Case study

Making the Bangladeshi garment industry accountable

The garment industry in Bangladesh is a combination of the export and domestic sectors. Accountability in the export sector is associated with universal codes of conduct driven by companies' concerns about reputation. The domestic sector contains more genuine seeds of a democratic culture of accountability.

Export sector

Consumer awareness campaigns have highlighted the long hours, no contracts, salary payment delays and violations of health and safety standards that Bangladeshi export garment workers face. As a result, international buyers imposed codes of conduct on working conditions to avoid bad publicity.

Failure to comply with basic labour standards now carries real penalties for the garment manufacturers, as international buyers take away their orders. The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies examined whether the 'culture of compliance' has contributed to the growth of a culture of accountability.

Conditions improved for the workers in factories that dealt with foreign buyers. However, there were few significant changes and many employers tried to evade their responsibilities, except for the most visible aspects of the codes of conduct. Also, this compliance to international standards is different to compliance with national labour laws drawn up by the state, which set out the rights of all Bangladeshi citizens.

Codes of conduct do not necessarily lead to genuine accountability:

• Although there is evidence of greater compliance with codes, it is due to the companies' vulnerability in the international buyer-driven value chain, rather than a genuine value of accountability.
• International brand name companies are more concerned about their reputation than with the needs of workers.

Domestic sector

Most garment workers, many of them women, work informally and outside the export sector, beyond the reach of international buyers and codes of conduct. These workers have little strategic importance because they do not earn the country's foreign exchange. Nevertheless, the domestic sector employs the majority of poor working people.

It is here that the seeds of a genuine culture of democratic accountability can be found, but it is still early to see significant changes in accountability practices:

• There is a new growth in labour organisation to support the needs of the most vulnerable people. Garment workers, however, have little faith in the trade unions. The activities of the government and organisations prepared to represent their particular interests are more relevant to this set of workers.
• Although workers are still largely unaware of their rights, they are less willing to tolerate injustice in the workplace. There are more visible signs of reaction, such as shop floor protests, walk outs and street protests over minimum wages. Women participate in these processes though they rarely have leadership roles.

Simeen Mahmud
Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies, E-17 Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh
T + 880 2 9114790
F +880 2 8113023
simeen@sdnbd.org

See also

'Compliance Versus Accountability: Struggles for Dignity and Daily Bread in the Bangladesh Garment Industry' by Simeen Mahmud and Naila Kabeer, in Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability, Zed Books: London, edited by Peter Newell and Joanna Wheeler, 2006

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