Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Throughout the world, workers are losing employment rights due to mutually reinforcing trends, including changes in employment laws, fissuring of workplaces, and non-enforcement of existing legislation.  This paper will examine the drayage, or port trucking industry, as a comparative case study, and will examine recent developments in the EU, US, Korea, and Australia.  In Australia, unions have adopted a multi-strategy approach, including organizing, coalition-building, political action and partnership with enforcement agencies to restore workers’ employment rights and improve working condition and road safety, under an initiative called the Safe Rates campaign.  In the U.S., unions and coalition partners have adopted similar approaches, and have begun to win law suits and enforcement actions, but have not yet restored employment rights for most drivers.  In Korea, a union has organized drivers operating as independent contractors who work without employment protections, but has met government resistance to extending legal rights to drivers.   In the EU, national regulatory regimes are breaking down, as EU directives have allowed drivers from countries with weak laws and enforcement regimes to operate without oversight.   Overall, weakened regulatory regimes are allowing hundreds of millions of workers around the world to fall back into a labor market without equity or legal standards.   This paper will highlight some of the policy approaches that have begun to reverse this trend.