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 decision calls on OSCE participating States to: • Consider ensuring that contractors who knowingly use subcontractors involved in traf- ficking for labour exploitation can be held accountable for that crime; • Develop programmes to curb th...Read More
The new coronavirus (COVID-19) affects almost every area of people’s lives and economic activity and has led to a significant disruption of world trade. The current situation demonstrates how precarious our global systems of production and consump...Read More
To find out more about how the SII has been experienced, the Expert Review gathered information from two surveys and 10 interviews with key stakeholders. There were 14 SSO (all US-based) and 10 FI survey respondents (seven US, two Canada, and on...Read More
Pitiful wages, child labour and sexual abuse is reported to be the reality for some Syrian refugees working without permits in Turkey, posing a major challenge for the garment brands that source from the country to supply Europe’s high streets. ...Read More
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