CSR is in an interesting state right now. One of its initial attractions for corporate participants was its voluntary nature. Codes of conduct, for instance, were guiding documents, not legally binding mandates. But of late, it's less clear that CSR is entirely voluntary.
In September of 2005, Terry Collingsworth of the International Labor Rights Fund filed a law suit against Wal-Mart, accusing the world's largest retailer of, among other things, failing to uphold its code of conduct. Mr. Collingsworth has also filed a number of other suits against U.S. companies allegedly complicit in labor violations committed by their overseas suppliers. Although he pursued a different legal route in the Wal-Mart case, Collingsworth's tool of choice is the Alien Tort Claims Act (ACTA), an obscure piece of legislation originally used in piracy cases (on the high seas, not music). A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has verified that it is possible to use the ATCA in very specific situations to hold U.S. companies accountable for overseas labor violations.
However, law suits are not the only sign that CSR is going legal. A number of cities in the U.S., such as New York and Los Angeles, have adopted living wage ordinances. In a new development, Chicago has adopted a controversial "big box" wage ordinance that would require mammoth retailers to pay their store employees a living wage if the retailers want to open stores in the Windy City. The retailers have vowed to fight this ordinance in court, so we'll wait to see what the outcome is.
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