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.
The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 and is accurate as of July 11, 2018. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may be revealed to the National Hotline over time. Conseq...Read More
This training manual – developed by ILO and UNICEF under the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking – seeks to aid governments, workers, employers, international, and non-governmental organizations that combat trafficking in children f...Read More
The commentary explains how and why the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights should apply throughout the maritime environment to all business enterprises and in all business operations throughout the maritime supply chain, both on land ...Read More
The latest Migration and Development Brief provides a prognosis of how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic might affect global trends in international economic migration and remittances in 2020 and 2021. The economic crisis induced by COVID...Read More
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