ABSTRACT
The post-Rana Plaza period has been marked for various national and global initiatives with a view to fix the decent work agenda of Bangladesh’s apparels sector. According to the ILO, decent work has four components, which include employability, decent wage, workplace safety and workers’ rights. Among different stakeholders, the buyers and suppliers play the most important role in implementing the decent work agenda in the value chain. The main focus of this chapter is to examine how the buyers and suppliers have taken part in implementing related activities during this period and how distinctive those activities were compared to those of the pre-Rana Plaza period. The chapter identifies five key stances of the behaviour of the buyers and the suppliers as well as their activities. These are: (1) activities were overtly focused on workplace safety issues but low or no focus on non-safety issues; (2) an important learning gathered by Bangladesh’s RMG sector on international standards for improving workplace safety; (3) an absence of the same level of participation by all categories of buyers and suppliers is observed; (4) there is limited role of other market players in ensuring decent work agenda and (5) limited progress towards institutionalization of the decent work activities is a major concern. Since the decent work agenda is not driven by a market-based mechanism only, the chapter suggests that an appropriate blend with institutional mechanism needs to be ensured. This chapter proposes to develop a comprehensive decent work agenda putting focus on the four identified components. Implementation of the agenda should have the commitment of all key stakeholders under an international agreement and along with a national plan of action.
