IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buhurj/v6y2021i1p1-20_1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wages: An Overlooked Dimension of Business and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains

Author

Listed:
  • LEBARON, Genevieve

Abstract

Wages – the monetary payments that workers receive from employers in exchange for their labour – are widely overlooked in academic and policy debates about human rights and business in global supply chains. They shouldn’t be. Just as living wages can insulate workers from human rights abuse and labour exploitation, wages that hover around or below the poverty line, compounded by illegal practices like wage theft and delayed payment, leave workers vulnerable to severe labour exploitation and human rights abuse. This article draws on data from a study of global tea and cocoa supply chains to explore the impact of wages on one of the most severe human rights abuses experienced in global supply chains, forced labour. Demonstrating that low-wage workers experience high vulnerability to forced labour in global supply chains, it argues that the role of wages in shaping or protecting workers from exploitation needs to be taken far more seriously by scholars and policymakers. When wages are ignored, so too is a crucial tool to protect human rights and heighten business accountability in global supply chains.

Suggested Citation

  • LEBARON, Genevieve, 2021. "Wages: An Overlooked Dimension of Business and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains," Business and Human Rights Journal, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buhurj:v:6:y:2021:i:1:p:1-20_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2057019820000322/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chunyun Li & Sarosh Kuruvilla, 2023. "Corporate codes of conduct and labour turnover in global apparel supply chains," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(3), pages 481-505, September.
    2. Genevieve LeBaron, 2021. "The Role of Supply Chains in the Global Business of Forced Labour," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 57(2), pages 29-42, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buhurj:v:6:y:2021:i:1:p:1-20_1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/bhj .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.