Building worker power in supply chains - a North-South comparative analysis

• In Event: 30282 - Transnational Solidarities for Racial Justice

Abstract

As capital has globalized through opaque supply chains and as the territorially bound nation-state has neo- liberalized to facilitate flexible forms of capital accumulation, how can labor build institutional power that checks against unrestricted corporate power? My research focuses on instances across the global North and South, where workers from marginalized communities and their organizations, allying with civil society organizations, and drawing on transnational repertoires of contestation, have won unprecedented legal agreements to hold the ultimate profiteers at the top of the supply chain legally accountable. This paper examines the transnational dimensions of these agreements - collectively referred to as Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) programs - through a comparative analysis of the movements and conditions that led to the emergence and institutionalization of the Fair Food Program (FFP) in Immokalee, Florida, and the Dindigul Agreement in Tamil Nadu, India. While both agreements emerged as landmark victories for marginalized workers in global supply chains – the immigrant undocumented agricultural workers in the tomato fields of Immokalee and the Dalit and migrant women textile workers in Tamil Nadu, they also reveal distinct articulations of transnational solidarity, mediated by class and socio-political difference. Through an analysis of how WSR frameworks were constituted in these contexts, this study explores the possibilities and challenges of cross-border solidarity in supply chain struggles. How do class, race, caste, and gender dynamics shape the pathways through which WSR agreements gain legitimacy and institutional power? What geo-political, economic, and social constraints mediate the effectiveness of transnational labor solidarity? And how do these campaigns navigate the tensions between local worker and community organizing and the institutionalization of legal mechanisms at the level of the supply chain?

Author

• Aabid Firdausi, Johns Hopkins University