Exploring the effects of union-NGO relationships on corporate responsibility:: The case of the Swedish clean clothes campaign

In the current era, governments are playing smaller roles in regulating workers' rights internationally, and transnational corporations (TNCs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the struggle for workers' rights, and labour/trade unions have started to fill this governance gap. This paper focuses on the least researched of the relationships among these three actors, the union-NGO relationship, by analysing the ways in which it affects definitions of TNC responsibility for workers' rights at their suppliers' factories. Based on a qualitative study of the union-NGO relationship in the Swedish garment industry between 1996 and 2005, we propose that there are six main configurations of union-NGO relationships. By linking these configurations to their effects on TNC responsibility, we propose that co-ordination relationships between unions and NGOs, particularly high-commitment co-ordination relationships, are likely to result in a broadening of the definition of TNC responsibility, while conflictual relationships, both high and low commitment, result in a narrowing of the definition of TNC responsibility. The study indicates that co-operation is generally more beneficial for both unions and NGOs than is any form of conflictual relationship, in terms of broadening the definition of TNC responsibility.