Worker Voice Initiatives in the Post Rana Plaza Bangladesh Garments Industry: Collective and Individual Approaches

While scholarship has demonstrated a link between workers’ right to organize and improved factory safety, research has paid less attention to how the voice of workers can be strengthened. This chapter explores two initiatives to strengthen worker rights in Bangladesh with different approaches to meeting this goal: The Amader Kotha Helpline (AKH) which grew out of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the Social Dialogue Program (SDP) as part of the Joint Ethical Trading Initiative (JETI). Using as a lens a focus on collective process rights and individual outcome rights, the chapter demonstrates that in the absence of domestic political support for the rights of Bangladesh workers to organize the SDP collective rights approach supported by European brands, there is no wider take-up in other parts of the RMG industry. In contrast, the AKH's focus on empowering individuals has seen an impressive spread among factories, in usage by workers and, among brands joining the scheme.