ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the contemporary labour standards regime, exemplified by the International Labour Organizations (ILO) Core Labour Standards (CLS). It fails to address the issues and problems faced by women workers in some of the most marginalized forms of employment in the global economy. Of particular concern to the argument developed in the chapter is the way in which the CLS are rooted in a minimalistic and neoliberal compatible commitment to worker's 'human rights'. The chapter provides an overview of the origins of the CLS before turning to discuss how they can be critiqued from a gender perspective. As already suggested, a particular problem with the CLS is the way in which they endorse a voluntarist mode of labour regulation. The chapter describes the problems with the voluntarist position on labour regulation are demonstrated, exploring a number of feminist studies that have exposed the failure of corporate codes of conduct in confronting the everyday problems faced by female workers.
