424 - Thematic Session. Corporate Social Responsibility: Are Businesses Capable of Self-Regulation?

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

By the second decade of the 21st century the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) had been embraced as a standard business practice by every major corporation. Today, 86 percent of Fortune Global 200 corporations have codes of conduct, and two-thirds report having updated their codes within the past three years. Firms routinely monitor their contract factories around the globe in an effort to uncover health, safety, and wage-and-hour violations, then report that such violations have been corrected. These efforts have provided excellent pubic relations for firms, but have they proven effective? During the past five years, thousands of workers have perished in factory fires and building collapses in factories in South Asia - factories that had been inspected and found to be compliant with CSR mandates. In this panel labor activists and academics examine the limitations of the corporate approach to self-regulation, and offer a way forward.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Richard P. Appelbaum, Univ of California-Santa Barbara

Presider

• Richard P. Appelbaum, Univ of California-Santa Barbara

Panelists

• Scott P. Novak

• Robert J.S. Ross, Clark University

• Jeff Hermanson, Workers United-SEIU

• Richard P. Appelbaum, Univ of California-Santa Barbara