I am currently working on two research projects on labour governance in global production networks.
The first is a project funded by the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (March 2018 to March 2019) on ‘Improving labour conditions in global production networks through socially responsible public procurement’. This project aims to engage public buyers, nongovernmental organisations, and academics to discuss the role states, such as the European Union (and its Member States), can play to improve working conditions in outsourced factories in developing countries through labour/social conditions in their procurement contracts. This project will also feature as a key output a Special Issue on Socially responsible public procurement: an exploration of the state in labour governance in global production networks’. Please click here for more information on this project.
The second project is funded by the German Research Fund (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) (Principal Investigator from 2019 to 2021) on ‘Labour governance in global production networks: Assessing labour standards in a new generation of public procuremetn legislation and trade agreements linked to market access into the European Union (LG-GPN)’. This project is in collaboration with the Austrian Science Fund (FWF Der Wissenschaftsfonds) and the project partners in Austria are Professor Cornelia Staritz at the University of Vienna and Dr Leonhard Plank at the Technical University of Vienna. This project aims to understand how a new generation of labour standards tied to market access into large consumer markets (the EU in particular) can have on working conditions in developing countries as part of global production networks. The LG-GPN project will research the impact labour standards that are part of a new generation of public procurement legislation and trade agreements in the EU has on labour governance in a key developing country exporter Vietnam. The project will specifically analyse labour provisions in anew public procurement legislation amongst leading EU member states and those which are part o the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. Please click here for more information.
About me:
I am currently a Lecturer in Economic Geography at Queen Mary University of London, School of Geography. My research interests are in labour governance of global production networks in developing countries. My current research focuses on how changing relationships and power dynamics between firms in the electronics industry, governments, non-governmental organizations and trade unions affect negotiations, strategies and activities around labour governance in Malaysia, China, and Vietnam.
After my PhD at the University of Manchester Global Development Institute in 2012, I completed a three-year project on Understanding Power Relations to Improve Labour Governance in the Global Production Network of the Computer Industry as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2016. I am currently working on a book on Improving labour conditions in the global electronics industry: an exploration of governance in a global production network to be published by Oxford University Press. Please visit Publications for access to some of my papers and articles.
I can be contacted at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk. Download CV of Gale Raj-Reichert
