Buyer Engagement and Labour Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Bangladesh Accord and Beyond

Abstract

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (‘the Accord’) has received both praise and criticism concerning its implications for corporate responsibility and power. This article contributes to the debate by situating the Accord within a broader set of activities that buyers are engaged in to promote better labour conditions in their supply chains. The authors identify three approaches of buyer engagement: auditing, capacity building and advocacy. Drawing on interviews conducted with European brands and retailers, the article shows how buyers perceive the merits and challenges of these approaches, and whether and how they discharge responsibility and power through these activities. The study shows that the Accord is seen primarily as part of the auditing approach with a key feature being its use of collective leverage as a means of enforcement. While greater buyer power has not necessarily been accompanied by greater responsibility, the article highlights heterogeneity among buyers in how they take up different approaches, painting a more nuanced picture of buyer responsibility and power.

From Rana Plaza to COVID‐19: Deficiencies and opportunities for a new labour governance system in garment global supply chains

“…In addition, lead firms expanded their "regulatory portfolio" towards capacity-building and political advocacy. However, a compliance focus based on auditing rather than a commitment-oriented approach based on capacity-building to improve labour outcomes still dominated (Locke, Amengual and Mangla 2009;Oka, Egels-Zandén and Alexander 2020).…”

Leveraging transparency to shift capital‐labour relations in garment sector production: A critical analysis of the design and structure of the Bangladesh Accord

“…However, the cooperative model is not seen as a panacea for these shortcomings, as it does little to redress power inequalities in GPNs (Lund-Thomsen and Lindgreen 2014), particularly since workers themselves are often excluded (Kabeer, Huq and Sulaiman 2020). The Accord's primary function revolved around a typical compliance-based regime dealing in output standards, based on safety inspections and their transparent documentation (Oka, Egels-Zandén and Alexander 2020). It also adopted elements of cooperative regulation, based on longer-term collaborative working arrangements (such as health and safety committee training, factory floor training and advocacy of freedom of association).…”

“…While others have identified some of these as stand-alone features (Alamgir and Banerjee 2019;Anner, Bair and Blasi 2013;Croucher et al 2019;Donaghey and Reinecke 2018;Salminen 2018), we argue that their necessary interdependence shifts capital and labour relations. The Accord combines traits of both compliance and cooperative-based models of labour regulation (Kabeer, Huq and Sulaiman 2020;Lund-Thomsen and Lindgreen 2014;Oka, Egels-Zandén and Alexander 2020). However, it was also built around a two-party contractual agreement between lead firms and global unions, each possessing 50 per cent of decision-making powers on the Accord's executive board.…”

Shared Responsibility and Labor Rights in Global Supply Chains

“…In theory, the ILO could leverage this new convention to develop tools that facilitate enforceable multi-stakeholder arrangements such as multi-firm TIRAs (Ashwin et al, 2020) and other mechanisms to institutionalize and facilitate worker-driven supply chain governance (Reinecke & Donaghey, 2015;Blasi & Bair, 2019). ILO involvement could, inter alia, ensure sustainable industry-wide participation of TNCs within such schemes, which would help prevent competitive pressures on participating firms (Oka et al 2020;Ahlquist & Mosely, 2021;Schuessler et al, 2019). The ILO could supplementarily extend its existing multi-shareholder programs (Pike, 2020) and supervisory mechanisms (Dahan et al, 2013).…”