Competitive and Fair: The Case for Exporting Stronger Extraterritorial Labor and Employment Protection

Authors

Carson Sprott

Abstract

Increasingly, U.S. citizens are choosing or being asked to work in foreign countries for U.S. corporations or their direct subsidiaries. American laws often regulate expatriate employment status, but there is drastic inconsistency in the application of such laws. This paper discusses the limited application of U.S. labor and employment laws to U.S. corporations abroad to both American and foreign labor. This is juxtaposed against the stronger rights of alien workers here in the U.S. The analysis is specifically focused on the need for a coherent foreign employment law policy consistently applied by Congress. As a corollary, there is an economic and moral need to export core, universal labor standards to host nations within the legal confines of those sovereign nations. The author argues that U.S. citizens as well as foreign labor working for U.S. corporations and their subsidiaries abroad should be subject to U.S. labor and employment law to the extent their host nation permits.

Recommended Citation

Carson Sprott, Competitive and Fair: The Case for Exporting Stronger Extraterritorial Labor and Employment Protection, 33 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 479 (2010).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_international_comparative_law_review/vol33/iss2/6