No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Sweatshop Boycotts: Can’t Live with Them, Can’t Live without Them
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 April 2024
Abstract
This article explores the moral permissibility of sweatshop boycotts. We build explicitly on Tomhave and Vopat’s (2018) framework for evaluating the moral permissibility of boycotts in general for the specific case of sweatshop labor. We argue that sweatshop boycotts are more likely to be morally justified when targeting forced labor compared to free labor and we explore the relevant moral tradeoffs associated with boycotts of free labor sweatshops. We analyze the morality of three cases of sweatshop boycotts—Indonesia in the 1990s, Bangladesh following the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, and the Uyghur region in China—and then discuss how insights from these cases might provide a model to guide activists and business ethicists in analyzing the morality of other sweatshop boycotts.
Keywords
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics
References
REFERENCES
Accord. 2020. Quarterly aggregate report on remediation progress and status of workplace programs at RMG factories covered by the Accord. https://bangladesh.wpengine.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/02/Accord_Quarterly_Aggregate_Report_January2020.pdf (accessed July 20, 2023).Google Scholar
Afsar, R. 2001. Sociological implications of female labor migration in Bangladesh. In Sobhan, R. & Khundker, N. (Eds.), Globalization and gender: Changing patterns of women’s employment in Bangladesh: 91–165. Dhaka: Centre for Policy Dialogue and University Press Limited.Google Scholar
Amin, S. 2014. Responding to Rana Plaza: A made-in-Bangladesh boycott won’t help girls. The Guardian. April 30. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/apr/30/rana-plaza-boycott-bangladesh-garment-factory.Google Scholar
Anner, M. 2018. Binding power: The sourcing squeeze, workers’ rights, and building safety in Bangladesh since Rana Plaza. Research report, Penn State Centre for Global Workers’ Rights, State Collage, PA. https://ler.la.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/11/CGWR2017ResearchReportBindingPower.pdf.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. G. 2010. Working conditions: safety and sweatshops. In Brenkert, G. & Beauchamp, T. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of business ethics : 628–53. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D. G., & Bowie, N. E. 2003. Sweatshops and respect for persons. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(2): 221–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D. G., & Bowie, N. E. 2007. Respect for workers in global supply chains: Advancing the debate over sweatshops. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1): 135–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D. G., & Hartman, L. P. 2003. Moral imagination and the future of sweatshops. Business and Society Review, 108(4): 425–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D. G., & Hartman, L. P. 2005. Beyond sweatshops: Positive deviancy and global labour practices. Business Ethics: A European Review, 14(3): 206–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D. G., & Hartman, L. P. 2006. Worker rights and low wage industrialization: How to avoid sweatshops. Human Rights Quarterly, 28(3): 676–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brant, R. 2021. Xinjiang cotton: Western clothes brands vanish as backlash grows. BBC News. March 26. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56533560.Google Scholar
Callais, J., Caskey, G., & Peng, L. 2023. Repression and international trade: An analysis of Chinese trade volume with Islamic countries. Working paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coakley, M., & Kates, M. 2013. The ethical and economic case for sweatshop regulation. Journal of Business Ethics, 117: 553–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaghey, J., & Reinecke, J. 2018. When industrial democracy meets corporate social responsibility: A comparison of the Bangladesh Accord and Alliance as responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(1): 14–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flora, L. 2022. Lacoste and Adidas pledge to cut forced Uighur labor from supply chain. Glossy. https://www.glossy.co/fashion/lacoste-and-adidas-pledge-to-cut-forced-uighur-labor-from-supply-chain/.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 2001. The ethical dilemmas associated with boycotts. Journal of Social Philosophy, 32(2): 232–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grier, K., Mahmood, T., & Powell, B. 2023. Anti-sweatshop activism and the safety-employment tradeoff: Evidence from Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza Disaster. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 208: 174–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, A., & Scorse, J. 2010. Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism. American Economic Review, 100(1): 247–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, C. Host. 2019. Uncovering China’s secret internment camps with Rian Thum. Why Is This Happening? MSNBC podcast. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/uncovering-china-s-secret-internment-camps-rian-thum-podcast-transcript-ncna998116.Google Scholar
Kates, M. 2015. The ethics of sweatshops and the limits of choice. Business Ethics Quarterly, 25(2): 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasarov, W., Hoffman, S., & Orth, U. 2023. Vanishing boycott impetus: Why and how consumer participation in a boycott decreases over time. Journal of Business Ethics, 182: 1129–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehr, A. 2020. Addressing forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Toward a shared agenda. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/addressing-forced-labor-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region-toward-shared-agenda.Google Scholar
Lim, J., & Shim, K. 2019. Corporate social responsibility beyond borders: U.S. consumer boycotts of a global company over sweatshop issues in supplier factories overseas. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(12): 1643–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmood, T., & Powell, B. 2023. No sweat? Living standards and sweatshop wages in developing countries. Free Market Institute Research Paper, forthcoming. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4449216.Google Scholar
Maizland, L. 2022. China’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights#chapter-title-0-8.Google Scholar
Makioka, R. 2021. The impact of anti-sweatshop activism on employment. Review of Development Economics, 25: 630–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markey, D. S. 2021. China’s western horizon: Beijing and the new geopolitics of Eurasia. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marquis, C. 2022. How companies are dealing with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The China Project. https://thechinaproject.com/2022/08/17/how-companies-are-dealing-with-the-uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act/.Google Scholar
Mills, C. 1996. Should we boycott boycotts? Journal of Social Philosophy, 27(3): 136–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milne, A. 2020. Brands urged to stop sourcing from China’s Xinjiang over forced labour fears. Reuters. July 23. https://www.reuters.com/article/global-garment-china-xinjiang-idUSL5N2ET3YM.Google Scholar
Murphy, D., & Matthew, D. 2001. Nike and global labour practices. Case study prepared for the New Academy of Business Innovation Network for Socially Responsible Business, Bristol.Google Scholar
Murphy, L., Salcito, K., Uluyol, Y., & Rabkin, M. 2022. Driving force: Automotive supply chains and forced labor in the Uyghur region. Sheffield, UK: Hallam University Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice.Google Scholar
Page, J., Dou, E., & Shah, S. 2018. Chinese Muslim Internment Camps Spark Protests in Islamic World. Wall Street Journal. September 27. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-detentions-of-muslims-trigger-protests-in-islamic-world-1538040605.Google Scholar
Paton, E., & Ramzy, A. 2020. Coalition Brings Pressure to End Forced Uighur Labor. New York Times. July 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/fashion/uighur-forced-labor-cotton-fashion.htmlGoogle Scholar
Peng, L., & Callais, J. T. 2023. The authoritarian trade‐off: A synthetic control analysis of development and social coercion in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Contemporary Economic Policy, 41(2): 370–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, B. 2006. In reply to sweatshop sophistries. Human Rights Quarterly, 28(4): 1031–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, B. 2014. Out of poverty: Sweatshops in the global economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, B. 2018. Sweatshop regulation: Tradeoffs and welfare judgments. Journal of Business Ethics, 151(1): 29–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, B., & Zwolinski, M. 2012. The ethical and economic case for sweatshop labor: A critical assessment. Journal of Business Ethics, 107(4): 449–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preiss, J. 2014. Global labor justice and the limits of economic analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly, 24(1): 55–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preiss, J. 2019. Autonomy, and harm in global supply chains. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(4): 881–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radzik, L. 2017. Boycotts and the social enforcement of justice. Social Philosophy and Policy, 34(1): 102–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Regencia, T. 2019. Muslims urged to boycott Chinese products over Uighur “abuses.” Al Jazeera. December 20. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/20/muslims-urged-to-boycott-chinese-products-over-uighur-abuses.Google Scholar
Reinecke, J., & Donaghey, J. 2015. After Rana Plaza: Building coalitional power for labour rights between unions and (consumption-based) social movement organizations. Organization, 22(5): 720–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrik, D. 2021. A primer on trade and inequality. Working paper 29507, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. https://www.nber.org/papers/w29507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, C., Russell, D., & Honea, H. 2016. Corporate social responsibility failures: How do consumers respond to corporate violations of implied social contracts? Journal of Business Ethics, 136(4): 759–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, S., Gürhan‐Canli, Z., & Morwitz, V. 2001. Withholding consumption: A social dilemma perspective on consumer boycotts. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(3) 399–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silvers, R. 2022. Strategy to prevent the importation of goods mined, produced, or manufactured with forced labor in the People’s Republic of China. Report to congress, US Department of Homeland Security. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-06/22_0617_fletf_uflpa-strategy.pdf.Google Scholar
Sollars, G., & Englander, F. 2018. Economic analysis and exploitation as unfairness. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(1): 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoll, M. 2009. Boycott basics: Moral guidelines for corporate decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 84(1): 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swanson, A., Edmondson, C., & Wong, E. 2021. U.S. Effort to combat forced labor targets corporate China ties. New York Times. December 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/us/politics/china-uyghurs-forced-labor.html.Google Scholar
Tomhave, A., & Vopat, M. 2018. The business of boycotting: Having your chicken and eating it too. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(1): 123–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trebilcock, A. 2020. The Rana Plaza disaster seven years on: Transnational experiments and perhaps a new treaty? International Labour Review, 159(4): 545–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wintour, P. 2021. US and Canada follow EU and UK in sanctioning Chinese officials over Xinjiang. The Guardian. March 22. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/22/china-responds-to-eu-uk-sanctions-over-uighurs-human-rights.Google Scholar
Xu, V. X., Cave, D., Leibold, J., Munro, K., & Ruser, N. 2020. Uyghurs for sale: Re-education forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang. Australian Strategic Policy Institute. https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale.Google Scholar
Zenz, A. 2018. ‘Thoroughly reforming them towards a healthy heart attitude’: China’s political re-education campaign in Xinjiang. Central Asian Survey, 38(1): 102–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zenz, A. 2020. Coercive labor in Xinjiang: Labor transfer and the mobilization of ethnic minorities to pick cotton. New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. https://newlinesinstitute.org/rules-based-international-order/genocide/coercive-labor-in-xinjiang-labor-transfer-and-the-mobilization-of-ethnic-minorities-to-pick-cotton/.Google Scholar
Zwolinski, M. 2007. Sweatshops, choice, and exploitation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17: 689–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar