Three reasons the Biden administration should stop fetishizing forced labor 

Forced labor is having a defining moment in U.S. foreign policy. 

In an effort to eradicate forced labor worldwide, the Biden administration has created new interagency task forces, bilateral task forces with foreign allies, initiatives at the World Trade Organization (WTO), trade instruments and customs legislation banning numerous products made in Xinjiang, China.  

These, and other federal policies, are laudable. Despite global efforts to eradicate forced labor, both within and outside the United States, the number of people forced to engage in exploitative work for no remuneration continues to rise. 

Nevertheless, by fetishizing forced labor over workplace democracy and collective action, the Biden administration risks undermining worker protections. Here are three reasons why: 

Forced labor is a symptom, not the disease. At the International Labor Organization (ILO), governments and private actors have worked together for over a century to eradicate forced labor while also guaranteeing protections for the other labor principles deemed “fundamental”: freedom of association and collective bargaining, eradication of child labor, the elimination of discrimination with respect to employment and occupational safety and health.   

A key lesson from the ILO’s experience is that to achieve any of those protections, including protections from forced labor, freedom of association and collective bargaining must come first. According to the organization, governments cannot eradicate forced labor without first ensuring that workers enjoy the right to join and form unions and engage in collective activities such as strikes.  

Why? Because without the opportunity to countervail employers and raise their voices collectively, workers are inherently vulnerable to exploitation. Without collective representation, they are invisible. By focusing solely on forced labor rather than workers’ collective voice and action, we miss the opportunity to prevent exploitation in the first place. 

Without workplace democracy, we lack the necessary data to combat forced labor. A common refrain in the forced labor narrative is the need for better data. Consider efforts to ban various imports from Xinjiang Province, which continue to falter owing to the lack of data in facilities and along global supply chains. Companies that provide auditing services promise blockchain technology, responsible business checklists and even DNA sprays to solve forced labor’s data problem. They are making out like bandits. 

Unfortunately, the solution to forced labor requires more than technological innovations. Without reaching the workers subjected to various workplace practices, those companies cannot offer anything more concrete than points of origin. We might receive data that 27 percent of workers on a Thai fishing boat are from Cambodia, but won’t know whether the fishing vessel owners required them to relinquish their passports. We can spray all the cotton we want with a chemical purporting to trace DNA, but won’t know whether the factory of origin requires workers to pay off familial debts. 

Reaching individual workers in isolated facilities is an impossible undertaking. We can’t march into Xinjiang cotton farms or interview fishermen on ghost vessels about their work contracts. But one of the basic premises of worker organizing is that, while individual workers may be invisible, a thousand workers are less so. Through representative organizations, workers have a pathway to publicity. The administration doesn’t need to invest in more data resources; it must promote and protect worker organization. 

It is far easier to galvanize political support for eradicating forced labor through corporate-driven technology than workplace democracy. Many of the same Congress members wagging their fingers at companies accused of engaging in forced labor are advancing state and federal legislation to weaken unions. Given the acrimonious attitude of many American policymakers towards unions, it is unsurprising to see our trade and customs legislation silent on protecting unions’ rights or even workers’ collective rights.  

Forced labor is far more complex than current initiatives suggest. To sell the forced labor narratives, politicians and agencies remind us that “modern-day slavery” is an anathema of American ideals, thanks to the 13th Amendment. That characterization helps ignite political support even from those who avoid enforcing international labor standards. 

The problem with the slavery imagery is that we expect to see shackles, physical abuse and restraints on movement. We consequently overlook more subtle forms of forced labor, including those at home. For instance, according to international standards that the United States has ratified, forced labor includes subjecting prisoners to compulsory labor for having engaged in labor strikes. Legislation like North Carolina’s violate forced labor protections by subjecting public servants who have engaged in strikes to prison labor.  

Forced labor standards also prohibit penal punishment involving work assigned “more severely to certain groups defined in racial, social, national or religious terms.” Yet, the U.S. Department of Justice statistics reveal significant overrepresentation among Black and Hispanic prisoners. These seemingly exploitative practices do not satisfy our images of slavery, yet violate the same global standards the administration seeks to enforce abroad. 

Fetishizing forced labor leaves prisoners, children and adults without a collective voice and more likely to be forced into exploitative work.

Desiree LeClercq is the Proskauer Employment and Labor Law Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, New York, where she teaches international labor law, U.S. labor law, and employment law. She is a former director of labor affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.