Logics of Sedition: Re-signifying Insurgent Labour in Bangladesh’s Garment Factories

Abstract

I draw on the Tuba hunger strike of 2014, which took place in the shadow of the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the preceding year, to think through questions of collective action in relation to shifting figurations of labour in moments of crisis. I ask how state, capital and (I)NGO priorities shape or re-signify dominant narratives of labour insurgency under supply chain capitalism (Tsing, 2009). I trace conditions that enable the invocation of (highly contextualized) non-work tropes as a strategy for controlling or reframing labour struggles; I am particularly interested in the emergence of the figure of the anti-nationalist or outside agitator and the work of sedition narratives in constructing borders between legitimate and illegal forms of labour mobilization. I show how the highly contingent global assemblages that emerge bear directly on the prospects for organizing (what remains of) the ‘formally’ employed industrial workforce in the global garment sector, holding lessons for other spaces and places.

Fashion diplomacy: Canada’s shared role in supporting garment worker safety in Bangladesh

“…Specifically in the context of the political actions government agents undertake related to sustainable fashion. We echo calls from other scholars which have drawn attention to the Eurocentric and colonial power dynamics across supply chains (Ashwin et al, 2020, Kabeer, 2019Siddiqi, 2020aSiddiqi, , 2020bSiddiqi, , 2022Tsing, 2009;De Neve, 2009;Bhambra, 2021;Pham, 2020bPham, , 2021. Future research into the nature of responsible fashion must work to dismantle structural inequalities.…”

Transnational Representation in Global Labour Governance and the Politics of Input Legitimacy

“…Following decades of suppression, the position of unions is fragile due to union fragmentation (involving more than thirty union federations in the garment sector alone, based on the enterprise unionism model; see Zajak, 2017) (Donaghey & Reinecke, 2018). In addition, issues are consistently raised about external interference in Bangladeshi unions, including union affiliation with political parties; dependence on donors from wealthier economies rather than on members; and so-called yellow unions, which are established by employers to further their interests rather than those of workers (Rahman & Langford, 2014;Siddiqi, 2020). Thus garment workers were in a very disadvantageous position to represent their own interests vis-à-vis local employers and policy makers through collective organising, let alone confronting global buyers whose prime motives to source from Bangladesh were its low production and labour costs (minimum wage currently set at US$95 a month).…”

“…Donaghey et al, 2014; Huber & Schormair, 2021; Reinecke & Donaghey, 2015), where NGOs and unions collaborated to represent labour vis-à-vis capital. Our aim is not to represent the voice of the Bangladeshi garment worker, which others have done (Alamgir & Banerjee, 2019; Kabeer, Huq, & Sulaiman, 2020; Siddiqi, 2020). Instead, our aim is to understand how the interests of Bangladeshi garment workers have been represented in the transnational governance process.…”

“…Even well-meaning NGOs and activists risk generating policy instruments that deviate significantly from those preferred by their intended beneficiaries (Koenig-Archibugi & MacDonald, 2013). Some scholars have gone as far as to argue that NGOs that claim to speak in the name of marginalised populations can end up undermining their agency on the ground (Siddiqi, 2020). Also, in accounts to date of transnational labour analysis, with a few exceptions (Bartley & Egels-Zandén, 2016; Egels-Zandén & Hyllman, 2006; Zajak, 2017), there has been a tendency to conflate different representative actors under the broad heading of “civil society.” For example, trade unions are typically collapsed into “cause-based” organisations like other civil society organisations, even if they are based on a fundamentally different logic of how constituencies are formed and represented.…”

Women construction workers in Nepal: Collectivities under precarious conditions

“…However, with the decline of secure, formal unionized workforces, there is a recognition that mainstream unions are increasingly compelled to try to adopt new strategies to engage with the struggles of informal, unorganized, and gig workers (Eaton et al., 2017). Simultaneously, there is a growing acknowledgment that NGOs engaged with informal workers cannot take the place of unions (Domínguez Reyes & Quintero Ramírez, 2019): the focus of NGOs on alternative income generating activities at the expense of workers' rights (RoyChowdhury, 2005), with depoliticizing agendas tied to funding from donor governments in the Global North, tends to delegitimize labor insurgency (Ismail, 2018; Siddiqi, 2020).…”