A status quo of pervasive union busting to undermine the role and effectiveness of trade unions, alongside the promotion of alternative structures unable to improve terms and conditions, is allowing for the perpetuation of a business model that relies on tight margins for suppliers and low worker wages along the fashion supply chain.
- Through a series of case studies and worker interviews, a new report has outlined both supplier and brand complicity with this “outdated and abusive” model.
- The report has sounded the alarm about the consequences of this approach both for the millions of workers labouring along supply chains, but also for fashion brands, which must increasingly meet new legislative and climate demands.
- It has outlined a concerning landscape for worker representation across six major garment-producing countries in South and Southeast Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
THE DOCUMENT: The report, Just for show: Worker representation in Asia’s garment sector and the role of fashion brands and employers, has been published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRC).
- The findings are based on a series of focus group discussions and interviews held with members and partners of the Clean Clothes Campaign—including trade unions and other worker rights advocates—across the six focus countries between October 2023 and May 2024. In some instances, this information is supported by media and other publicly available reports.
KEY FINDINGS: The study found:
- Weak and bogus representative structures are widespread in the South and Southeast Asian garment sector. They mostly take the form of worker committees and/or “yellow” (non-independent) unions. Usually these are cosmetic, or co-opted by management to work in their interests, rather than for the benefit of workers.
- Alternative structures are privileged, while independent trade unions are punished. Employers ensure the dominance of alternative structures over independent trade unions by incentivising workers to join committees and yellow unions, and refusing to allow or negotiate with independent trade unions through pervasive union busting.
- Independent trade unions achieve gains for workers that alternative structures cannot. Of particular value is the role that unions play in education and awareness raising among workers, alongside the concrete improvements in benefits and conditions they drive. Workers are being shortchanged by an absence of proper structures for collective bargaining.
- Promotion of alternative structures creates a vicious cycle that drains trade union capacity and resources, which in turn makes them less effective. Independent trade unions are required to spend valuable time fighting for legitimacy and competing, on a sloping playing field, with weak alternatives that lack the mandate to make sustainable changes to the lives of workers.
- Brands are currently relying on alternative representative structures that allow for light touch worker engagement over actively contributing to an enabling environment for independent union structures and routes to achieve genuine dialogue. There are welcome advances in Global Framework Agreements between some brands and trade unions, and limited binding agreements. But, in general, brands fail to actively support the work of independent trade unions in their supply chains.
- Brands have a vital and enabling role to play as they navigate the worker representation landscape along their supply chains. Overall, brands could and should do more. When they do intervene in support of freedom of association and independent trade unions it makes a positive difference.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS: The recommendations for international fashion brands:
- Strengthen supply chain transformation through workers’ freedom of association.
- Develop robust policies and put them into practice.
- Negotiate Global Framework Agreements and binding agreements for supply chains.
- Instruct suppliers of time-bound demands for freedom of association and collective bargaining in factories.
- Human rights due diligence must be premised on the right to freedom of association and meaningful engagement with workers along supply chains.
The recommendations for investors:
- Integrate freedom of association as a key criterion in the assessment of brands’ material risks in this transforming supply chain landscape.
- Set clear and time-bound expectations to businesses regarding the consolidation of freedom of association, independent trade unions, social dialogue and collective bargaining in operations and supply chains.
- Promote successful dialogue for a just transition.
