International Labor Laws and Multinational Corporations: A Comprehensive Overview, Slides of Labour Law

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The Global Perspective: International Employment Law and American Immigration Policy Docsity.com International Employment Law and Policy  Today employment lawyers and HR executives must be versed in both international law and the employment laws and policies of the world’s major nations  A working knowledge of U.S. immigration law is virtually a “must,” as new arrivals and employees of overseas subsidiaries increasingly figure into the work forces of American-based firms Docsity.com Global Corporate Responsibility  Global corporate responsibility signifies the notion held by many advocates of workers’ rights and environmental issues, that multinational corporations have the ethical obligation to behave in fair and humane ways toward their workers and to pursue “green” policies and practices to protect the environments in which they operate  Global Corporate Responsibility: Philosophy which says that corporations should behave as good global citizens Docsity.com Ethical Dilemma: Should Multinational Corporations be Required to Act to Ethical Standards in Labor & Employment Relations?  Global corporate social responsibility is foreign policy issue, an economic issue, and a moral issue. Whether corporate social responsibility extends to treatment of foreign employees may depend upon the policies and laws of the host nation. The United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium require private pension funds to report on the social responsibility performances of the companies in which they have invested their members’ contributions. In the United States, the mission of promoting “labor and corporate social responsibility falls to a unit of the Department of State” (DOS). The State Department supports projects that promote these goals, including an anti-sweatshop initiative to fund the development of approaches to combat sweatshop labor in overseas factories  Should Multinational Corporations be required to act according to ethical standards in their Labor and Employment Relations? Docsity.com The Alien Tort Claims Act and International Workers’ Rights  Alien Tort Claims Act: A federal statute which provides a cause of action for aggrieved aliens in U.S. courts  The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States  The statute lay relatively dormant, supporting jurisdiction in only a handful of cases, for nearly two centuries  In the recent years, the statute has been rediscovered by attorneys seeking to vindicate the rights of foreign workers allegedly oppressed by U.S. multinational corporations Docsity.com Global Labor Unions  Global Unions: International labor organizations, which typically attempt to organize employees of globalized industries  Union Network International (UNI)  An organization aimed at organizing workers on an international scale  UNI targets multinational corporations, seeking to apply global pressure in order to organize local and regional corporate facilities  UNI claims to hold the allegiance of approximately 15 million workers in 900 unions in 150 countries, and has targeted a list of 100 multinational employers Docsity.com The Working Law: Global Unions Seek to Organize American Workers Through the “Back Door”  A good example of how this “back door” organizing can happen- offered by President Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)- was the acquisition of three well-known U.S. security firms by Sweden-based Securitas  Attorney Gerald Hathaway of the New York firm Littler Mendelson noted that labor organizations are woven into the socioeconomic fabric of continental nations such as Germany, where union leaders commonly serve on boards of directors  UNI and similar international labor organizations seek to sign so- called “global framework agreements” capable of following the corporation to wherever it establishes operations around the world Docsity.com Immigration Law and Policy  The fundamental U.S. immigration statute is the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952.  Prior to its passage, U.S. immigration was governed by a variety of federal statutes, which were not collected under a single title of the U.S. Code  Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) OF 1896: The most recent major overhaul of U.S immigration law  The purposes of the IRCA:  Provide a solution for controlling illegal immigration to the United States  Make some changes in the U.S. system of legal immigration  Provide a controlled legalization program for undocumented aliens who entered the United States before 1982 Docsity.com Anatomy of an ICE Raid  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a leather factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts in March 2007. Supported by local law enforcement, ICE arrested 361 workers from Guatemala and El Salvador.  The detainees were taken to Fort Devens, a former Army base near Ayer, Massachusetts. The following day, some 60 women, sole caretakers of their children, were released. The remaining workers were dispersed to detention centers and jails for processing of their cases.  The arrests were hardly completed before the public relations war commenced. By November 2007, the detainees’ main case had climbed all the way up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Docsity.com Aguilar v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement  Facts:  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided Michael Bianco, Inc. The petitioners said that ICE inhibited their exercise of the right to counsel. The Guatemalan consul, acting as next friend of the detainees (many of whom were Guatemalan nationals), filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.  Issue:  Whether the ICE violated the due process rights of the detainees  Decision:  The district court dismissed the petitioners’ substantive due process claims Docsity.com State and Local Involvement with Illegal Immigrants  Immigration law and policy are deemed to be the exclusive provinces of the federal government  State and local governments are usually deemed to be preempted from intruding into this area of the law  One state statute that stands out from the crowd by having survived all legal challenges is the Legal Arizona Workers Act Docsity.com