Beyond factory safety: labor unions, militant protest, and the accelerated ambitions of Bangladesh’s export garment industry

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between labor unions and labor precarity in Bangladesh's garment industry. After a string of high-profile factory disasters-including the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building-Bangladeshi labor unions have played a central role in new global initiatives to improve factory safety. These initiatives have provided an opportunity for unions to influence the governance of labor standards in a context of low levels of factory unionization. We argue that such global initiatives have deepened an existing divide between the conciliatory stance of mainstream, politically connected Bangladeshi unions and workers' more radical responses to precarity. Militant protests have advanced workers' interests historically, but are increasingly delegitimized and subject to violent crackdowns. This article contributes to our understanding of the fraught relationship between precarious workers and traditional labor unions by showing that when unions devote themselves to the technocratic improvement of labor standards without confronting the structural conditions of precarity itself, workers can be made more vulnerable-a situation that becomes heightened in a context of fast industrial expansion.

Paradigm Shift or Business as Usual? Workers’ Views on Multi‐stakeholder Initiatives in Bangladesh

“…It is also this practical consciousness that has fuelled subsequent ‘wildcat’, often violent, agitations that have led to periodic increases in the minimum wage. As a number of authors point out, this form of ‘collective bargaining by riot’ or ‘collective labour militancy recast as senseless vandalism’ (Ashraf and Prentice, : 104) can be seen as an understandable response to the persistent repression of more legitimate forms of collective bargaining. It has proved remarkably effective at least in achieving wage rises.…”

“…Different sections of civil society, including human rights activists, feminist groups, legal organizations and progressive policy think‐tanks, who are active in promoting democratic process and the rule of law within the country, have also been active in supporting the struggle for labour standards and workers’ rights in the garment sector. They do not view these struggles as distinct from each other (Ashraf and Prentice, ; Hossain and Hossain, forthcoming; Mahmud and Kabeer, ; Rahman and Langford, ; Siddiqi, ). They recognize that success in promoting workers’ rights in the most significant industry in the country may help catalyse change in other sectors of the economy, a version of the ‘lighthouse effect’.…”

Predatory purchasing practices in global apparel supply chains and the employment relations squeeze in the Indian garment export industry

“…For more on freedom of association in the global garment industry, see Ashraf and Prentice (2019), and Prentice and De Neve (2017). For more on health and safety in the global garment industry, see Ashraf and Prentice (2019 The survey focused on apparel exporters. The data show that more than 50 per cent of the factories covered had 250 workers or fewer; only 7.1 per cent had more than 1,000 workers.…”

Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza

“…Moreover, the partnership achieved at higher levels may be at odds with conflictual relations lower down the supply chain (Fichter and McCallum, 2015). Relatedly, the failure of global unions to reach out beyond their own affiliates within Bangladesh has led sections of local civil society, including progressive left unions, to see these affiliates as out of touch with workers' everyday experiences (Ashraf and Prentice, 2019;Hossain and Hossain, forthcoming). It has been progressive left unions in the country, rather than those with transnational links, that have led a series of struggles by garment workers since 2006 that have resulted in successive increases in their minimum wages.…”