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.
As indicated by revised figures providing additional details on the scope of countries’ workplace closure policies, 94 per cent of the world’s workers are living in countries with some sort of workplace closure measures in place. Although more a...Read More
Despite the astounding growth in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) crimes over the past twenty years, the general public has little understanding about what it means, how vast the problem is, and how violently children are abused in order to produc...Read More
The paper presents the findings of a study on external policy measures adopted by the European Union and like-minded partners to address modern slavery in third countries. The study is intended to support the European Parliament in monitoring E...Read More
Migration is not a new phenomenon in India. People have moved across the length and breadth of the country for various reasons, including work. Today, India has a burgeoning urban population, which contributes to about 63% of India’s GDP. A large ...Read More
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