ILPC 2026

Solidarity networks and modes of organising: discoursing gendered labour in RMG industry of Bangladesh

With the expansion of the global market, the era of globalisation and post liberalisation have provided access to a space for human rights campaigns to emerge and form a network of activists to work together from across the world. The emergence of transnational activist networks that counter the hegemony of capital through a variety of methods locates the shift from traditional modes of organising. The transmission of testimonies is one such powerful tool that have been used to garner support for rights at the workplace by the international campaigns. While it has been critiqued for eclipsing the discussion on labour rights with the stress on human rights, it has also shown the need to move beyond the traditional modes of organising to challenge power from the grassroots. At the same time, the lack of response towards the effects of gender relations in the workplace and the rampant sexism and misogyny within the organisation documented in feminist critique of trade unions reinforced the need to focus on the grassroots (Cunnison, 1993).

The Readymade Manufacturing Garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh has undergone several watershed moments from intense militant protests a little more than a decade back to threat on organising and deteriorating terms of employment in the recent years. After a series of grave industrial accidents, many international human rights organisations and networks based in the global north have entered the labour rights discourse in Bangladesh. Inevitably many independent unions were formed which work alongside and in a network with the international human rights organisations. The framing of demands of garment workers struggle based on the particular needs of the women garment workers in the workplace and outside, in the community and family was representative of the shifting discourse on gendered labour. The illustration of this shift can be seen in the current demand for ration and accommodation facilities along with the facilities for child care and proper medical care articulated by the garment workers and activists. In this context, this paper seeks to look at how the transnational network intervenes and changes the landscapes of power in the local and effects the local activist network when a serious threat on unions persists. It also seeks to locate the shifting discourse on gendered labour with respect to the local activist networks and their programmes to respond to the crises faced by women workers in a society that detests women who protest.

Taking from feminist scholars from and based in Bangladesh, the paper locates the study in the gender development and empowerment debate which alludes to the NGO-isation and problems of state sponsored empowerment programmes in the context of Bangladesh (Nazneen and Mahmud, 2014 and Kabeer, 1994). It is also pertinent to look at the role of the state, while acknowledging the term ‘thinned/weak state’ emerging in the literature by Networks of Labour Activism (NOLA) scholars, in mediating between both the networks of global capital and labour activists (Zajak et al, 2017). This paper thus seeks to look at gendered labour and its crises through the network of activists, both global and local, functioning in a globalising economy with a large female workforce and ineffective laws. This paper responds to these questions through a collection of semi structured interviews and group discussions with garment workers and local labour activists gathered during the field work. The analysis of pamphlets, posters and documents published by unions and other stakeholder organisations also form a significant exercise to understand the recognition and representation of gender in local labour activist networks.