Jennifer Gordon
Volume 76, Issue 4, 1025-1096
Forced labor is rampant across global supply chains. Addressing it at individual sites of production results in a game of whack-a-mole. An effective response must target the structural drivers of the problem: the large firms at the top and middle of supply chains that pressure suppliers at the bottom to cut labor costs in order to remain competitive. In the absence of other U.S. laws that address the structural causes of forced labor, this Article argues that the forced labor import ban in section 307 of the United States Tariff Act may have the potential to be utilized by civil society organizations and the State in top-down ways to hold lead firms at the top and middle of supply chains accountable for facilitating forced labor. Additionally, it may offer a resource to bottom-up efforts by workers in supply chains and the unions that represent them to demand that both brands and suppliers take responsibility for improving working conditions.
This Article makes three contributions. First, it contends that although enforcement of section 307 to date has been sporadic and often influenced by foreign policy concerns, the U.S. government possesses the legal authority under existing statutes and regulations to target enforcement in ways that address the structural drivers of forced labor both from the top down and the bottom up. Second, it offers the only account to date of how civil society actors have used the law’s public petition mechanism and other interventions in efforts to direct government resources towards a systemic enforcement approach. Drawing on interviews with key civil society and government actors and a review of both confidential and public petitions, this Article maps advocates’ strategies and the government’s response, illustrating the government’s resistance to enforcing section 307 against lead firms at the top of supply chains and its partial openness to a structural enforcement approach at the middle and bottom. Third, it highlights the urgency of solutions to forced labor that support the exercise of freedom of association by supply chain workers. Here, it proposes a novel way for unions to draw on section 307 as leverage when they organize in supply chain contexts.