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Beyond the Workplace: “Upstream” Business Practices and Labor Standards in the Global Electronics Industry

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Abstract

Scholars have argued that poor labor conditions in global supply chains are due to inadequate government regulation or ineffective (poorly designed) private compliance systems. Employing a unique data set and a case study of Hewlett-Packard and its supply chain, this article argues that these interventions—no matter how well intentioned and designed are insufficient because they focus solely (or primarily) on the locus of production, focus on the factories producing for global buyers. Although this focus on the workplace ostensibly makes sense, given that this is where most labor standards violations are manifested, the reality is that many of the workplace problems we observe in global supply chains are, in fact, the product of a set of policies and practices designed and implemented upstream by global buyers and their lead suppliers.

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Notes

  1. An examination of the audit documents of Malaysian companies revealed that labor violations in Malaysia were underreported. This is due to the auditors’ belief that the Malaysian national labor law (which allows 72 h/week) took precedent over the EICC. The EICC states that working hours shall not exceed 60 h/week, independent of national laws.

  2. Interview, plant manager, Hard Drive Plant, Thailand 17 Jun 2009

  3. Interview, senior manager. Injection Molding Plant, Singapore 19 Jun 2009

  4. Malaysian law allowed for 48 h of straight time/week and 104 h of overtime/month. The EICC allows for only a total 60 h/week including overtime. Interview-HR manager, Inkjet Assembly Plant, Malaysia 24 Jun 2009

  5. Interview, senior manager—Hard Disk Drive Plant, Thailand 17 Jun 2009

  6. In conveyor or linear assembly, the positions of operators are fixed and assembly occurs in a sequential manner as product travels past these operators on a conveying system.

  7. Interview—production manager, HDD plant, Thailand, 17 Jun 2009

  8. Interviews with senior managers, DC Converters, HDD plants—Thailand 15–19 Jun 2009, Inkjet Filling—Singapore 22–23 Jun 2009, Printer Assembly—Malaysia 24 Jun 2009

  9. Migrant workers in China and Thailand are in-country, while workers in Malaysia and Singapore are foreign.

  10. By contrast, this policy differs from those common in advanced industrialized countries where overtime can be achieved by working more than 8 h any day, independent of aggregate hours.

  11. Interviews with senior plant managers and production supervisors—Inkjet Final Assembly, Malaysia 24 Jun 2009

  12. See (Piore and Sabel 1984) for an historical overview for how both mass production and flexibly specialized firms responded to previous shifts in demand conditions. See (Katz and Sabel 1985) for how volatility was “managed” historically in the US automobile industry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Provost, Brown University, University Hall 114, Box 1862, Providence, RI, 02912, USA

    Richard M. Locke

  2. Said Business School, University of Oxford, Park End Street, Oxford, X1 1 HP, UK

    Hiram Samel

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  1. Richard M. Locke
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  2. Hiram Samel
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Correspondence to Richard M. Locke.

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Locke, R.M., Samel, H. Beyond the Workplace: “Upstream” Business Practices and Labor Standards in the Global Electronics Industry. St Comp Int Dev 53, 1–24 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-017-9258-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-017-9258-6

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