Monitoring Factories Around the Globe: The Fair Labor Association and The Workers Rights Consortium Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

In 1999, the non-profit Fair Labor Association (FLA) was launched to monitor the factories around the world related to sweatshop abuses. Another key player for-profit, working Rights Consortium (WRC), was launched in 2000. Both organizations have similar goals, but very different stories, strategies and techniques. One major difference is that the FLA board includes corporations, while the WRC board contains no representatives of the industry, but only student representatives Together Against Sweatshops (USAS), a member of the university and the work of the Union of NGOs (non-governmental organizations).) Mission-wise, FLA focused on all the clothes, while the WRC focus only on clothing bearing college and university names and logos. The fact that the FLA include company / industry representatives on its policy board, and WRC did not, has created not just a difference, but the immediate source of controversy and conflict. By 2008, the WRC has grown with the membership of 44 colleges and universities at the time of its foundation in 174 and FLA has grown from 100 colleges and universities to 205. Although the two organizations were often closely related to each other, appearing on the panel, and sometimes even cooperate, their shared history was controversial and turbulent. Among the issues in the ongoing dispute was the role of the trade unions (which have not been authorized by the Government in countries such as China and Vietnam), the problem of "living wage" (which will raise the cost of production significantly), the charges announced on the website "FLA Watch" (which, seemed to many, one-sided and unfair), and the overall impact on efforts to combat sweatshop movement (which has led some to question how much progress has been made). "Hide
by Victoria Chan, Glenn R. Carroll Source: Stanford Graduate Business School 25 pages. Publication Date: June 10, 2008. Prod. #: SI108-PDF-ENG