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In the last decade, trade unionist and founder of the Awaj Foundation Nazma Akter has seen conditions improve dramatically for garment workers in Bangladesh, in part because workers have been able to form unions, organising to voice their concerns and call for change.
But the wins have been mixed, with many unions lacking real influence. The pandemic, Akter says, has only exacerbated the problems, while also eroding some of the gains that had been won. It’s a pattern that could jeopardise fashion workers’ ability to negotiate on their own behalf, as well as set back progress on issues such as wages in the supply chain more broadly.
Today, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) has published a report, “Unpicked: Fashion and Freedom of Association”, that it says not only substantiates those concerns, but positions them as widespread and here to stay. The report, based on surveys of 124 union activists and labour rights advocates and 24 trade union leaders across 13 factories in five countries, says that freedom of association and collective bargaining — the key pillars on which unions operate and advocate for workers’ rights — are under attack in the countries surveyed, which are all major hubs for apparel manufacturing: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
“Particularly in the context of Covid — if there was any time in which to engage your workers critically on health and safety in the workplace, that was the moment,” says Natalie Swan, labour rights project manager at the BHRRC and contributor to the report. What happened in reality, she says, was just the opposite. “Rather than engage with workers in a meaningful way, [factories took the] opportunity to suppress freedom of association where it existed, or put it on ice where workers were fighting for trade union recognition.”
Retailers are busy right-sizing their inventory. That doesn’t bode well for garment workers, who may be even more vulnerable amid rising prices and stagnant wages than they were early in the pandemic.
It’s the perfect storm of conditions created by the pandemic that allowed this backsliding to happen, she explains. The financial pressure that suppliers face because of order cancellations and payment delays creates a climate of fear, for example, with workers afraid for their jobs — and less likely to try to unionise, or express safety or wage complaints or demands at all. Collective bargaining meetings were suspended; and with physical distancing rules in place, union leaders and organisers were prevented from engaging with factory workers. Swan says those restrictions have become a “pretext” to continue keeping union and non-union workers physically separated.
“The pandemic has added vulnerability. We don’t have job security or unemployment insurance: if you don’t have a job, how can you think about union organising? If you have children at home and you don’t have a job, they’ll be starving at home — so, who will stand for a union?” says Kalpona Akter (no relation), founder and executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity..
In corporate codes of conduct, many brands recognise the rights covered in the BHRRC report — and the authors highlight examples where this is done successfully. However, it continues, the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining have been eroding despite these policies, a trend that aligns with what advocates are seeing in terms of social standards in the supply chain generally. And, while many brands have policies stating support for worker protection, often as part of their sustainability strategies, there is rarely detail on how they monitor those protections. Issues such as worker wellbeing are often a passing mention compared to the headlining environmental targets such as emissions reductions goals.
“There is no enforceable mechanism [in those policies]. How do brands make sure that is happening? The audits, and the audit checkbox system, are not helpful,” says Kalpona Akter.
Unions may not have an especially strong presence in some parts of the world, but advocates say it’s impossible to overstate their importance in workers’ lives and wellbeing in countries where manufacturing accounts for such a dominant portion of the economy. “It’s not always mentioned as much as other rights abuses that sometimes feel more immediate. But, we know the right to freedom of association is absolutely imperative to ensuring that workers are able to — themselves — call for better terms and conditions, for safer workplaces,” says Swan.
The report quotes union activists and organisers from all five major manufacturing countries, who say there are risks associated with joining a union, and that during Covid, codes of conduct were left by the wayside. In Bangladesh, the number of unions has grown since the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, but local organisers say for the most part, it’s a shift in appearance only. “We have a number of unions in Bangladesh, but it's a number. It’s quantity, there’s no quality,” says Nazma Akter.
“If you speak to [government or factory owners], they’ll tell you we have [a record number of] registered factory-level unions. But if you ask them how many of them have signed collective bargaining agreements, they can’t tell you,” says Kalpona Akter, who worked in a garment factory when she was young. “When I was in the factory, it was like this. Pretty much nothing has changed, except the quantity of unions registered. There are very few cases where we have unions and collective bargaining and good agreements with the factories. They are very rare.”
Instead, workers’ efforts to organise have been met repeatedly with episodes of union-busting, she says, citing mass firings and criminal charges issued to workers both before the pandemic and since — in 2016, 2018, 2019 and again this year.
Over a dozen brands are mentioned in the report as current or recent customers of some of the factories the researchers surveyed, whose behaviours have ranged from not engaging with unions as they are legally required to do, to suppressing or intimidating workers in a bid to prevent them from unionising or joining coworkers who have already unionised, BHRRC says. This has included using discriminatory firing, for example. Many major brands have policies in place to recognise and support the freedom to unionise, and some including Asos, H&M and Inditex have signed Global Framework Agreements with global union federations. The report argues these rights are being eroded despite such policies, and says the 13 factories covered in the report supply or have recently supplied brands including Adidas, H&M, Hugo Boss, J.Crew, Asos and Asda.
An Adidas spokesperson said that the company rejects the allegations. “Throughout the pandemic, Adidas has been committed to fair labour practices, fair wages and safe working conditions throughout its global supply chain. We continued to source from our partners and committed to paying all orders, whether they were completed or in process. We continued to ensure legal compliance in terms of pay and benefits for all workers and tracked the working conditions in each and every factory.” H&M declined to be interviewed for this story, referring to its response to the BHRRC that it respects and protects the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining in a number of ways. J.Crew also declined to comment, but told the BHRRC that it conducted an independent investigation when it learned of the allegations contained in the report.
In a statement, Hugo Boss says protecting workers has always been a priority and that it recognises unions and collective bargaining, and that those rights and the need to protect them are formalised in the company’s supplier code of conduct. “We expect all our suppliers to adhere to our defined standards, and we review compliance in periodically conducted social audits at the suppliers’ sites. We are aware of the discussions on freedom of association and have engaged in an extensive and constructive dialog with the involved supplier’s stakeholders to enable progress and be an active mediator among workers, unions, and supplier management.” Asos and Asda did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
The report makes clear, however, that the list of brands named is almost arbitrary, because the industry sources from countless factories in total and only 13 were surveyed for this report. “It is important to underscore that this is an industry-wide problem,” the authors write.
It’s important that all brands recognise their role in the situation, says Swan. While suppliers are responsible for the immediate conditions workers operate in, it’s the brands — through their purchasing practices — that set suppliers up to create either safe, healthy and respectful workplaces, or to pass the pressures and constraints they face on price and speed onto their workers.
“After the pandemic, they are not caring about the workers’ side. They are not paying the fair wages and fair price. It is very important to sign the collective bargaining [agreements]. When we talk with factory management, they always say the brand is not giving the proper price. And, when we go to the brands, they are silent,” says Nazma Akter.
For Swan, the call to action for brands is clear. “What I would say to brands is they should be looking to source from countries that have solid legal frameworks for freedom of association,” says Swan. That’s not a call to cut ties with suppliers where workers aren’t unionised; Swan emphasises that this doesn't solve the problem, it only shifts it elsewhere and potentially can exacerbate it.
“To me, it’s about brands investing in long-term, sustainable relationships — to raise the bar on freedom of association, rather than cutting and exiting because that has implications on the workers and their livelihoods, and it potentially ensures a race to the bottom. What we need is more suppliers who are engaging with freedom of association, so it becomes the norm.”
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