View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Minnesota Law School University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Minnesota Law Review 2014 Labor's Soft eM ans and Hard Challenges: Fundamental Discrepancies and the Promise of Non-Binding Arbitration for International Framework Agreements César F. Rosado Marzán Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Rosado Marzán, César F., "Labor's Soft eM ans and Hard Challenges: Fundamental Discrepancies and the Promise of Non-Binding Arbitration for International Framework Agreements" (2014). Minnesota Law Review. 318. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mlr/318 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Article Labor’s Soft Means and Hard Challenges: Fundamental Discrepancies and the Promise of Non-Binding Arbitration for International Framework Agreements César F. Rosado Marzán† INTRODUCTION: THE SEARCH FOR A GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SYSTEM International framework agreements (IFAs) are agree- ments in which multinational companies and global union fed- erations (“global unions”) pledge to abide by the “core labor standards” of the International Labor Organization (ILO), to wit, freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor, effective abolition of child labor, and elim- ination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupa- tion.1 Global union federations (“global unions”) are labor or- ganizations composed of national labor organizations, normally 2 categorized by industry groups.