Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis
Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis
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DOI：
10.1111/glob.12360
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发表时间：
2022-01-22
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Bhutta, Mahmood F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hughes, Alex;Brown, James A.;Bhutta, Mahmood F.
本文评估了新冠疫情对医用手套全球价值链中的劳工问题产生的影响以及解决这些问题的方式。它聚焦于马来西亚的生产以及对英国国家医疗服务体系的供应，并基于对工人的大规模调查以及对英国政府官员、供应商和采购商的访谈。采用全球价值链（GVC）框架，本文展示了在手套需求增加的情况下，该行业普遍存在的强迫劳动现象在疫情期间是如何加剧的。文中表明，补救措施是通过价值链的重新配置（在此过程中权力大幅向制造商转移）以及公共采购比以往任何时候都更受关注的背景下实施的。文章认为，必须以更有意义的方式利用政府的购买力来解决劳工问题，并且这必须是价值链弹性的一部分。
This paper evaluates ways in which labour issues in global value chains for medical gloves have been affected by, and addressed through, the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on production in Malaysia and supply to the United Kingdom's National Health Service and draws on a large-scale survey with workers and interviews with UK government officials, suppliers and buyers. Adopting a Global Value Chain (GVC) framework, the paper shows how forced labour endemic in the sector was exacerbated during the pandemic in the context of increased demand for gloves. Attempts at remediation are shown to operate through both a reconfigured value chain in which power shifted dramatically to the manufacturers and a context where public procurement became higher in profile than ever before. It is argued that the purchasing power of governments must be leveraged in ways that more meaningfully address labour issues, and that this must be part of value chain resilience.