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 this report we examine just the tip of this iceberg, reviewing some of the most visible signs of Canadian business ties to forced labour abroad. Companies are importing into Canada large quantities of goods from industries in which forced labour ...Read More
This report is the second of three working papers exploring the experiences and drivers of labour abuse and exploitation in three understudied low-paid sectors of the economy: cleaning, hospitality and the app-based courier sector. It highlights k...Read More
Responsible business conduct by European companies plays a crucial role in ensuring that EU policies on human rights are effectively implemented, including with regard to labour. The EU is committed to promoting the implementation of responsible bus...Read More
This report was originally conceived to be an exploratory analysis of case data on trafficking and exploitation in Southeast Asia that begins online, trying to understand if recruitment is occurring via social media, messaging apps and websites and,...Read More
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