Perhaps more importantly, a new kind of code of conduct is emerging that is as much a set of relationships as a list of standards. The goal of this process is to shift power from the north to the south, so that the local actors have ownership over the implementation and monitoring of the codes. Participants evaluated the Ethical Trade Initiative as an example of this new means of prompting change. In this regard, the issue of China posed certain key challenges, given the lack of NGOs and the inability of workers to organize independent unions there. One intriguing suggestion was for outside organizations to join with Chinese workers in pressing for workers' health and safety committees at the factory level, which would combine monitoring of standards with worker education and empowerment.
Codes of conduct remain largely experimental.
No one is certain how to make them sustainable financially. Or how workers will use the codes to empower themselves. Participants agreed that codes of conduct can't solve all the problems of economic injustice. But they can provide a space, an opening, and an opportunity to improve the standard of living for many workers in the globalized economy. Alongside the conversation on codes of conduct, Roundtable participants discussed the relationship between NGOs and unions.