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 study aims to strengthen the evidence base on child labour and the labour conditions of migrant workers in Thailand’s shrimp and other seafood supply chains, with a particular focus on communities engaged in these industries. Its objective is ...Read More
The development of technology has had an important influence on the crime of trafficking in persons, presenting both challenges and opportunities. While technology is frequently misused to facilitate trafficking in persons, its positive use can als...Read More
Currently the world is going through an unprecedented health, social, human and economic crisis due to the pandemic caused by the disease COVID-19, catalogued even as the greatest economic and social challenge facing humanity since the Great Depress...Read More
This report focuses on research exploring the labour challenges faced by the South Indian garment industry clustered around Tirupur. The authors found that the industry is at a crossroads. Despite decades of growth it faces three main labour chal...Read More
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