ABSTRACT
This chapter examines labour activists and labour unions which have attempted to use CSR instruments to gain greater control for workers over their working and living conditions. The rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has given birth to a CSR industry which advises companies and many governments and intergovernmental organizations, including the European Union and the OECD, creating their own policies on CSR. This case study reveals a number of emerging issues concerning the use of CSR to defend labour rights: This paper has argued that the attempts made thus far by labour rights advocates to utilize CSR as a tool for improving working conditions have revealed a number of weaknesses in popular instruments. This problem has been demonstrated in this chapter by examining the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The new corporate accountability (CA) campaigns explored briefly in this paper would not be possible without the groundswell that created CSR in the first instance.
