ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the last of the book’s three case studies. It provides a national-level analysis of the negotiation and implementation of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement, followed by an industry-level analysis of the agreement’s impacts on workers in the clothing industry. It argues that labour provisions were again relegated to secondary concern. In negotiations, the Moldovan government acquiesced to the labour provisions proposed by the EU with little domestic consultation, while during the implementation period it was preoccupied with the banking crisis engulfing the country. Labour provisions also had limited traction in the clothing industry, given that the core labour standards on which they were based did not attend to the most salient issues of low wages and work intensification. More so than in the other two cases, this chapter also demonstrates the centrality of EU-based lead firms in shaping the labour process through the structural pressures put on factories via low contract prices and short delivery times. Combined with the legacies of the Soviet-era labour regime, this makes the prospects for secure and remunerative employment look bleak.
