Worker-Driven Co-Research in Global Supply Chains
In the increasingly complex dynamics of global supply chains (GSCs), labor activists face a persistent strategic dilemma: how to combine rigorous corporate research with organizing strategies that meaningfully engage workers. It has long been recognized that successful labor movements integrate workplace organizing with strategic corporate research and comprehensive campaigns. Yet far less attention has been devoted to how workers themselves—particularly in the Global South—can be systematically incorporated into the research processes that underpin these strategies, particularly in cross-border production networks. Worker-driven coresearch in GSCs addresses this gap by embedding workers directly in the research, analysis, and dissemination of knowledge, while also informing organizing campaigns and collective bargaining.
This approach is not merely methodological; it is fundamentally about power relations. Conventional research on labor and supply chains has often been extractive, treating workers as sources of data rather than as co-producers of knowledge. Even participatory approaches can reproduce hierarchical divisions between researchers and researched if community members and workers are confined to data collection roles. Worker-driven co-research seeks to overcome these limitations by involving workers from the beginning of the research process, starting with defining the research questions. In doing so, it challenges asymmetries in knowledge production and strategic decision-making for social change.