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

Version 2 2023-06-06, 09:56
Version 1 2023-06-06, 09:41
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-06, 09:56 authored by Hasan Ashraf, Rebecca PrenticeRebecca Prentice
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.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Dialectical Anthropology

ISSN

0304-4092

Publisher

Kluwer

Issue

1

Volume

43

Page range

93-107

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-01-07

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2019-01-24

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-01-02

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