Levi's Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace

""The story of Levi Strauss & Co.""--the world's largest apparel manufacturer, according to Schoenberger--is ""incredibly important in coming to terms with human rights in the global marketplace."" The first American company to publish--and stick to--a code of business principles, Levi Strauss was an early leader in the area of global corporate responsibility. But when push finally came to shove, the author contends, the company abandoned its principles--closing American plants, employing low-wage, nonunionized labor abroad and resisting independent labor code compliance monitoring--in favor of the bottom line. Drawing from oral histories, interviews and a variety of print sources, Schoenberger, a former L.A. Times Asia correspondent and currently an editor of business news at the San Jose Mercury News, carefully reconstructs the story of the rise and fall (and, as he portrays it, rise again) of Levi's code of ethics. Not interested only in Levi Strauss, however, Schoenberger keeps his eye on the bigger public policy picture. As he considers an array of questions about corporate responsibility and human rights, he compares Levi's to other corporations--there are chapters examining Nike's controversial Asian labor practices, for example, and Reebok's ethics-oriented work in Pakistan. In the end, he argues, while corporations should behave responsibly, they cannot always respond to human rights needs in repressive nations or where a democratic infrastructure is absent. The book is well informed and pragmatically evenhanded, though there are some minor flaws: Schoenberger doesn't fully succeed in integrating chapters about other companies into the Levi's narrative, making for a choppy book. Overall, however, and particularly in light of recent protests against the IMF and the World Trade Organization, this book is a thoughtful addition to contemporary debates. (June)