Towards Decent Work in Global Supply Chains
- FREE
- English
- Interdisciplinary
- with certificate upgrade option
What is the course about?
Welcome to our FREE online course "Towards Decent Work in Global Supply Chains".
This is a compressed online course discussing labour issues in global supply chains as well as policies and strategies to address such issues and achieve decent work.
The mix of video lectures, readings, exercises and interaction with other course participants will enable you to engage in complex debates about main issues and strategies to ensuring work with dignity in global supply chains.
What will I learn?
In this course you will get an overview of the main drivers of the global supply chains as well as the impact of supply chains on development. You will be exposed to some of the main issues regarding working conditions and workers’ rights in global supply chains. The course also helps you to acquire a deeper understanding of the governance framework and some of its main gaps. It also covers some recent regulatory measures aimed at improving working conditions and workers’ rights in global supply chains. Finally, you will also learn more about strategies of trade unions at various levels to ensure decent work.
What do I need to know?
The course requires a working level of English. It draws on the fields of political science and law at the level of a Masters’ programme. However, theoretical concepts are explained in an accessible and well-illustrated way, so it is also possible to participate in the course using skills and knowledge acquired outside formal education.
Course workload
The estimated workload is 5-6 hours per week if you read also the key reading for each unit.
Certificates and Scholarships
You can enrol and complete this course for FREE. If you would like to get a certificate, you have two options:
Certificate of Participation
You can obtain a Certificate of Participation at any time after completing the course. This means watching all the videos and responding to the quiz questions of each video. The Certificate of Participation costs 29€. If you are from a non-OECD country or a trade unionist from an OECD country, you can apply for a scholarship, by sending an email to online@global-labour-university.org indicating your organisation and the country you are from.
Certificate of Accomplishment
Aside of complying with the conditions for a Certificate of Participation, obtaining a Certificate of Accomplishment requires taking an online exam. Options for such a certificate are limited to the periods in which the GLU Online Academy organises an exam phase. The Certificate of Accomplishment costs 49€. Again, if you are from a non-OECD country or a trade unionist from an OECD country, you can apply for a scholarship, by sending an email to online@global-labour-university.org indicating your organisation and the country you are from.
How to use course materials?
You can organise a local workshop on the topics of the course combining the course materials with local experts from trade unions, labour research institutes and universities.
If you work for a university, trade union or any other labour-related institution you are welcome to integrate the course material into your education and training programmes. All video lectures and interviews, readings, online resources, and exercises can be downloaded separately and used for free.
Course structure
Chapter 1: Global Supply Chains: Main drivers and the impact on development
This chapter provides a general overview of the historical, political and economic context in which global supply chains have emerged and some of the key factors and actors facilitating their emergence. It analyses the global supply chains impact on development and employment in developing countries. Finally, the case of Africa illustrates the way the global supply chains tend to perpetuate structural dependencies.
Chapter 2: Working conditions and workers’ rights in Global Supply Chains: Main decent work deficits
This chapter discusses some of the major violations of the core International Labour Standards in the global supply chains, looking particularly at issues of forced labour and child labour, and violations of workers’ rights. It also introduces the Labour Rights Indicators which provides a critical source of data on workers’ rights violations. The chapter concludes with an analysis of some of the root causes of such violations.
Chapter 3: Regulatory instruments and approaches to ensure workers’ rights in global supply chains
This chapter looks at the international and national regulatory framework related to human rights, including labour rights, in global supply chains. It first discusses some of the existing instruments and legal approaches with a focus on the main gaps in holding transnational corporations accountable for violations in global supply chains. The rest of the chapter is then dedicated to new instruments and initiatives seeking to address those gaps.
Chapter 4: Labour strategies for decent work in global supply chains
This chapter discusses various labour strategies to address decent work deficits in global supply chains. These strategies include also new approaches of using existing instruments, such as Global Framework Agreements, and labour market institutions, such as collective bargaining.
Course team
Prof. Dr. Mark Anner (Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, Penn State University, USA)
Dr. Edlira Xhafa (Coordinator of the Global Labour University Online Academy)
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Lorenzen (Professor of Business Law and Labour Law, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany)
Tandiwe Gross (Associate Fellow, Global Labour University)
Dr. Frank Hoffer (Executive Director, ACT Foundation)
Ekin Ozturk (Online tutor for the course)
Course instructors (in order of appearance)
Prof. Dr. Praveen Jha (Professor for Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India)
Dr. Michael Fichter (Senior Lecturer, Global Labour University, Germany)
Hilma Mote (Specialist in Workers Activities, ILO/ACTRAV)
Beate Andrees (Chief, Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch, ILO)
Kirill Buketov (Campaign Officer, International Union of Food and Allied Workers - IUF)
Prof. Dr. Mark Anner (Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, Penn State University, USA)
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Lorenzen (Professor of Business Law and Labour Law, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany)
Prof. Dr. Markus Krajewski (University Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany)
Tandiwe Gross (Associate Fellow, Global Labour University)
Manuela Tomei (Director of WORKQUALITY Department, ILO)
Sharan Burrow (Secretary-General, International Trade Union Confederation - ITUC)
Catelene Passchier (Chair of the Workers’ Group and Vice Chair of the Governing Body of the ILO)
Dr. Frank Hoffer (Executive Director, ACT Foundation)
Course instructors
Mark Anner, Penn State University
Mark Anner is a Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, and he is the Director of the Center for Global Workers' Rights at Penn State University. He is also the chair of the MPS Program in Labor and Global Workers' Rights, which is a part of the Global Labour University network. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and a Master's Degree in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. Dr. Anner's research examines freedom of association and corporate social responsibility, labor law reform and enforcement, and workers' rights in apparel global value chains in Central America and Vietnam. His publications include Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America* (Cornell University Press, 2011). Before beginning his academic career, Mark Anner spent eleven years working with labor unions and labor research centers in Central America and Brazil, and he was a union organizer in Boston.
Praveen Jha
Praveen Jha completed his Ph.D. from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University and is currently a Professor and Chairperson at the same Centre. He was also the founding Chairperson of the Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies. He has been a Visiting Professor at several universities and institutions and was also a Visiting Fellow at the International Labour Organisation. His major areas of research and teaching include: Political Economy of Development, with particular reference to Labour, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Public Finance, Education, and History of Economic Thought. He is one of the founding members of the Agrarian South Network and a founding editor of the Journal: Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. His latest book is Labour in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Hilma Mote
Hilma Mote is a Workers Specialist at the International Labour Organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Up to September 2019, she was the founding Executive Director of the Africa Labour Research and Education Institute (ALREI), a research and education coordinating centre of the African Regional Organization of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa). Before joining ITUC-Africa, she was the Director of the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) in Namibia. Hilma was also as a steering committee member of the Africa Labour Research Network (ALRN) for 12 years. She's a graduate of the University of Namibia and the University of Johannesburg, South Africa respectively.
Stefanie Lorenzen
Stefanie Lorenzen is a professor for business law, especially employment and labor law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law since 2009. She worked for two years at the Ministery of Justice in Windhoek, Namibia, where she supported a development aid study on legal reform after the country’s independence in 1994. From 1998 to 2009 she was an attorney-at-law specialised in employment and labor law, with an international law firm in Germany and in her own practice. At the Berlin School of Economics and Law she academically directs a Master programme in Business Law in an International Context, and lectures on International Labour Standards and working conditions along the global supply chain.
Michael Fichter
He moved to Berlin after receiving his BA in History at Stanford University. Until the end of 2011 he taught political science and labor relations at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. From 2005 to 2013 he also taught a seminar on "Strategies of Multinational Corporations and Labour" in the GLU German Program. His research focus for the past several years has been on global labor relations, in particular on the impact of global framework agreements and transnational union networks.
Tandiwe Gross
Tandiwe Gross graduated in political science and law and holds an M.A. in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the University of Kassel and Berlin School of Economics and Law. After working for the Global Labour University and the International Labour Organization in the area of labour rights and due diligence in global supply chains, she now works as Senior Programme Manager at the ACT Foundation.
Dr Frank Hoffer
Dr Frank Hoffer is a research fellow of the Global Labour University. He studied in Bremen, London and Moscow. He holds a PhD in Economics. During his professional career, Frank Hoffer was a Labour Attache at the Germany Embassy in Moscow, worked as a senior research officer at the International Labour Organisation and served as the Executive Director of the ACT Foundation. His main areas of interest and research are social policy, wage policies and the application of international labour standards. He is a non-executive director of the GLU Online Academy board
Markus Krajewski
Beate Andrees, Kirill Buketov, Manuela Tomei, Sharan Burrow, Catelene Passchier
Edlira Xhafa
Edlira Xhafa is the Executive Director of the Online Academy of the Global Labour University. She has a master's degree in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the Global Labour University (Germany) and holds a PhD in Labour Studies from the University of Milan, Italy. Since 2000, she has been engaged with national trade unions in her home country Albania, as well as in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. She has also worked for, and collaborated with Education International, Public Services International, Building and Wood Workers' International, International Labour Organisation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and others.
Selected Course Reviews
Overall Rating 4.8 (14 students)
Great
Good course
Fantastic. It was a supper rich course It was so knowledgeable especially in the field of workers treatment in some countries.
Well, almost every aspect of the course was good. I did not really notice anything uninteresting.l
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