.png)
About
ChainGE Lab is a five-year interdisciplinary research project led by Prof. Hila Shamir (Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law) and funded by the European Research Commission (ERC).
Labour law gradually protects fewer of the world’s workers.
This is because changes in work, technology, and production methods ("supply chain capitalism") have created a gap between what labor laws were designed for and how businesses actually operate now. This gap hinders workers' ability to organize and exercise agency. Historically developed in industrial economies to address power disparities between capital and labour, labour law is rooted in a dyadic employer-employee paradigm in which it seeks to empower workers vis-à-vis employers, the presumed owners of capital. However, in today's "supply chain capitalism," employers are often suppliers in global networks, dependent on larger corporations. To address these challenges, this project aims to collaborate with actors on the ground in order to reimagine and restructure labour law to fit the new patterns of supply chain capitalism.
Research Structure and Methodology
Workers and their representatives work tirelessly to strengthen worker power in lower-tier GVCs but often lack the legal scaffolding to sustain and scale these efforts. Our research builds on these experiences to identify what works and how legal frameworks can support and amplify such initiatives.
Collaborating with unions, workers' organizations, policymakers, and other stakeholders, we employ interdisciplinary qualitative-comparative research to establish the theoretical and normative foundation for new legal structures that enable workers' organizing, voice, and power in supply chain capitalism.
The Five Pillars
-
Can I insert an image, video, or gif in my FAQ?Yes. To add media follow these steps: 1. Enter the app’s Settings 2. Click on the “Manage FAQs” button 3. Select the question you would like to add media to 4. When editing your answer click on the camera, video, or GIF icon 5. Add media from your library.
-
How do I add a new question & answer?To add a new FAQ follow these steps: 1. Click “Manage FAQs” button 2. From your site’s dashboard you can add, edit and manage all your questions and answers 3. Each question and answer should be added to a category 4. Save and publish.
-
How do I edit or remove the “FAQ” title?You can edit the title from the Settings tab in the app. If you don’t want to display the title, simply disable the Title under “Info to Display”.
-
What is an FAQ section?An FAQ section can be used to quickly answer common questions about you or your business, such as “Where do you ship to?”, “What are your opening hours?” or “How can I book a service?” It’s a great way to help people navigate your site and can even boost your site’s SEO.
-
International labour unions and transnational labour coalitionsIn order to to create transnational solidarity and guarantee workplace democracy along value chains the role, structures and modes of operation of international and local labour unions requires adaptations.
-
Tools of effective enforcementThe strike, a classic tool of collective action enforcement, may lose relevance in a supply chain context where lead firms can swiftly shift production to alternative suppliers, undermining workers’ leverage. The multi-stakeholder political economy of GVCs therefore necessitates reimagined, legally protected collective action tools. Additional relevant mechanisms, beyond traditional labour law, may include tools external to labour law such as trade instruments and anti-trust mechanisms.
-
The jurisdictional challengeIn order to ensure the stability and enforceability of new legal structures, there is a need for an agreed-upon or legally authorized legal forum to arbitrate or adjudicate disputes and to enforce binding determinations.
-
Bargaining unit determinationWho should be the parties to a GVC collective agreement negotiation? And who should it apply to? There is a need to reconceptualize include all relevant stakeholders (lead firm, suppliers) and workers, as well as other possible stakeholders (e.g. consumers, state actors) in a new model of multilateral collective bargaining.
-
The collective agreementA need to re-conceptualize lead firm commitments to suppliers and workers in their supply chains as binding and non-voluntary ones, which will require re-imagining the collective agreement and adapting it to a multi-actor and multiscalar landscape of GVCs.
The research project is built on a five-pronged analytical framework addressing fundamental challenges supply chain capitalism presents to current labour law and labour institutions. We seek to reimagine:
The Collaboratory - Our Research Network
An international, interdisciplinary academic community of scholars and activists dedicated to advancing workers' rights in Global Value Chains
The collaboratory creates a space for an ongoing interdisciplinary conversation among scholars—academics and activists—at various stages of their careers researching issues related to workers' rights in global supply chains. We meet monthly online to foster collaboration, networking, access to resources and a supportive, rigorous community of learning and action.
Workers’ Rights Legal Clinic at Tel Aviv University
The project includes a legal 'laboratory' dedicated to studying new labour law and institutions for supply chain capitalism, in collaboration with the TAU Law Workers’ Rights Clinic, led by Adv. Michal Tadjer. The clinic develops litigation and organizing strategies to support workers’ rights in subcontracted and multi-tiered employment arrangements. Its legal activities provide experiential and empirical data to inform and address the project’s research questions.
_edited_edited.png)
Join our research team
We accept applications to join the collaboratory and the lab’s core group of researchers on a rolling basis and will post more specific calls for researchers here when available. If you are interested in joining us, please email: chaincaplab@gmail.com