilize employment for workers after the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, and to raise wages in this context.

Chapter examines three campaigns involving women workers organizing across borders. The author analyzes why the workers decided to engage in cross border organizing, what benefits they gained from this, and what role their supporters played. The author then compares the three organizing strategies to note key differences among them and draw observations about gender issues in organizing, and finally discusses implications for future labor organizing.

This article discusses the impact of globalization on workers in the garment industry, and shows that the international mobility of capital threatens the jobs of workers in Thailand and other low-wage countries in the South as much as it does the United States. Quan finds that international labor solidarity is difficult to sustain, especially without a widespread understanding based upon a class analysis – an approach necessary to overcome divisions across national boundaries. She traces the history of the AFL-CIO’s attitudes toward immigrants and foreign workers and reports that the new policies under the leadership of John Sweeney provide an important opening for more class-based organizing.

With the end of the Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA), we can expect a dramatic acceleration of the practice of US apparel industry outsourcing. The article argues that, though there are big problems with Chinese unions, it is time to undertake more serious engagement with Chinese unions, especially the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU, China's official union). Unions must unite workers across borders in order to regain the leverage that was lost when corporations outsourced.

In 2002, Sweatshop Watch – the antisweatshop coalition known for garment worker organizing and policy advocacy – shifted its attention to global organizing, reflecting a new understanding of the integral relationship between domestic organizing and global organizing. This paper analyzes the strategic choices that Sweatshop Watch faced, discussing the nature of labor-management conflict in the apparel industry and showing that different economic conditions have called for different strategies to attain worker power.

As the gradual phase-out of China’s apparel export quotas under the Multi-Fiber Arrangement brings a shift in international garment production to China, this article argues that ambivalence on the part of advocates of corporate social responsibility over applying international codes of conduct to China must come to an end. Labor abuses in China affect not only domestic workers, but also workers in Chinese immigrant communities abroad. This article briefly introduces the historical origins of the movement for corporate social responsibility in the apparel industry, and argues that the perceived obstacles to the implementation of CSR in China are not as great as they might seem.

In 1996, the Canadian Labour Congress adopted a resolution that called for youth to become a central outreach and organizing priority for all union affiliates. This article explores what led up to the CLC resolution, what has happened in the years since, and what lessons the Canadian labor movement’s youth project has for the labor movement here in the United States.

The FTAA would extend NAFTA to the entire Western Hemisphere, including 31 more countries and another 400 million people. Trade Secrets explains the impacts of the FTAA and NAFTA in clear, concise language.

Brief commentary on the unique 1996 collective bargaining agreement between United Airlines and its flight attendants' union, in which a single set of terms applied to a global workforce of more than 24,000 flight attendants from 40 different countries. The author considers the consequences for United employees, and implications for other unions with the potential to organize on the international scale.