Labour Rights from Labour Wrongs? Transnational Compensation and the Spatial Politics of Labour Rights after Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza Garment Factory Collapse

Rebecca Prentice

doi:10.1111/anti.12751

Abstract

AbstractThe collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh, which resulted in the loss of at least 1134 lives and injuries to hundreds more, exposed the brutality of a global production system in which labour rights have become privatised, circumscribed, and deterritorialised. Unprecedented for an incident of its kind, affected families received $30 million in “compensation” from global apparel companies through the Rana Plaza Arrangement, a voluntary initiative overseen by the International Labour Organization (ILO). This article situates the Arrangement in debates over labour rights in global supply chains, presenting it as a hybrid mechanism that recognises workers’ right to compensation for injury or death but relies on the voluntarism of corporate social responsibility for funding. Exploring the complex role of neoliberal regulation in reproducing geographies of uneven development, I show how a transnational initiative can restrict labour rights even as it attempts to expand such rights.

Highlights

The April 24, 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Dhaka resulted in the loss of at least 1,134 lives and injuries to hundreds more
Within the crucible of worldwide attention in the post–Rana Plaza period, injured workers and the families of those killed received $30 million in compensation for death and injury from global apparel companies through the Rana Plaza Arrangement, a multi-stakeholder agreement overseen by the International Labour Organization (ILO)
Rana Plaza survivors were compensated using a different approach, but the Spectrum relief fund proved it was possible for multinational companies (MNCs) and labour groups to reach a settlement and administrate the complex process of defining criteria for eligibility, assessing needs based on level of injury, and implementing payments. Based on their experience of Spectrum and other factory disasters, Bangladeshi and transnational labour rights groups believed that the best chance to get a fair distribution of what they called “meaningful” compensation to Rana Plaza survivors was to press the global apparel companies, government, and local employers to agree to a joint compensation deal while worldwide attention was still focused on the collapse

Summary

Introduction

The April 24, 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Dhaka resulted in the loss of at least 1,134 lives and injuries to hundreds more. In an environment of weak state protection, lack of organised labour power, voluntary regulation of MNCs, and a denial of labour rights, it may be surprising that global apparel companies paid $30 million compensation to workers in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza collapse, in a scheme that is widely described as “rights-based.” Turning to the demands and negotiations that produced the Rana Plaza Arrangement, we can see how the aim to channel resources to affected families eventually superseded calls for industry accountability.

Results

Conclusion