Under the regime of private company or multi-stakeholder voluntary codes of conduct and industry social auditing, workers have absorbed low wages and unsafe and abusive conditions; labour leaders and union members have become the targets of both government and factory harassment and violence; and trade union power has waned. Nowhere have these private systems of codes and audits so clearly failed to protect workers as in Bangladesh’s apparel industry. However, international labour groups and Bangladeshi unions have succeeded in mounting a challenge to voluntarism in the global economy, persuading more than 180 companies to make a binding and enforceable commitment to workers’ safety in an agreement with 12 unions.
The extent to which this Bangladesh Accord will be able to influence the entrenched global regime of voluntary codes and weak trade unions remains an open question. But if the Accord can make progress in Bangladesh, it can help to inspire similar efforts in other countries and in other industries.
In one-to-one interviews and focus groups, female migrant workers in Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain recounted their experiences with violence in the workplace and how they navigated formal and informal grievance mechanisms. Through their insights, we ai...Read More
This study for the European Commission focuses on due diligence requirements to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for abuses of human rights, including the rights of the child and fundamental freedoms, serious bodily injury or health risks, en...Read More
Abstract On September 10, 2009, the Department of Labor released its initial “list of goods from countries” (List), pursuant to Section 105(b)(2)(C) of the TVPRA of 2005. The List was released as part of a larger report detailing the methodology,...Read More
This toolkit, jointly developed by STOP THE TRAFFIK and Shiva Foundation, seeks to provide practical guidance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on how they can prevent modern slavery in their business operations. We recognise that many u...Read More
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