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Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis
Author(s) -
Hughes Alex,
Brown James A.,
Trueba Mei,
Trautrims Alexander,
Bostock Ben,
Day Emily,
Hurst Rosey,
Bhutta Mahmood F
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
global networks
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.685
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1471-0374
pISSN - 1470-2266
DOI - 10.1111/glob.12360
Subject(s) - procurement , context (archaeology) , business , purchasing power , supply chain , value (mathematics) , global value chain , pandemic , government (linguistics) , purchasing , value chain , resilience (materials science) , economic growth , covid-19 , economics , marketing , international trade , medicine , philosophy , comparative advantage , linguistics , pathology , computer science , keynesian economics , biology , paleontology , machine learning , thermodynamics , physics , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
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.