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Global garment chains, local labour activism: New challenges to trade union and NGO activism in the Tiruppur garment cluster, South India

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posted on 2023-06-07, 16:34 authored by Geert De NeveGeert De Neve
Almost on a daily basis newspapers and magazines tell us of the exploitative circumstances under which workers produce garments for the global market. While local trade unions, international NGOs, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) officers claim to act in the interests of garment workers, the latter continue to lack voice and representation in their everyday struggles for better and fairer employment. Focusing on a South Indian garment cluster, the article explores the reasons why key labour rights, such as the freedom of association, keep being violated, and why local trade union and international NGO activists fail to prevent such violations. Through the lens of a major labour dispute, we consider the decline of a once successful trade union and the challenges of emerging localinternational activist collaborations. The article concludes that for union, NGO, and corporate interventions to be successful in the context of a liberalising state, the political economy of labour has to be taken into account, and labour struggles have to be understood within their political and historical context.

History

Publication status

  • Published

ISSN

0190-1281

Publisher

Emerald Group Publishing

Volume

28

Page range

213-240

Pages

28.0

Book title

Hidden hands in the market : ethnographies of fair trade, ethical consumption, and corporate social responsibility

Place of publication

Bingley, UK

ISBN

9781848550582

Series

Research in Economic Anthropology

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Geert De Neve, Donald C Wood, Peter Luetchford, Jeffrey Pratt

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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