The US Forced Labour Import Ban as a Tool for Workers’ Empowerment: Strategic Approaches to Advocacy

Abstract: The United States is one of the few jurisdictions with a law in place that bans the importation of goods made with forced labour. This presentation looks at the challenges and opportunities that labour and human rights advocates and trade unionists have faced in using this provision--Sec. 307 of the US Tariff Act of 1930--in the context of campaigns to address systematic violations of workers' rights in supply chains. Based on a working paper published in April 2024, the presentation offers a new framework for strategic approaches to Sec. 307, with the goals of targeting lead firms at the top of supply chains, changing the practices of major suppliers in the centre, and building worker power at the bottom.

About the Speaker:

Jennifer Gordon

Jennifer Gordon is the John D. Feerick Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, where she teaches in the areas of immigration, labour rights, and government regulation. Her research and writing on migration, trade, and labour standards in the context of globalization has appeared in top academic journals, and her book, Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights, was published by Harvard University Press. She has also written on these topics for the New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and numerous other media outlets. Earlier in her career, she founded and directed the Workplace Project, a pioneering immigrant workers’ center in the United States. Gordon has received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and an Open Society Fellowship, and was named one of the “Outstanding Woman Lawyers in the United States” by the National Law Journal.