Cornell University ILR School DigitalCommons@ILR Articles and Chapters ILR Collection 2001 Free Trade, Fair Trade, and the Battle for Labor Rights Lance A. Compa Cornell University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, Labor and Employment Law Commons, and the Labor Relations Commons Thank you for downloading an article from DigitalCommons@ILR. Support this valuable resource today! This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ILR Collection at DigitalCommons@ILR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@ILR. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. If you have a disability and are having trouble accessing information on this website or need materials in an alternate format, contact
[email protected] for assistance. Free Trade, Fair Trade, and the Battle for Labor Rights Abstract [Excerpt] Labor rights advocacy is the most direct challenge to the primacy of a marketplace ideology in which efficiency and ofitpr are the highest values. Labor rights advocates promote values of fairness, justice, and solidarity in global commerce. The battle to achieve enforceable hard law that protects workers' rights in the global economy is an important contribution to the labor movement's revitalization. Can a beleaguered movement take on multinational companies and the governments that appease them on these varied international grounds when there is so much still to do on organizing, collective bargaining, and domestic political action? There really is no choice. International trade policy is now a battleground for workers' rights, just as national economic policy was the focus of the great reform movements of the turn of the century and the New Deal of the 1930s.