It is tough to see U.S. union workers passed over for a million dollar contract especially in a time of economic downturn. But, the Milwaukee ordinance does not call for U.S.-made uniforms. Instead, the city takes a longer-term and broader view by requiring workers everywhere to get a good deal—including wages that will raise them and their family out of poverty—if they make products for the city. The city’s goal is less to strengthen the local economy or the U.S. economy in the short-term than to help create a more fair global economy, which, long-term, also helps U.S. workers.

One of the great aspects of this new initiative is that the organizations involved have identified proactive steps companies can take to improve worker rights in their supply chains.  The recommendations cover four key areas:

   1. Develop a positive climate for freedom of association and collective bargaining;
   2. Eliminate the use of precarious employment in sportswear supply chains;
   3. Lessen both the frequency and negative impacts of factory closures; and
   4. Take steps to improve worker incomes, with the goal of reaching a living wage for all workers.

According to Fernandez, for several years the Philippine government has established a pattern of blacklisting citizens as enemies of the state; scientists, journalist, and student activists are just some examples of those citizens added to such a list.

By Luke Engan, student, Georgetown University Law Center

Business lobbyists could be revving up to oppose a ban on importing goods made with forced labor, child labor or prison labor, according to media reports that provoked alarm from Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert.