A study of the impact of the Sullivan Code in South Africa, the Rugmark social labeling effort in the Indian handwoven carpet industry, and the COVERCO monitoring of the Guatemalan apparel industry.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-167) and index.

Ch. 1. Citizens, Markets, and Transnational Labor Activism -- Ch. 2. Labor Rights as Human Rights: Regulation in the Context of a "Thinned" National State -- Ch. 3. Monitoring Multinationals: Lessons from the Anti-Apartheid Era -- Ch. 4. Social Labels, Child Labor, and Monitoring in the Indian Carpet Industry -- Ch. 5. Constructing a Culture of Compliance in Guatemala -- Ch. 6. Citizenship at Work.

"As the world economy becomes increasingly integrated, companies can shift production to wherever wages are lowest and unions weakest. How can workers defend their rights in an era of mobile capital? With national governments forced to compete for foreign investment by rolling back legal protections for workers, fair trade advocates are enlisting consumers to put market pressure on companies to treat their workers fairly. In Beyond the Boycott, sociologist Gay Seidman asks whether this non-governmental approach can reverse the "race to the bottom" in global labor standards. Beyond the Boycott examines three campaigns in which activists successfully used the threat of a consumer boycott to pressure companies to accept voluntary codes of conduct and independent monitoring of work sites."--BOOK JACKET.