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.
Esta publicación presenta un balance de la sociedad civil acerca de los avances del Estado frente al delito de trata de personas durante los años 2018 y 2019. This publication presents an overview of the progress made by the Peruvian government...Read More
Unlocking Potential: A Blueprint for Mobilizing Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking is the final report of the Liechtenstein Initiative for a Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, which has now formed Finance Again...Read More
This briefing builds on the understanding that labour exploitation is part of a spectrum ranging from labour compliance through to labour law violations, culminating at extreme exploitation in the form of forced labour. Research by FLEX and others s...Read More
This publication provides an overview of the epidemic of modern slavery and human trafficking, surveys some of ways that these challenges have been negatively transformed by COVID-19, and explores how approaches rooted in principles of computational...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
