Improving the Condition of Workers? Minimum Wage Legislation and Anti-Sweatshop Activism

For many concerned citizens and consumers, international labor standards have a strong intuitive appeal as a remedy to address poor working conditions and low wages in developing countries. The underlying rationale is straight-forward: if we could pressure multinational corporations to significantly improve the working conditions and wages for unskilled workers in the developing world, we would not only improve the lives of hundreds of millions of the poorest workers, but companies operating in developed countries would no longer be forced to compete “unfairly” with developing country manufacturers who can draw on unlimited pools of cheap labor.