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.
Thailand has a long history of labour migration, initially as a country of origin, and more recently as a destination country. Today, Thailand is host to the largest number of migrant workers of all ASEAN member states, with approximately 2.8 millio...Read More
This publication provides an overview of the legal and policy framework in place for the protection of trafficking victims in five countries in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam), outlining the various instruments,...Read More
While industrial recycling is squarely situated in the formal sector of the economy, the upstream segments of the recycling supply chain may reach deep into the informal sector, intersecting with the centuries-old occupation of waste picking. In man...Read More
This report illustrates an ILO project in Ghana, in which ILO partnered with the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) of Ghana and the Inland Canoe Fishers’ Association to combat child labour throughout the fish supply chain. ...Read More
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