Building Awareness of Workers’ Rights in the RGM Sector

Lead Partner: International Textile Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF)
Project Partners: Next, Ambekar Institute for Labour Studies (AILS)
Project Location: Bangladesh, India

Project Description

This project aims to initiate the process of giving workers and management the key role in monitoring and improving their terms and conditions of work, and enable responsibility for labour rights compliance to be put back in the workplace.  In this respect, it seeks to build awareness of workers rights in the ready made garment sectors in Bangladesh (locations to be determined), India and (Tirupur). The project expects to move beyond traditional and ineffective social auditing methods which are unsustainable and fail to deliver social compliance.

Expected benefits of the project include:

• workers will have a better awareness of their rights
• workers will be empowered to negotiate with a democratic system of worker representation established
• constructive relations between workers and management will be developed
• multistakeholder social dialogue discussions will be initiated in each target country
• project partners will have established a platform for future cooperation in the promotion of workers’ rights and freedom of association in the supply chain
• project partners will have a better understanding of the use of contract and agency labour and its impact upon workers
• increase in the number of workers receiving minimum wage
• increase in the number of workers receiving overtime due
• decrease in the number of workers working more than 60 hours per week
• increase in the number of Trade Union Members
• signing of at least one agreement between an employer and union(s) at a target factory.