Tag Archives for forced labour
What do tea and cocoa have in common? Both products are widely consumed by households around the world; the early world market for both industries was intertwined with the history of colonialism; and in today’s global economy, both products are made with forced labour. Over the past two years, I’ve led The Global Business of Forced Labour research project, funded by the … Continue reading →
27 September 2018 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, The Global Business of Forced Labour
|
Leave a comment
Could a clever campaign make support for unions an integral part of corporate social responsibility? It has always surprised me how rarely trade unions are raised in the conversation on forced labour. Their fundamental purpose is to secure better conditions for workers, in part by using collective action to identify and rectify the structural and systemic problems occurring within their … Continue reading →
27 July 2018 by Emily Kenway
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: CSR, Emily Kenway, forced labour, Trade Unions
|
Leave a comment
Forced labour is prevalent in the tea and cocoa industries and is happening in the context of widespread labour abuse In my remarks at an ETI Ethical Insights discussion on what drives modern slavery in global supply chains, I outlined findings from my Global Business of Forced Labour project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The project systematically mapped the business … Continue reading →
25 June 2018 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: Ethical Trade Initiative, forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, The Global Business of Forced Labour
|
Leave a comment
‘Confronting Root Causes: Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains’, a new report that call for innovative approaches to tackle forced labour in global supply chains is published today. The first chapter of the report is republished here. It is by now widely recognised that effectively tackling forced labour in the global economy means addressing its ‘root causes’. Policymakers, business leaders … Continue reading →
10 January 2018 by Genevieve LeBaron, Neil Howard, Cameron Thibos and Penelope Kyritsis
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, supply chains
|
Leave a comment
A major new report published today proposes new policy interventions to tackle previously unaddressed root causes of exploitative work conditions. ‘Confronting Root Causes: Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains’, is published by researchers from Beyond Trafficking and Slavery, an organisation that studies labour exploitation, in partnership with SPERI. Dr Genevieve LeBaron, leader of SPERI’s Labour and Work in the Global Political … Continue reading →
10 January 2018 by SPERI
Categories: Uncategorized
|
Tags: forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, Neil Howard, openDemocracy, supply chains
|
Leave a comment
UK-based companies are ramping up efforts to combat slavery in their overseas supply chains. But companies also need to be working harder to address the severe labour exploitation taking place at home. The passage of the UK 2015 Modern Slavery Act has prompted companies to be more open about their efforts to combat forced labour in global supply chains. To … Continue reading →
14 September 2017 by Genevieve Le Baron & Andrew Crane
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: forced labour, Global Value Chains, Modern Slavery, regulation, supply chains, UK Modern Slavery Act
|
Leave a comment
New transparency regulations in some places theoretically require companies to report on forced labour in their supply chains, but a new review finds that’s not what’s happening The challenge of governing labour standards globally has never been greater. Incidents such as Apple’s detection of ‘bonded servitude’ at its major subsidiary factories in China; the discovery of slave labour in the Thai prawn industry, … Continue reading →
23 November 2016 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: SPERI Comment
|
Tags: accountability, Apple, Bengladesh, exploitation, forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, Next factory, regulations, standards, supply chains, transparency, UK Modern Slavery Act
|
Leave a comment
Reorienting value generated within ‘global poverty chains’ is essential to improve the lives of an impoverished world labour force Contemporary global capitalism is characterised by extreme wealth concentration and a rapidly expanding and largely impoverished global labour force. Mainstream institutions such as the World Bank and International Labour Organisation encourage integration into global value chains as a development strategy that, … Continue reading →
12 July 2016 by Benjamin Selwyn
Categories: Development, Economics, Global crisis, Inequality, Rethinking Recovery, SPERI Comment, trade
|
Tags: Benjamin Selwyn, capitalism, Corporations, democratic capitalism, forced labour, global poverty chains, Labour, PPP, purchasing power parity, World Bank
|
Leave a comment
Academics and labour market experts from across the UK met in Sheffield on May 26-27, 2016 for a workshop hosted by SPERI and WOERRC (Work Organisation and Employment Relations Research Centre) and funded by the ESRC. The papers presented uncovered the impacts of the austerity-based recovery model on the domestic labour market, as well as on labour conditions in global supply … Continue reading →
31 May 2016 by SPERI
Categories: Events
|
Tags: ESRC, forced labour, WOERRC, workshop
|
Leave a comment
WOERRC SPERI Workshop at the University of Sheffield, May 26-27, 2016 Since the economic crisis of 2008-2009, labour unfreedom has intensified at the bottom end of the labour market. Working conditions, remuneration, and collective bargaining rights have stagnated or declined for large-swathes of the low-waged workforce. At the same time, evidence from several sectors suggests that the practices commonly … Continue reading →
10 March 2016 by SPERI
Categories: Events
|
Tags: call for papers, forced labour, Global Value Chains, Labor Process Theory, Labour market
|
Leave a comment
Last night, Professor Nicola Phillips, SPERI Associate Fellow and Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics, delivered her inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Sheffield. In a wide-ranging and powerfully argued lecture, which was entitled ‘Forced Labour and Human Trafficking in the Global Economy’, Nicola set out and explained the complex array of interlocking symmetries of market … Continue reading →
10 December 2015 by SPERI
Categories: News
|
Tags: forced labour, Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Nicola Phillips
|
Leave a comment
The first of two symposia on forced labour took place in the Sheffield Town Hall on Thursday 8th October and Friday 9th October. Organised by SPERI Research Fellow, Genevieve LeBaron, as part of her British Academy Rising Star award, the symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of international expert scholars who focused on one pressing issue: the lack of reliable … Continue reading →
12 October 2015 by SPERI
Categories: News
|
Tags: British Academy, forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron
|
Leave a comment
Fighting slavery, flaming labour exploitation? Growing wealth and power inequalities between classes, and between business and workers, is fuelling labour exploitation. And the UK’s Modern Slavery Bill – set to become law in March 2015 – will do little to stop it. Forced labour is not an isolated issue separable from labour exploitation more generally. Both are driven by inequality … Continue reading →
5 March 2015 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: Economics, Inequality, Politics and policy, SPERI Comment, trade
|
Tags: 2014 Modern Slavery Bill, exploitation, forced labour, profits, slavery
|
1 comment
We now know that our shopping carts are full of forced labour. So why are governments and industry doing so little to stop it? In June 2014, The Guardian ran a headline news story revealing the widespread use of conditions it described as modern slavery, human trafficking, and forced labour by employers in the Thai prawn industry. It traced the … Continue reading →
7 October 2014 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: Development, Economics, Human rights, Inequality, Politics and policy, SPERI Comment
|
Tags: forced labour, human trafficking, slavery, Social Corporate Responsability
|
Leave a comment
We are pleased to announce an upcoming seminar to take place here in Sheffield entitled ‘Forced Labour, Trafficking, and Slavery: The Political Economy of Exploitation and Protection in the 21st Century’. The seminar is jointly hosted by SPERI, The University of Sheffield Department of Politics and Faculty of Social Sciences Migration Research Group, and the British International Studies Association International … Continue reading →
28 March 2014 by Sarah Boswell
Categories: Events
|
Tags: BISA, Dr. Neil Howard (European University Institute), forced labour, Genevieve Le Baron, IPEG, migration, modern slavery bill, Mr. Jean-Marie Kagabo (International Labour Organization), Professor Julia O’Connell Davidson (University of Nottingham), Professor Nicola Phillips (University of Sheffield), slavery, tony payne
|
Leave a comment
At 1pm today, Genevieve Le Baron will take place in a live Guardian web chat on ‘how to tackle slavery in supply chains’ with Beate Andrees (Head of the Special Action Programme to combat forced labour, International Labour Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland), Dan Viederman (Chief Executive, Verité, Amherst, US), Andrew Wallis (Chief Executive, Unseen, Bristol, UK), Neill Wilkins (Migration Programme Manager, … Continue reading →
5 December 2013 by Sarah Boswell
Categories: Media
|
Tags: Amherst, and human trafficking, Andrew Wallis (Chief Executive, Anti-Slavery International, Beate Andrees (Head of the Special Action Programme to combat forced labour, Bristol, Chichester, Dan Viederman (Chief Executive, forced labour, Geneva, Genevieve Le Baron, International Labour Organisation, London, Neill Wilkins (Migration Programme Manager, Rachel Phillips Rigby (office of child labour, slavery, supply chains, Switzerland), the Guardian, The Institute of Human Rights and Business, U.S. Department of Labour, UK, Unseen, US, USA) and Aidan McQuade (Director, Verité, Washington D.C.
|
Leave a comment
A report by Genevieve Le Baron was published this week (on Monday 18th November) on the business of forced labour in the UK’s food, construction and cannabis industries by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The paper entitled Forced Labour’s Business Models & Supply Chains was launched yesterday at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation office in London, and has generated a wealth of publicity already. Genevieve … Continue reading →
20 November 2013 by Sarah Boswell
Categories: Media, Publications, Research Fellows
|
Tags: Aiden McQuade, Andrew Crane, Anti-Slavery International, David Arkless, forced labour, Forced Labour's Business Models & Supply Chains, Genevieve Le Baron, Jean Allain, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, JRF, slavery, supply chains
|
Leave a comment
The Endemic Problem of Forced Labour in Global Tea and Cocoa Supply Chains
What do tea and cocoa have in common? Both products are widely consumed by households around the world; the early world market for both industries was intertwined with the history of colonialism; and in today’s global economy, both products are made with forced labour. Over the past two years, I’ve led The Global Business of Forced Labour research project, funded by the … Continue reading →
27 September 2018 by Genevieve LeBaron
Categories: SPERI Comment | Tags: forced labour, Genevieve LeBaron, The Global Business of Forced Labour | Leave a comment