Designing a worker-focused, factory level corporate responsibility framework

March 2020

This paper, authored by CAL Innovation Fellow Dr. Zobaida Khan, explores whether participation in transnational safety initiatives after Rana Plaza resulted in improved social compliance. It is based on survey responses from factory managers and oral interviews with three prominent Bangladeshi union leaders and labor activists. The research focuses on factory managers’ views of social compliance: whether managers believe that social compliance improves producing/supplying companies’ ability to remain competitive in the global market; what limitations and structural challenges managers believe affect companies’ ability to implement social compliance; and what steps managers think could improve producing/supplying companies’ social compliance. 

Among the insights drawn from this research, Dr. Khan finds that while some initiatives did have a positive impact on building safety, their impact on social compliance, including labor rights, was much more limited. She also finds that power imbalances in supply chains are key drivers of abuses, and lead to problematic outcomes that plague Bangladeshi garment supply chains: prices are too low, timelines are too short, and social compliance is often realized only on paper.