The Law of Work
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
  • Home
  • About
  • Professor David Doorey
  • Osgoode Hall LLM
  • Books
  • Guest Contributors
  • Useful Links
    • Archive
The Law of Work
Law of Work Archive

Is Wal-Mart Legally Responsible for Labour Abuses in its Supplier Factories?

by David Doorey July 23, 2009
written by David Doorey July 23, 2009

  There was an interesting case out of the U.S. Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) last week involving a lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart by a group of workers employed by suppliers of Wal-Mart in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland, and Nicaragua.  Here  is the decision in Jane Doe, et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores.  The pleadings and history of the case can be reviewed here and this New York Times article.
The lawsuit was a creative attempt by the workers to hold Wal-Mart liable in an American court for harm they allege they suffered while producing Wal-Mart products in foreign countries.  The difficulty is that the workers are not actually employed by Wal-Mart, but are employees of Wal-Mart’s suppliers.  Therefore, the workers needed to find a legal hook to create common law liability by Wal-Mart for breaches of labour laws by Wal-Mart’s suppliers.  The hook they latched onto was Wal-Mart’s “Standards for Suppliers”, which you can download on Wal-Mart’s website.
The plaintiffs put forth a number of legal theories, based principally around the claim that the supplier code created an enforceable obligation on the part of Wal-Mart to monitor the suppliers to ensure labour laws were being complied with, but that in fact Wal-Mart did not do this, resulting in harm to the workers and ‘unjust enrichment’ to Wal-Mart.  
The Court rejected all of the arguments.  It ruled that the supplier code does not create any legal obligation on Wal-mart to do anything.  It doesn’t require Wal-Mart to monitor its suppliers’ labour practices, it just says that it can monitor if it feels like it.  The supplier code ‘contains no adverse consequences for Wal-Mart if Wal-Mart does not monitor the supplier”, the Court found.  
You might ask, therefore, what use Wal-Mart’s supplier code is to the workers?  The answer is that it is not clear that it has any benefit.  It might occasionally help Wal-Mart uncover labour abuses if some monitoring is done, but it creates no obligation on Wal-Mart to then try and correct the problem.  Furthermore, Wal-mart uses hundreds of factories around the world, but does not publicly disclose which factories it uses. This makes it difficult for labour groups to identify and engage in private monitoring of working conditions under which Wal-Mart’s products are manufactured.
Do you think that the law should:
(1)  Attempt to make supplier codes legally enforceable?
(2)  Require companies to disclose the names and addresses of the factories they source from?

0 comment
0
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
David Doorey

Professor Doorey is an Associate Professor of Work Law and Industrial Relations at York University. He is Academic Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s executive LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law and a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. Professor Doorey is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.B., Ph.D), London School of Economics (LLM Labour Law), and the University of Toronto (B.A., M.I.R.).

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

previous post
New Brunswick Government Violates Charter Right of Casual Workers to Collective Bargaining
next post
The End of Strikes (Via and Toronto)…

You may also like

This Blog Entry is About the Lunacy of...

July 21, 2019

A Cross Country Update on the Card-Check versus...

October 3, 2018

The Folly of Not Voting to Strike in...

September 16, 2018

Unifor Posts Photos of Replacement Workers as Gander...

September 10, 2018

A Wrongful Dismissal Case and the Absence of...

August 29, 2018

China Said to Quickly Withdraw Approval for New...

August 27, 2018

The Latest Hot E-Commerce Idea in China: The...

August 27, 2018

The Trump Administration Just Did Something Unambiguously Good...

August 27, 2018

Unstable Situations Require Police In Riot Gear Face...

August 27, 2018

Trump’s War on the Justice System Threatens to...

August 27, 2018

Follow Us On Social Media

Twitter

Latest Tweets

David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to Follow

Law Prof. Talking #labor & #employment #law to the masses. @YorkUniversity @OsgoodeNews @LSELaw @CLJEHarvard @Jacobin @OnLaborBlog https://t.co/5V9r8VPHsh

TheLawofWork
thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
10h

I can’t believe that Almost Famous came out 23 years ago.

Time is flying by.

Reply on Twitter 1622776388179705859 Retweet on Twitter 1622776388179705859 3 Like on Twitter 1622776388179705859 14 Twitter 1622776388179705859
thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
11h

I had an LLM student who had a part-time job phantom writing labor arbitration decisions based on arbitrator’s notes and instructions.

Like law clerks do for judges (except parties don’t know about the phantom arb writer).

Is using a machine different? Interesting debate.

Valerio De Stefano @valeriodeste

The crucial part starts on p. 5, where the Court reports the answers to the legal questions they posed to ChatGPT. Then, at the end of p. 6, the Court adopts the arguments given in these answers as grounds for its decision.

Reply on Twitter 1622759377944952834 Retweet on Twitter 1622759377944952834 5 Like on Twitter 1622759377944952834 8 Twitter 1622759377944952834
thelawofwork David J. Doorey🇨🇦 @TheLawofWork@mas.to @thelawofwork ·
12h

Quebec passed anti-scab legislation in 1977, BC in 1993, & Ontario 1993-95.

Hysterical claims that these laws cause job losses & loss of investment aren't supported by evidence. Businesses just don't like them.

Short 🧵

1/

Seamus O'Regan Jr @SeamusORegan

We’re banning replacement workers, as we said on Oct. 19th.

We’re working with unions and employers to get the balance right.

As agreed, government will introduce legislation by the end of this year.

Reply on Twitter 1622745098088861702 Retweet on Twitter 1622745098088861702 16 Like on Twitter 1622745098088861702 39 Twitter 1622745098088861702
Load More

Categories

  • Alberta
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Australia
  • British Columbia
  • Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Childcare
  • Class Action
  • Climate and Just Transition
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Common Law of Employment
  • Comparative Work Law
  • competition law
  • construction
  • COVID-19
  • Diversity
  • Employee Classification
  • Employment Insurance
  • Employment Regulation
  • Europe
  • Financial Industry
  • Fissured Work
  • Freedom of Association
  • frustration of contract
  • Gig Work
  • Health and Safety
  • Health Care
  • Human Rights
  • Immigration
  • Interest Arbitration
  • International Law
  • Labour Arbitration
  • Labour Economics
  • Law of Work Archive
  • Legal Profession
  • Manitoba
  • Migrant Workers
  • Minimum Wage
  • Newfoundland
  • Nova Scotia
  • OLRB
  • Ontario
  • Pension Bankruptcy
  • Privacy
  • Public Sector
  • Quebec
  • Real Life Pleadings
  • Saskatchewan
  • Scholarship
  • Sports Labour
  • Strikes and Lockouts
  • Student Post
  • Supreme Court of Canada
  • technology
  • Transnational Law
  • Uncategorized
  • Unions and Collective Bargaining
  • United States
  • Videos
  • Women and Work
  • Wrongful Dismissal
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Guest Contributors
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive
Menu
  • Legal Scholarship
  • Useful Links
  • Archive

2020. Canadian Law of Work Forum. All Rights Reserved.