Labor Global Supply Chains And The Garment Industry In South Asia

This book argues that larger flaws in the global supply chain must first be addressed to change the way business is conducted to prevent factory owners from taking deadly risks to meet clients’ demands in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Using the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as a departure point, and to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future, this book presents an interdisciplinary analysis to address the disaster which resulted in a radical change in the functioning of the garment industry. The chapters present innovative ways of thinking about solutions that go beyond third-party monitoring. They open up possibilities for a renewed engagement of international brands and buyers within the garment sector, a focus on direct worker empowerment using technology, the role of community-based movements, developing a model of change through enforceable contracts combined with workers movements, and a more productive and influential role for both factory owners and the government. This book makes key interventions and rethinks the approaches that have been taken until now and proposes suggestions for the way forward. It engages with international brands, the private sector, and civil society to strategize about the future of the industry and for those who depend on it for their livelihood. A much-needed review and evaluation of the many initiatives that have been set up in Bangladesh in the wake of Rana Plaza, this book is a valuable addition to academics in the fields of development studies, gender and women’s studies, human rights, poverty and practice, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, and South Asian studies.

This book analyzes the choices and constraints of management within the Bangladesh garment industry and how management negotiates these challenges to ensure the global garment supply chain is sustainable. Exploring the international South Asian garment industry and using middle management and the owners of Bangladeshi factories as a case study, the book assesses the limits and costs of globalization for Bangladesh, and outlines the challenges of the fast-fashion business model for the global market. It focusses on the changing dynamics of the entrepreneur class, how they manage factories and their experiences with Accord-Alliance, and the challenges of sustainability. Within these four broader themes, the author critically examines management strategies towards compliance and labour productivity, transnational governance, buyer–supplier relationships, and power dynamics. This book is the first to explore management’s perceptions of workers, buyers, and government through an analysis of four factories which demonstrate the role of mid-level management, how supervisors treat production workers, workers’ impact on innovation, welfare programmes as well as CSR policies, and the impact of COVID-19. Offering new perspectives on Bangladesh’s garment export industry, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of policy studies, labour studies, South and South-East Asian studies, development studies, international trade, and political science.

Threads of Labour presents new empirical research by a network of garment workers' support organizations and makes sense of global supply chains from the bottom up. Presents new empirical research by a network of garment workers' support organizations in ten different locations in Asia, Europe and Mexico. Creates a blueprint for conducting worker-orientated action research in order to better understand and resist the negative impact of globalization on labour. Ensures that workers' voices reach those who are already trying to reconfigure global capitalism in more humane directions. Explores the ways in which workers might begin to develop new forms of organization that are more suited to securing gains in the global garment industry. Bridges the gap between activist and academic research, improving the conversation between these two groups.

South Asia is in the midst of a demographic transition. For the next three decades, the growth of the region’s working age population will far outpace the growth of dependents. Close to one million individuals will enter the workforce every month. This large, economically active population can increase the region’s capacity to save and make crucial investments in physical capital, job training, and technological advancement. But for South Asia to realize these dividends, it must ensure that its working-age population is productively employed. As one of the most prominent labor-intensive industries in developing countries, apparel manufacturing is a prime contender. With around 4.7 million workers in the formal sector and another estimated 20.3 million informally employed (combined with textiles), apparel already constitutes close to 40 percent of manufacturing employment. And given that much of apparel production continues to be labor-intensive, the potential to create more and better jobs is immense. There is a huge window of opportunity now for South Asia, given that China, the dominant producer for the last ten years, has started to cede some ground due to higher wages. But the region faces strong competition from East Asia—with Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam already pulling ahead. Plus the sector suffers from production inefficiencies and policy bottlenecks that have prevented it from achieving its potential. Against this backdrop, this report hopes to inform the debate by measuring the employment gains that the four most populous countries in South Asia—Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (hereafter `SAR countries’)—can expect in this new environment of increased competition and scrutiny. Its main message is that it is important for South Asian economies to remove existing impediments and facilitate growth in apparel to capture more production and create more employment as wages rise in China. The successful manufacturers will be those who can supply a wide range of quality products to buyers rapidly and reliably—not just offer low costs.

Globalization of production has created opportunities and challenges for developing country producers and workers. This volume provides solutions-oriented approaches for promoting improved working conditions and labour rights in the apparel industry.

This book serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the theories and applications in managing the Asian fashion supply chain, presenting both quantitative and exploratory studies. Providing academicians and practitioners insights into the latest developments and models, it also offers diverse perspectives on areas like strategic sourcing, quick response strategies, and other essential parts of the supply chain.

This book uses an analysis of the garment industry in South Asia to uphold the predictions of neo-classical economic trade theory, but suggest that there is little to learn from it about business, structural, and institutional practices or critical linkages and partnerships.

This multidisciplinary volume offers unique perspectives, across the globe and throughout the centuries, on the complexity of the nexus between work and the life course. For industrialized regions, from Germany and Western Europe to China and Japan, it questions the widespread notion of an overall growing working life course instability, since the 1970s. For unindustrialized or industrializing regions, from West Africa to state socialist East Central Europe, as well as for transnational and transcontinental labour migrations, it shows the enormous influence of the extended family and wider kin on individual pathways into and out of work. For early modern Europe, India, and China, and up to twentieth-century state socialism and to current welfare states, it stresses and concretizes the crucial impact of age and gender for both societal labour relations and individual work-related decision making. With all chapters based on original research, the volume reflects a close cooperation between historians, anthropologists, and sociologists. Its multidisciplinary approach finds expression in its methodological plurality, reaching from archival research and sophisticated statistical analyses to biographical interviews and participant observation. This mix allows to grasp the interaction between societal change and individual agency.