Labour Agency and Transnational Environmental Regulation - A Study of the Relevance of Global Framework Agreements

This thesis analyses how the growing role of labour actors in processes of environmental regulation is reflected in and influenced by the negotiation and implementation of global framework agreements that include environmental provisions (EGFAs). Departing from previous studies of GFAs, the thesis provides a thoroughly contextualised thematic analysis of GFAs focussed on environmental issues, using a trans-disciplinary approach, combining legal and sociological perspectives through the prism of labour environmentalism. It asks how the inclusion of environmental provisions is connected to other processes of environmental regulation, including through the agency of labour actors, mainly unions, at different scales.

Data collection involves the creation of a database of EGFAs consisting of statistical information and an extensive account of their content, and an analysis of three case studies, chosen from the database and informed by semi-structured interviews and focus groups carried out with union and management representatives at various scales. Relying on a bourdieusian analytical framework articulated around the ‘thinking tools’ of field, habitus and capital, the thesis makes a methodological contribution by weaving together the analysis of the content of EGFAs and the cases.

Ultimately, the thesis provides an empirical, analytical and theoretical understanding of practices of negotiation and implementation of EGFAs. Emphasising that context matters, it shows that these practices are connected to political, legal and organisational regulatory processes involving labour actors at multiple scales. The agency of labour actors in these processes relates to their capacity to connect to multi-scalar and multi-directional networks through the articulation of abstract rules, standards, notions, etc. with concrete situations. Focussing on processes of environmental regulation, prevalent approaches were found to be informed by different conceptions of the relationship between labour and nature and to translate into various understandings of the role of EGFAs, ranging from endorsement of companies’ CSR policies and practices to instruments of social and environmental justice.