Changing Patterns in Labour Governance: Evidence from Greater China and South Asia

Abstract

Since the world’s factories began expanding their operations, workplace conditions in global supply chains have become a concern for countries in the global north, leading to development of a variety of new public governance and private regulatory models, such as the Bangladesh Accord, which was developed in the aftermath of Rana Plaza disaster, and which is seen as one of the best models of recent times. In this paper, we analyse different forms of labour governance in greater China and South Asia with a view to assessing the practicality of global labour governance against the background of the challenges posed by local circumstances in the global south. Through a comparative examination of the cases of Foxconn and Apple, Pou Chen and Nike, and the Bangladesh Accord, we explore how actors from the global north and south are actively building different forms of labour governance for different transnational corporations.