How to achieve centralized regulation of employees' relation in a globalized workforce

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 23rd of April 2014

Centralizing employee regulation in the international scene is possible but won’t come at ease because it will involve unitary agreement among nations and corporations. However, the possibility is always there. The rise in MNEs and increase FDI since the 1960s have fueled a subsequent rise in public efforts that regulates activities across borders. In the 1970s, the OECD and ILO undertook initiatives that produced important but these codes where not enforceable. In the 1990s, unions started seeking for new labour clauses to be inserted into the WTO and experienced no success (van Roozendaal 2002; Stevis and Boswell 2007a, b). However, the filed public strategies paved the way to increased social initiatives aimed at direct regulation of MNEs (for overviews of earlier efforts see Murray 1998; OECD 1999 and 2000; EWCB 2000a and 2000b; Jenkins 2001; International Labour Office 2003; Manheim 2001). Also, the limitations of unilateral codes of conduct ensured the increase in intensification and diversification of civil society initiatives and it is popularly known as “civil regulation” (for clarifications and overviews see Bendell 2000; Ütting 2002; Oxford Research 2003; Murray 2004; Vogel 2008). Thus, as civil regulation has risen prominently, corporate response to such rise have moved from unilateral codes of conducts to a more complex and ambitious multi-stakeholders approaches that will guide corporate social responsibility (Ütting 2002; Ruggie 2004; Crook 2005; Rondinelli 2007; Franklin 2008; ISO 2008).

Thus, there is a possibility of global and centralized regulation being established in order to carter for international employment relations management. However, critics are against such ideas as they believe that it will result to privatization of policies previously regulated by the general public (Christopherson and Lillie 2005; Newell and Weaver 2006; Network for Corporate Accountability 2006; Wells 2007; Shamir 2008). However, Global Framework Agreement has been established (although it is not generally agreed on) as the union initiative for regulating labour.

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