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Dignity factory workers producing shirts for overseas clients, in Accra, Ghana

More TLC? Trade-Labor Connections in the New Global Order

Join GLI’s day-long 2025 conference, which will focus on the state of labor standards and work in the new era of global trade. What does the landscape of trade policy look like in the Trump era? How will forced labor affect U.S. and E.U. trade actions? We will discuss those topics and more.

570 Lex
More TLC? Trade-Labor Connections in the New Global Order

Hot Air: What works to combat extreme heat in apparel production in Asia?

Join us in Bangkok, Thailand at Thammasat Business School as we present new analyses and responses to heat’s impacts for workers, manufacturers, apparel brands and governments in South and Southeast Asia.
Workers walking across a precarious bridge over scant water
Hot Air: What works to combat extreme heat in apparel production in Asia?

The Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-based Violence and Harassment

Has It Worked?

This is GLI’s official final assessment of the Dindigul Agreement to End Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at a South Indian apparel factory that could be a model for other factories around the world. 

Large room of garment factory workers
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Warming to the Idea? Labor Governance and Extreme Heat in Apparel Production

Impacts of Climate Change on Global Apparel Production

How have weather conditions already started to affect the apparel industry and how should the industry adapt? This policy brief builds upon past GLI research and our report co-produced with the IFC and the ILO's Better Work program to present new findings on the impacts of extreme heat and the adaptation responses from employers, workers, their governments and buyers in the global apparel and footwear industry. See our new research here.

Cambodian workers are seen in a local footwear manufacturing plant, with containers of materials in multiple colors sitting in front of workers wearing bandanas and many wearing masks as well.
Read the full report

Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Labor Outcomes Metrics

Read about the Global Labor Institute's new quantitative metrics that measure labor outcomes—actual impacts for workers.

Workers in Bangladesh
Read more about Measuring Supply Chain Due Diligence

Latest Research and Events

What Makes a Decent Factory?

Until recently, there has been a lack of data that allowed researchers to distinguish between highly compliant factories and non-compliant ones.
factory workers
What Makes a Decent Factory?

NCP Event: How do we fix trade policy to help workers?

What has to change in U.S. trade policy to improve labor practices in global supply chains? Join the Cornell ILR School's New Conversations Project and Sandra Polaski, Senior Research Scholar at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, on 19 January 2021. 
Cargo ship in the ocean with several containers.
NCP Event: How do we fix trade policy to help workers?

COVID-19 and the Garment Industry Brief

The New Conversations Project has published a new research brief with the ILO assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the apparel industry in Asia and the Pacific.
Female garment workers wearing masks.
COVID-19 and the Garment Industry Brief

Published Papers on Labor Practices in Global Supply Chains

ILR Review published special issue devoted to research findings on sustainable labor practices in global supply chains.
ILR Review cover
Published Papers on Labor Practices in Global Supply Chains

Webinar: How do we resolve labor disputes under global supply chain agreements?

NCP leads webinar on a new proposal for model arbitration provisions in enforceable brand agreements between labor advocates and global firms.
Crowd of striking workers outside a garment factory speaking with a manager
Webinar: How do we resolve labor disputes under global supply chain agreements?

Katalyst Initiative: Human Rights Due Diligence, Making it Mandatory

New Conversations Project expert publishes article for the European University Institute on the movement to implement mandatory human rights due diligence laws
Katalyst Initiative logo, orange text stating katalyst initiative
Katalyst Initiative: Human Rights Due Diligence, Making it Mandatory

In The News

Media Mentions

The COP30 Deal Won’t Solve Fashion’s Climate Problems

The Business of Fashion News
Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute, recommends that the fashion industry should “get their act together” with regard to heat and climate change, “because workers are suffering from heat stress and, in turn, so are margins.”
The COP30 Deal Won’t Solve Fashion’s Climate Problems

Do the Labor Provisions in Trump’s Southeast Asian Trade Deals Have a Point?

Sourcing Journal
Kelly Fay Rodriguez, visiting lecturer at ILR’s Global Labor Institute and former special representative for international affairs at the Department of State, analyzes the importance of labor provisions in trade agreements and discusses how these provisions can best be enforced.
Do the Labor Provisions in Trump’s Southeast Asian Trade Deals Have a Point?

Resilient Threads: Weaving A Climate-Ready, Regenerative Future for Cotton in India

Observer Research Foundation
A study by ILR’s Global Labor Institute is cited in a discussion about climate change causing problems for the cotton supply chain used by Asia’s fashion sector.
Resilient Threads: Weaving A Climate-Ready, Regenerative Future for Cotton in India

Hot Air: How will fashion adapt to accelerating climate change?

Impacts of Climate Change on Global Apparel Production

How have weather conditions already changed in major apparel production centers? In this follow-up to our Higher Ground? reports, we looked at the past twenty years of weather data in our 23 focus cities to try and find that out, as well as ask how workers, brands and retailers, manufacturers and their governments should react and adapt to our warming future in a world of corporate due diligence. Read our findings here.

A flooded area near to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
/global-labor-institute/research-0/gli-hot-air

Higher Ground? Fashion’s Climate Breakdown

Impacts of climate change on global apparel production

In partnership with Schroders, we report the impacts of climate change on global apparel production. In our first report, we track climate change impacts at the global, national, and factory levels. We map fashion's climate vulnerabilities across production centers, and estimate future economic damages from extreme heat and flooding. Our second report examines company-level climate risk, cost, and financing for adaption and just resilience.

Textile workers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Read the reports

Change or Groundhog Day? What new research tells us about what works in global labor governance

2024 GLI Conference Highlights

Samira Rafaela
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