In our first session on labour rights, we focused on global supply chains. In the second session, we shift to a more European perspective. The right to organise and to engage in collective bargaining has been fundamental to the construction of Europe’s welfare states and a core element of the social contract between the state, capital, and citizens. These rights were even written into the peace treaties signed in Versailles at the end of the First World War. They have functioned as key democratic institutions and could potentially be powerful tools for securing a socially stable transition to a regenerative economy.

And yet, the prevailing sense is that workers’ rights are in retreat rather than advancing. One clear example is Tesla’s global anti-union policies. In Sweden, Tesla has refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement, a stance that is highly unusual for companies operating in the country, including American ones. As a result, IF Metall has been in conflict with Tesla since October 2023, making it the longest strike in Sweden in over 100 years.

For this second session on labour rights, we have invited Aleksandar Zuza from IF Metall to help us unpack and better understand the conflict with Tesla.

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After dedicating four episodes to unpacking and turning the concept of growth inside out, we now move on to a much more specific dimension of sustainable development: labour rights. In the next three episodes, we will examine how fundamental human rights at work are respected and implemented across global value chains. We’ll be speaking with world-leading academics, local trade union representatives, and entrepreneurs to understand these issues and identify a path forward.

Our first guest is Sarosh Kuruvilla, Professor at Cornell University and perhaps the world’s leading researcher on labour conditions in global supply chains. The picture he paints is undeniably bleak. Despite more than thirty years of codes of conduct and compliance systems, very little has actually improved on the factory floor. Brands, governments of producing countries, and even traditional trade unions all come under scrutiny. But Sarosh also offers a concrete way forward for brands that genuinely want to drive change, along with a new and potentially revolutionary tool: Risk-Based Outcome Metrics.

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