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 paper is the result of a yearlong inquiry into possible courses of action that would ad- dress the recruitment governance gap, with particular attention to the abuses that affect a large number of workers. It touches only lightly on problems with...Read More
There is no systematic use of child labour in the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan and significant measures to end forced labour are being implemented. The annual cotton harvest in Uzbekistan is a unique large-scale effort. In 2017, an estimated 2.6 mil...Read More
This report describes in detail two recent cases of factory fires that swept through the facilities of two South Asian clothing manufacturers producing for international brands. These cases are exemplary for the poor health and safety conditions of ...Read More
COVID-19 has put under the spotlight the fast fashion industry in Leicester East, and its exploitation of thousands of (mostly immigrant) workers. Exploitation that ranges from unsafe working conditions through to slavery; from staff being paid belo...Read More
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