Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis

Hughes, Alex; Brown, James A.; Trueba, Mei; Trautrims, Alexander; Bostock, Ben; Day, Emily; Hurst, Rosey; Bhutta, Mahmood F.

Abstract

This paper evaluates ways in which labour issues in global value chains for medical gloves have been affected by, and addressed through, the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on production in Malaysia and supply to the United Kingdom's National Health Service and draws on a large-scale survey with workers and interviews with UK government officials, suppliers and buyers. Adopting a Global Value Chain (GVC) framework, the paper shows how forced labour endemic in the sector was exacerbated during the pandemic in the context of increased demand for gloves. Attempts at remediation are shown to operate through both a reconfigured value chain in which power shifted dramatically to the manufacturers and a context where public procurement became higher in profile than ever before. It is argued that the purchasing power of governments must be leveraged in ways that more meaningfully address labour issues, and that this must be part of value chain resilience.

Citation

Hughes, A., Brown, J. A., Trueba, M., Trautrims, A., Bostock, B., Day, E., …Bhutta, M. F. (2023). Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis. Global Networks, 23(1), 132-149. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12360

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 16, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jan 22, 2022
• Publication Date: 2023-01
• Deposit Date: Feb 16, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2022
• Journal: Global Networks
• Print ISSN: 1470-2266
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-0374
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 132-149
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12360
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7469517
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/glob.12360