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.
Inequality is rampant across the global economy, and the agro-food sector is no exception. At the top, big supermarkets and other corporate food giants dominate global food markets, allowing them to squeeze value from vast supply chains that span the...Read More
The Thailand Migration Report 2019 contains 11 chapters that delve into themes such as working conditions, access to services, remittances, human trafficking and exploitation. Each chapter, written by a specific UN agency, provides up-to-date informa...Read More
This research is the first study of its kind looking at the transport needs of survivors of modern slavery, who are supported through the UK’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM). It sought to provide concrete evidence of the situation regarding tra...Read More
In Bangladesh, traffickers have trapped socially and economically marginalised girls and women and sold them into sex work. Furthermore, multiple sociocultural factors shape women’s forced and voluntary movement into sex work. However, there are l...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
