Three reasons for the emergence of social responsibility standards

There are three main reasons for the emergence of social responsibility standards:
(1) Trade protectionism has led to the emergence of social responsibility standards. As developing countries' cheap, internationally competitive labor-intensive products enter the markets of developed countries in large quantities, they have impacted the domestic markets of developed countries, causing unemployment or wage reductions for workers in textile, clothing, toys, footwear and other related industries in these countries. As a result, trade unions and other related interest groups have called for the implementation of trade protectionism. In order to protect their domestic markets and reduce political pressure, developed countries such as the United States have increasingly criticized the labor conditions and labor environment in developing countries. At the same time, due to the attraction of low labor costs in developing countries, some multinational companies have transferred their investments to developing countries, reducing domestic employment opportunities in developed countries. In addition, with the influx of cheap goods from developing countries, traditional manufacturing industries in developed countries are simply unable to compete. Some unskilled workers are facing the risk of wage cuts or even unemployment, causing the domestic unemployment problem to deteriorate seriously. In 1996, the unemployment rate in the United States was 5%, and in 1997, the average unemployment rate in the 15 EU countries was 10.7%. After analysis, American economist Wood proved that from the 1960s to the 1980s, the US national foreign trade deficit rose sharply, forcing 3 million American workers to lose their jobs due to factory closures. Therefore, with the rise of the trade status of developing countries, developed countries have set up many new non-tariff barriers to resist the import of foreign products in order to protect domestic manufacturing industries. Among them, social responsibility standard certification is a means for some developed countries to carry out trade protection.
(2) The United States and other Western countries attempted to incorporate labor standards into the WTO framework, but were resisted by developing countries. Due to the constraints of the WTO multilateral trading system, the number of legal trade protection tools that countries can use is limited. Therefore, developed countries have been promoting the formulation of various international labor standards, trying to incorporate labor standards into various bilateral and multilateral trade systems, and establish a connection between trade and labor standards under the WTO framework, which has become a market access condition for developed countries. In 1993, at the Marrakech Conference of the "Uruguay Round" of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the United States and other developed countries proposed to establish "social clauses" in international trade rules to link trade and labor standards. The main purpose was to use political standards to restrict the export of labor-intensive products from developing countries, but it failed due to opposition from developing countries. In December 1996, at the WTO Singapore Ministerial Conference, the United States and other countries attempted to establish a social clause working group in the WTO, which was again strongly opposed by developing countries and international employers' organizations. The United States closely links human rights and trade in its "Normal Trade Relations Act with the People's Republic of China" with provisions such as monitoring China's human rights situation and taking special safeguard measures when Chinese products cause market disruption and trade diversion in the U.S. market. Since then, developed countries such as the United States have never stopped trying to introduce labor standards issues into the international trade system in multilateral trade negotiations, and have successfully included labor standards in several international product agreements such as the "International Tin Agreement" and the "International Sugar Agreement". In 1994, the European Council also incorporated labor standards into its foreign trade policy and suspended the implementation of the Generalized System of Preferences for beneficiary countries that violated certain international labor conventions and used forced labor. Therefore, using social responsibility standards to curb the economic development of developing countries and maintain their competitive advantages is a common means used by developed countries.
(3) Enterprises in developing countries violate labor standards. Due to the backwardness of some developing countries and the early stages of economic development, some enterprises do violate labor standards. Consumer organizations, trade unions and labor organizations in developed countries emphasize that in order to pursue rapid economic development, to compete for orders and to expand exports, developing countries have been competing to lower the wages and labor standards of local workers and suppress the development of the labor movement. When the U.S. Congress enacted the Comprehensive Trade and Competition Act in 1989, it criticized the labor problems in countries such as South Korea and Chile. In order to protect the interests of workers, relevant organizations and enterprises in some countries have forcibly introduced social responsibility standard certification. Initially, American multinational companies and some other similar companies in Europe faced pressure from social groups with different influences and some non-governmental organizations, and were forced to abandon products that were low-priced but produced in poor working environments. Western countries attach great importance to the image of their own companies and have their own value orientation. They believe that an excellent company must not only ensure that its products are competitive in quality and price, but also comply with the requirements of laws and regulations on the company, so as to meet the interests of employees, companies and customers. The current market competition is very fierce. If their suppliers only pursue cost reduction to meet market demand, they will inevitably ignore and damage the interests of employees, which will make them the target of attack by Western society and other competitors. Therefore, for the sake of their own interests, they must evaluate their subordinate suppliers. They will examine the living conditions of employees in the company, their overtime, their wages and various benefits, etc., especially in labor-intensive processing enterprises, such as textile, clothing, hardware, small appliances and other manufacturers. In order to avoid affecting their brand image, some multinational companies such as Nike, Adidas, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, etc. have begun to pay attention to social responsibility work. They not only formulate their own social responsibility codes, but also require product supporting enterprises and cooperative enterprises to abide by these codes, thereby expanding the corporate social responsibility movement to developing countries as production and manufacturing bases. Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. have successively become the focus areas of the movement.

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