Strengthening social dialogue in GAP factories in Bangladesh

The ready-made garment (RMG) industry is one of the main contributors to economic growth in Bangladesh, and it is the country's main export industry (83.49% of total export revenue in 2017/18).The RMG industry is also an extremely important provider of employment in the country, in particular low-skilled, entry jobs for young women and men without education or qualifications. While the growth of the RMG sector from a small number of factories in the 1980s to some 5,000 factories by the 2010s is an undoubted success story, the rapid growth must now be matched by a development of working conditions and rights. Following major garment factory accidents in 2012 and 2013, the ILO (International Labour Organization) developed a comprehensive programme to support the country’s efforts to engage in a much-needed reform process, to improve safety, working conditions and rights at work in this sector, including workers’ and employers’ right to organise, bargain and dialogue at the workplace. While notable progress has been made, it is important to realize the industrial relations challenges still being faced by both workers and employers in Bangladesh at enterprise-level, and to build the capacity of factories through the identification of these challenges, and the development of mutually agreeable, practical solutions. This initiative aims to build on the social dialogue and industrial relations factory-facing and capacity building work of the Social Dialogue and Industrial Relations (SDIR) Project and Better Work Bangladesh (BWB), who will closely collaborate to ensure the delivery of smooth, timely and relevant training to further promote social dialogue and harmonious industrial relations in fifty Gap supplier factories and vendors in Bangladesh. Gap supplier factories are partners of BWB and have shown commitment to good workplace cooperation. SDIR and BWB have designed this initiative in consultation with Gap to build on this knowledge in factories and to take social dialogue in these factories to a more advanced level. A comprehensive package of trainings to improve grievance mechanisms, build human resource management systems, improve collective bargaining and negotiation skills and training on ILS and Bangladesh Labour Act is being rolled out in these factories. In order to ensure the sustainability and integration of this training package, and as part of our current partnership intervention with factories, BWB enterprise advisors (EA) regularly follows up on the factories’ progress around social dialogue and industrial relations. This information feeds into the continuous improvement cycle and help to identify gaps, progress and informs the on-going provision of needs based training.

Project symbol

BGD/18/04/GAP

Admin unit

CO-Dhaka

Start date

01/01/2019

End date

31/12/2021

Total allocation

350000

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

87145

Development Partners

GAP, Inc.

Country/Countries

Bangladesh

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Strong tripartite constituents and influential and inclusive social dialogue
Outcome 7: Adequate and effective protection at work for all