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.
Large numbers of Ethiopian women seek domestic work in the “Middle East Corridor”—a signifcant social trend that reflects a key livelihood strategy used by Ethiopian families and communities in the face of widespread poverty (Kuschminder, Ande...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
Series Brief 1: Cambodia (June 2020) Between the months of February and May 2020, more than 90,000 labor migrants returned to Cambodia as the Covid-19 pandemic caused mass business and industry closures in destination countries such as neighborin...Read More
Worldwide, the majority of child labour is concentrated in the agricultural sector, including fisheries and aquaculture. This brief provides an overview of children’s engagement in child labour in fisheries and aquaculture, the risks they are ex...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
