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.
Conducted between February-September 2020, the assessment draws on both desk-based literature, key stakeholder interviews and field research conducted in Bangui, Bossangoa, Bocaranga and Yaloke, as well as internationally. The report presents the...Read More
The G20 ministers committed to taking action to improve occupational safety and health through the country-level and collective measures, taking into account each country’s national context, including by promoting responsible business practices and...Read More
This study was carried out to identify and sequence the determinants impacting the Algerian government’s anti-trafficking efforts. As the only study so far to explore the issue of determinants in Algeria, the authors anticipate this report will im...Read More
A LOT CAN CHANGE IN A DECADE. FOR BETTER, AND FOR WORSE. Ten years ago, in the early hours of April 24, 2013, a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, crumbled. Within its walls were thousands of workers, many of whom never returned home to their ...Read More
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