The fundamental business model in readymade garment (RMG) supply chains has not changed since the Rana Plaza building collapse despite improvement in workplace conditions and enhanced transparency level of global buyers, according to a recent report.
Bangladesh readymade garment industry still suffers from lack of 'shared responsibility' from the part of global buyers, said the report.
The workplace safety situation has dramatically improved in the factories in Bangladesh as apparel brands cut ties with poor performing suppliers, on an average 8.0 per cent per year since 2013 to 2018, it revealed.
German based Garment Supply Chain Governance Project conducted a survey on 152 managers and 1,500 workers of 250 export-oriented garment factories in Bangladesh and published the interim report last month.
"Changes in the Governance of Garment Global Production Networks: Lead Firm, Supplier and Institutional Responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster" is an international, interdisciplinary research project that seeks to understand the challenges of improving labour conditions in global production networks.
The project triangulates the perspectives of lead firms based in different home countries, suppliers and workers in the context of ongoing institutional innovations in the Bangladesh garment industry and on national and transnational levels.
"The fundamental business model in garment supply chains is not changing. A large proportion of production for brands and retailers in higher wage countries is being conducted in low-wage countries. Garment production remains an industry with high levels of opportunity for countries to connect to global value chains, but this comes at a price for workers," according to the key findings of the report.
It also conducted survey on the behaviour of top 10 large global garment buyers based on their revenue in five countries including Australia, Germany, Sweden, the UK and the US, and found they are experimenting with a variety of new approaches for managing labour standards that reach beyond the compliance model of auditing.
Important changes include increased transparency, a consolidation of supply chains and the formation of collective governance initiatives.
Transparency especially making public disclosure of suppliers has been embraced by more lead firms based in Australia, followed by the UK and the US compared to top German and Swedish firms in 2018.
"With increased pressure to be publicly accountable for working conditions and other sustainability criteria during production, large brands and retailers are consolidating their supplier bases," the report said.
Many brands and retailers have developed rigorous on boarding processes related to quality and labour standards which have increased the costs of working with new suppliers, it added.
Another key finding is that Bangladeshi garment workers reported working conditions improved since the Rana Plaza tragedy. These changes are larger in factories associated with the Accord and the Alliance, with auditing for the Accord and Alliance is far more rigorous and better enforced than anything that preceded it.
"Factory managers now realise that non-compliance threatens the ability to export to Europe and the US," the report said.
It might be this development has had spillover effects on improving compliance in areas not covered by these safety focused initiatives, said the report, adding legal changes that followed Rana Plaza in areas such as worker voice and minimum wages might also be a factor leading to improvements, as well as the influence of other labour focused initiatives such as the ILO's Better Work programme.
The report mentioned some critical aspects that remain to be addressed by the brands and policy makers.
These included spreading collective action mechanisms like multiple brands, unions and other, strengthening local labour representation in supplier countries without which higher wages and a less abusive work environment will be hard to implement, increasing transparency regarding working conditions for end consumers.
Other issues included finding adequate mechanisms for financially supporting factories' remediation processes and other forms of upgrading and transferring the governance experiments unfolding in post-Rana Plaza Bangladesh to other garment producing countries and other issues.
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