Bangladesh Workers' Rights and Building Safety Quiz

Workers' Rights and Building Safety in Bangladesh

• Bangladesh has been urged by the ILO to align its labor laws with international standards, especially by allowing unionization in export processing zones and facilitating the unionization process in the RMG sector.
• In December 2016, 1,600 garment workers were dismissed and 34 trade unionists were arrested, leading to pressure from labor rights advocates and international brands to release the detained workers and respect workers' rights.
• The European Parliament passed a resolution in June 2017, highlighting the persecution of trade union leaders and poor working conditions in Bangladesh.
• Violations of workers' rights have increased since 2000, with fluctuations corresponding to export pricing trends.
• Suppliers, the government, and buyers share responsibility in addressing workers' rights violations in Bangladesh.
• The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh has made significant progress in building safety, covering over 2 million workers and involving international brands and retailers in a binding agreement.
• Article 22 of the Accord ensures that participating brands and retailers negotiate commercial terms with their suppliers to maintain safe workplaces and comply with upgrade and remediation requirements.
• The Accord's governance structure includes a Steering Committee comprising representatives chosen by trade unions, company signatories, and an ILO representative, ensuring worker participation and decision-making.
• The Accord has a budget of approximately US$11 million per year and has hired and trained engineers and safety personnel to ensure the safety of factories and workers.
• The Accord has temporarily evacuated 50 factories due to structural safety concerns and terminated 96 factories for failing to implement required safety renovations.
• Building evacuations and recommendations are submitted to the government of Bangladesh Review Panel, with the possibility of being overturned by unanimous decision.
• Accord inspectors had d... (text incomplete)

Patterns of Bargaining in Employment Relationships

• The article focuses on employment relationships (ER) involving worker organization and argues that bargaining patterns are related to employer and worker organizational forms.
• The organizational structures of management and labor tend to produce a range of bargaining patterns, with collective bargaining institutions typically focusing the contestation point toward a specific location.
• Four main bargaining patterns are identified: hierarchy-hierarchy, envelopment, dispersion, and network bargaining, each representing different dynamics in the employment relationship.
• The state plays a crucial role in shaping bargaining dynamics by facilitating or constraining employer structures and workers' organizational forms.
• The variation in degrees to which firms and labor adopt organizational forms, as well as state intervention, leads to variations in bargaining patterns across sectors, countries, and time.
• The traditional assumption that political boundaries and social contracts constrain management strategies is no longer tenable due to the rise in network bargaining and labor organizing across boundaries.
• The emergence of network bargaining is influenced by the restructuring of firms and the reorganization of labor to establish new enforceable agreements across the firm network.
• Traditional collective bargaining involves hierarchically organized management and labor, with the hierarchy being an institutional question influenced by market and country-specific factors.
• Constraints on capital's mobility and flexibility lead management to adopt firm or industry-level bargaining structures, and labor organizes into unions to wield its power based on market competitiveness and disruption ability.
• In European markets, industrial conflict is channeled through industry-wide bargaining agreements, while in the United States and many developing market economies, it is channeled through establishment-level bargaining.
• The dynamics and implications of network bargaining are explored, emphasizing the evolving nature of employment relationships and the need to adapt the study of ER to these changes.
• The article highlights the importance of understanding the various bargaining patterns in predicting social outcomes and adapting to the evolving nature of employment relationships.