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 targeted, exploratory research project, Verité examined three illustrative transnational migrant worker recruitment corridors – Nepal to Qatar, Myanmar to Malaysia, and Myanmar to Thailand – to identify the points in the recruitment pro...Read More
By C4ADS Executive Summary North Korean overseas forced labour is both a proliferation finance and a human rights issue. The Kim regime sends citizens to work abroad under heavy surveillance, confiscates their wages, and uses the funds to support a ...Read More
Edited by Genevieve LeBaron and Neil Howard. This is the second volume of the series Beyond Trafficking and Slavery Short Course. There is a growing and sober awareness among international policymakers and within global civil society that hum...Read More
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has quizzed 100 construction companies operating in Qatar and the UAE on the measures they are taking to stop exploitation of migrant workers. Only 22 responded, indicating a shocking level of inaction. ...Read More
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