From Rana Plaza to COVID‐19: Deficiencies and opportunities for a new labour governance system in garment global supply chains
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Authors
The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster highlighted the failure of labour regulation in global garment value chains. Eight years on, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, what changes have occurred in labour regulation and with what consequences for workers? Using the concept of a labour governance system (LGS), the authors show that, despite improvements in building and worker safety regulation, the garment LGS remains weak and wages, working hours and the treatment of workers show little improvement. The pandemic appears to have exacerbated these deficiencies but it may also offer an opportunity to strengthen the LGS along lines proposed in this article.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | International Labour Review |
| Volume | 160 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 591–609 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| ISSN | 0020-7780 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 12.2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, the editors of this Special Issue, and in particular their handling editor, Arianna Rossi, for useful comments in developing this article. They gratefully acknowledge funding by the Volkswagen Foundation for the research project “Changes in the governance of garment global production networks: Lead firm, supplier, and institutional responses to the Rana Plaza disaster” under the Europe and Global Challenges programme. They thank all project team members for their contribution in collecting the data on which this article is based, and Jaco Fourie and Maria George for their excellent research assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© The authors 2021 Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2021