Stitching Governance for Labour Rights
Towards Transnational Industrial Democracy?

This book shows how the Rana Plaza disaster led to voluntary labour governance initiatives based on a model of transnational industrial democracy.

Juliane Reinecke (Author), Jimmy Donaghey (Author)

9781108486873, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 March 2023

220 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.8 cm, 0.57 kg

'Workers have a right to stay alive at work. Unforgivably, it seems that the global brands that now dominate the world economy only 'woke up' to this fundamental right when over a thousand workers died in the Rana Plaza factory collapse. This book is a wake-up call for everyone, from international agencies to national governments, from producers to consumers. Reinecke and Donaghey demonstrate how production and consumption relations have been 'disconnected' by global supply chains, and they make a compelling democratic case for these relations to be 'stitched back together'. Although the market-driven form of industrial democracy that characterised the Accord ultimately fell short, this book is an essential read for all those who are trying to stitch national and international labour regulation back together.' Peter Turnbull, Professor of Management & Industrial Relations, University of Bristol, UK, and President, British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA)

Transnational labour governance is in urgent need of a new paradigm of democratic participation, with those who are most affected - typically workers - placed at the centre. To achieve this, principles of industrial democracy and transnational governance must come together to inform institutions within global supply chains. This book traces the development of 'transnational industrial democracy', using responses to the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as the empirical context. A particular focus is placed on the Bangladesh Accord and the JETI Workplace Social Dialogue programme. Drawing on longitudinal field research from 2013–2020, the authors argue that the reality of modern-day supply chain capitalism has neither optimal institutional frameworks nor effective structures of industrial relations. Informed by principles of industrial democracy, the book aims at enhancing emerging forms of private transnational governance as second-best institutions.

1. Introduction
2. The democratic deficit of global supply chains
3. Democratic representation: structures and claims
4. After Rana Plaza: mending a toxic supply chain
5. Representative alliances in the creation of the Bangladesh Accord
6. Creating representation through industrial democracy vs. CSR: the Accord and Alliance as a natural experiment
7. When transnational governance meets national actors: The politics of exclusion in the Bangladesh Accord
8. Building representative structures at the workplace level
9. Conclusions: the emergence of transnational industrial democracy?
Appendix 1. The practical and political issues of studying transnational labour representation
Appendix 2. When CSR meets industrial relations: reflections on doing interdisciplinary scholarship.

Subject Areas: Corporate governance [KJR], International business [KJK], Business ethics & social responsibility [KJG]