The Politics of Telling and Workers’ Rights: the Case of Mike Daisey

Abstract

Extending from the idea of basic human rights, modern labour standards began to develop during the Industrial Revolution. Labour standards were initially local determinations in accordance with city and state laws. Reacting to the pressure created by unions and strikes, officials in the twentieth-century developed world designed labour standards to ensure a minimal level of protection for workers. As the supply of labour became greater than the demand, conditions arose that favoured few regulations in the interest of producing the highest and quickest profits. Corporations moved factories from first-world nations to developing countries in pursuit of the lowest costs in terms of wages and factory construction, as well as the greatest tax incentives. As corporations crossed borders and created jobs (elsewhere), people in developing countries also moved from the countryside to the city and from one country to the next to take jobs. The movement of workers, goods, services, technologies and capital generated an interdependence of local, regional, national and international economies that is known as globalization.