Documents shoe industry 23 results

"Scholars often rely on static and distant images of ‘decoupling' to describe the limited influence of ‘corporate social responsibility' (CSR), among other organizational and global scripts. New insights can be gained by looking closely at how local advocates seek to leverage symbolic commitments. Leveraging can be a route to what we call ‘contingent coupling', a circumstantial shrinking of the gap between legitimating symbols and concrete conditions. Based on interview data, this article maps several modes of leveraging by examining how unions in apparel/footwear factories in Indonesia sought to use foreign brands'/retailers' CSR commitments. The modes include not only cross-border activist campaigns but also more subtle and previously overlooked forms of negotiation. Our qualitative accounts and a quantitative analysis of factories suggest that CSR has been a platform for some modest gains for Indonesian unions, but it has not allowed robust, transformative changes. This elucidation of leveraging suggests hypotheses about conditions for tighter coupling."

"State-socialist academics have been highly sceptical of worker co-operatives. Following the Webbs' classic studies, they assume that capitalist market competition renders them either inefficient or undemocratic. The experience of the British co-operative co-partnership (COCP) movement, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, suggests a more optimistic reading, with implications for future alternative forms of work organization. COCP worker co-operatives were long-lived and participative, while advancing other social goals, such as good wages and working conditions, union membership and better housing. This article introduces the theory of COCP, stressing the stakeholder model and the predominance of employee representatives. Next, I establish Leicestershire as a major regional centre for both shoemaking and COCP, linked to the wider institutions of consumer co-operation. Six co-operatives are discussed: three Leicester city societies, Equity, Anchor and Self-Help; and three village societies, Barwell Sperope, Glenfield Progress and Sileby Excelsior. The article concludes that footwear COCP was a relatively successful small-scale endeavour, not subject to the fatal contradictions predicted by the Webbs. The movement died out because the bureaucratic ‘spirit of the age' in the British co-operative and wider labour movement, turned against these initiatives from below, which therefore failed to rejuvenate."

"Im April 2014 legten mehr als 40.000 Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen des taiwanesischen Sportschuhherstellers Yue Yuen in Gaobu im südchinesischen Perlflussdelta, der Werkbank der Welt, die Produktion still. Der Streik ist Teil einer neuen Welle von industriellen Konflikten im aufstrebenden Industrieland China. Ältere Wanderarbeiter protestieren nun für eine Anerkennung ihrer Sozial- und Rentenversicherungsansprüche und zeigen die Grenzen der hyperflexiblen Billiglohnproduktion in China auf. Auf der Basis umfangreicher Feldforschung analysieren wir den Streik bei Yue Yuen. Wir zeigen, dass neben neuen Rahmenbedingungen (industrielle Transformation und wachsender Konkurrenzdruck im Perlflussdelta sowie die Antikorruptionskampagne der Kommunistischen Partei Chinas) die Abstiegsängste der älteren Beschäftigten für die Mobilisierung verantwortlich waren. Wir kommen zu dem Schluss, dass das Konfliktthema der Sozialleistungen einen nachhaltigen Einfluss auf die chinesischen Arbeitsbeziehungen haben wird, da nun der gesellschaftliche Druck zunimmt, auch die Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen in der Exportindustrie besser abzusichern."

"This article presents a macroergonomic intervention in a Brazilian footwear company and its evaluation by the workers. Using participatory ergonomics, the traditional Taylor/Ford production system was transformed into a socio-technical one and tested by 100 volunteers working during 3.5 years in a pilot production line. Multiskilling and teamwork were the major changes promoted to enlarge and enrich work and make it more flexible. The workers' evaluation pre- and post-intervention showed an increase in overall satisfaction with the work and more commitment to the results and company targets. This study showed that problems and solutions can be identified through participatory ergonomics, that it is easier to involve workers than the managerial staff, and that a macroergonomic intervention, mainly focusing on work organization, led to positive personnel, health and production outcomes, despite management's resistance to changes."

"What role can corporate codes of conduct play in monitoring compliance with international labour standards and improving working conditions in global supply chains? Addressing this question, the authors first summarize the results of research on factory audits of working conditions in 800 of Nike's suppliers in 51 countries and two intensive case studies. They then discuss how the codes fit into the broader array of institutions, policies and practices aimed at regulating and improving working conditions, suggesting an evolutionary and complementary approach to regulating working conditions in global supply chains. They outline additional research and institutional innovations needed to test these ideas. "

"This study of working conditions in shoemaking in the informal sector in Indonesia and the Philippines, along with their gender dimensions and national and international policy implications, is based on the author's experience in both countries during 2002, with applied qualitative research techniques: in-depth interviews and worksite visits. The use of organic solvents makes shoemaking a particularly hazardous occupation. The book illustrates the global need for safe and healthy chemical alternatives and for their introduction at the beginning of use and supply chain applications. The study also presents the complexity of the problem when considering the introduction of safer alternatives at the source. While home-based shoemakers may influence certain aspects of their work environment, they seldom can undertake efficient preventive measures to mitigate chemical and dust exposures at the bottom of the production process. Homes have been converted into unsafe footwear-manufacturing units, with serious solvent and dust exposures and a spectrum of other hazards. All family members, adults and children, may work in home-based footwear production. Low-cost shoe production takes advantage of sex-segregated job tasks and minimal investments in working conditions.
Use of chemicals in shoemaking is just one example of how global markets have introduced chemicals, materials, and production processes into developing nations. Hazardous working conditions and inadequate health protection are the product of complex relationships among diverse "actors" or agents at international, national, community, and industry levels."