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Stakeholder Capitalism and Workers' Rights in the Bangladesh Garment

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Stakeholder Capitalism and Workers' Rights in the Bangladesh Garment University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT Stakeholder Capitalism and Workers’ Rights in the Bangladesh Garment Industry by Eleanor G. Tighe Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2014 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMAN AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Geography and Environment Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Stakeholder Capitalism and Workers’ Rights in the Bangladesh Garment Industry Eleanor Grace Tighe This thesis provides an original contribution to understanding of stakeholder capitalism and applications of stakeholder capitalism to labour governance in globalised clothing production networks. Specifically, this thesis draws on primary qualitative and ethnographic field-data collected in Dhaka, Bangladesh to provide new insight to the challenge of poor working conditions and workers’ rights in the global garment industry. The research presented here questions the potential of retail-led stakeholder capitalism to contribute positive development outcomes to the lives of workers employed in cut and stitch garment manufacture. Adopting the Global Production Network’s (GPN) framework, the thesis argues that the ability of stakeholder capitalism to engage and advance the voice of workers in clothing and retail GPNs is influenced by the nature of the relationship and strategic coupling between transnational retailers and their localised factory suppliers. It argues that civil society demands for labour standards have generated a compliance-based response to stakeholder capitalism whereby expectations and acceptance of labour standards are negotiated between retailers and their suppliers. While these negotiations appear discursive, the voices of workers in these negotiations appear largely absent. Thus, it makes an original contribution to understanding relational processes in clothing production systems, moving away from top-down, buyer-driven linear approaches, to conceive power relations in retail production networks as dynamic, subjective and negotiated. This thesis argues that how these power relationships are negotiated and the impacts and interactions of these relations needs to be understood and accounted for if stakeholder capitalism is going to have a serious impact on improving the lives of workers in globalised production systems. Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ i List of tables ......................................................................................................................... v List of figures .................................................................................................................... vii List of accompanying materials ...............................................................................xi DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................ xiii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ xv Definitions and Abbreviations .............................................................................. xvii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 20 Chapter 2: Labour Governance and Workers’ Rights ................................... 28 2.1 Governance and Power in Global Production Systems ................................ 29 2.2 Developmental States and Export Orientated Garment Production in Asia 37 2.3 The Labour Movement and the Evolution of Industrial Relations ......... 42 2.4 Re-invigorating trade unions? The rise of the ‘Global Union Federations ................................................................................................................................. 46 2.5 Stakeholder Capitalism and ‘Multi-stakeholder Initiatives’ ...................... 50 Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................... 58 3.1 Stakeholder Capitalism in the Bangladesh RMG Industry: A Case Study Approach ...................................................................................................................................... 59 3.2 Writing the Research: Fieldwork to final data collection ........................... 61 3.3 Data Collection Methods ............................................................................................ 66 3.3.1 Field Observations ..................................................................... 66 3.3.2 Interviews ................................................................................. 68 3.3.3 Secondary Sources .................................................................... 74 3.4 Data Collection and Analysis ................................................................................... 74 3.4.1 Transcribing and Coding Interview Data .................................... 75 3.4.2 Analysis of FLA Tracking Charts ................................................ 76 3.5 Research Ethics and Positionality .......................................................................... 77 i 3.6 Limitations and Partiality ........................................................................................... 80 3.6.1 Partiality of the Case Study Approach: Positionality and the FLA 80 3.6.2 Challenging Research Context .................................................... 81 Chapter 4: The Political Economy of the Bangladesh Garment Industry 84 4.1 Theories of Growth ....................................................................................................... 85 4.2 The Rise of the Ready Made Garment Industry .............................................. 88 4.3 Geography of Production ........................................................................................... 97 4.4 The Politics of Production in the Bangladesh RMG Industry ................ 104 4.4.1 History .................................................................................... 104 4.4.2 Labour Law ............................................................................. 111 4.4.3 Present Day Firm-State-Trade Unions Relations ........................ 113 Chapter 5: Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives, Compliance and Contradictory Outcomes .......................................................................................... 119 5.1 Worker Participation and Stakeholder Politics ............................................. 122 5.2 Local awareness of MSIs: Managers’ Perspectives ..................................... 130 5.3 Management Understandings of MSIs .............................................................. 141 5.4 Codes of Various Values ......................................................................................... 145 5.5 Compliance and Contradictory Outcomes ...................................................... 149 5.6 Contradictory Attitudes ........................................................................................... 152 5.7 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 153 Chapter 6: Stakeholder Capitalism, Social Auditing and Workers’ Voice……… ....................................................................................................................... 157 6.1 Participatory Labour Governance, Stakeholder Capitalism and Workers’ Voice ........................................................................................................................ 159 6.2 The Function of the FLA........................................................................................... 161 6.3 The FLA Social Audit .................................................................................................. 166 6.4 Audit Codes and Benchmarks ............................................................................... 173 6.5 Training and Remediation ...................................................................................... 178 6.5.1 Year Round Labour Governance ............................................... 179 6.5.2 Approach to Remediation......................................................... 181 6.6 FLA Participating Companies and their Interests ....................................... 184 6.6.1 Product Type ........................................................................... 188 6.6.2 Visibility .................................................................................. 190 ii 6.6.3 Place-based politics .................................................................
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