Ethical Work Revolution: Transforming Bangladesh's Garment Industry
"How Decent Work Standards, Empowered Workers, and Strategic Collaborations Can Secure a Sustainable Future for the RMG Sector"
Bangladesh's ready-made garment (RMG) sector is a powerhouse, driving economic growth and providing livelihoods for millions. However, this success has often come at a cost, with concerns about worker safety, fair wages, and ethical treatment casting a shadow over the industry. Recent years have seen increased scrutiny from international organizations, consumers, and activists demanding change and holding brands accountable for the conditions in their supply chains.
The concept of "decent work," as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO), is at the heart of this transformation. Decent work encompasses opportunities for productive employment, fair income, workplace safety, social protection, and the freedom for workers to voice their concerns and organize. For Bangladesh's RMG sector, achieving decent work is not just a matter of ethics but a crucial step towards long-term sustainability and competitiveness in the global market.
This article delves into how ethical human resource management (HRM), empowered trade unions, and a renewed sense of moral responsibility are driving positive change within Bangladesh's RMG sector. It examines the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as the industry strives to create a more equitable and sustainable future for its workers and the nation.
Industry Scale and Export Earnings
Human Rights Watch reported that Bangladesh’s garment sector was worth more than US$24 billion and employed about 4 million workers across 4,536 factories. A separate 2026 report says garment exports reached USD 39.2 billion in 2022, following USD 11.3 billion in export earnings in FY2021. These figures come from different sources and refer to different measures and periods.
Decent Work and Workplace Standards
A 2018 paper examines how 26 business owners, managers, and supervisors understand “decent work” in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector. An ILO project sought to build garment stakeholders’ knowledge and capacity to advance decent work, with long-term improvements in gender equality, productivity, environmental sustainability, and knowledge management as objectives. An ILO regional brief reviews progress and persistent challenges using estimates and firm-level insights from five rounds of compliance assessments in selected factories across Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
What Does "Decent Work" Actually Look Like in the Garment Industry?
The ILO's "Decent Work Agenda" provides a clear framework for what constitutes ethical and sustainable employment practices. The agenda is built on four key pillars, each addressing a critical aspect of worker well-being:
- Employment Creation: Focuses on creating opportunities for productive and fairly compensated work, enabling individuals to lift themselves out of poverty.
- Social Protection: Ensures workers and their families have access to social security, healthcare, and other essential services to protect them from economic hardship.
- Rights at Work: Upholds fundamental human rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining, and protection against discrimination and forced labor.
- Social Dialogue: Promotes open communication and collaboration between employers, workers, and governments to resolve workplace issues and ensure fair treatment.
Research on Workplace Safety, HRM, and Decent Work
A review titled “Creating a Long-Term Safe Workplace in Garment Industry of Bangladesh” reports that owners and managers are concerned with balancing internal and external demands to sustain and improve good work. A systematic review of 50 years of human resource management research in Bangladesh notes that trade-union recognition and involvement have been useful and effective for good industrial relations and organisational performance. A separate systematic mixed-studies review used PRISMA to examine 98 decent-work studies published in 40 journals between 2006 and 2024 across 193 countries.
Limits to Generalizing Worker Health Findings
A cross-sectional study of ready-made garment workers cautions that its sample represents only a small proportion of Bangladesh’s workforce, despite the sector having more than 4,000 factories and an estimated 4 million workers. The authors say their results cannot be generalized to the entire sector. Because the study was cross-sectional, observed associations between illnesses and workers’ characteristics or work-related information cannot establish causality. The researchers also collected data on Fridays.
Factory Compliance and Worker Health
A comparative study of female garment workers found that those in non-compliant factories were more likely to report at least one musculoskeletal disorder in the previous month than those in compliant factories: 72% versus 42%. Another cross-sectional study of 186 female respondents recorded lower-back pain in 46 workers (24.7%) and neck pain in 44 (23.7%). Separately, BGMEA reported that government oversight capacity was insufficient, citing only 100 labour inspectors for more than 5,000 factories.
A Call to Action: Building a More Ethical and Sustainable RMG Sector
The journey towards decent work in Bangladesh's RMG sector is ongoing, but the progress made in recent years offers a reason for optimism. By embracing ethical HRM practices, empowering workers through strong trade unions, and fostering a culture of moral responsibility, the industry can create a more sustainable and equitable future. This requires collaboration, transparency, and a commitment to upholding the rights and well-being of all garment workers. The future of Bangladesh's RMG sector depends on it.
Project Findings and Better Work’s Decade
An ActionAid Bangladesh end-line survey report draws on qualitative and quantitative data collected in the project’s working area in Dhaka. The ILO report “The impact of Better Work Bangladesh: A decade’s legacy” covers the programme’s journey from 2014 to 2024. It highlights reported impacts on workplace safety, labour rights, and business competitiveness in Bangladesh’s garment industry.
Growth in a Changing Global Landscape
The Daily Star describes Bangladesh as the world’s second-largest garment exporter and frames the industry’s future growth in a changing world. The supplied excerpt also describes the sector as undergoing change amid the country’s graduation from least-developed-country status, a redefined global trade architecture, and the integration of circular-economy principles. These are presented as forces shaping the sector’s outlook, not as quantified forecasts.
Women’s Empowerment and Better Work
A 2022 study concludes that paid employment in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector has a significant positive impact on female workers’ economic, social, and psychological empowerment. The study also notes that critical constraints in the sector continue to limit women’s potential for further empowerment. Better Work Bangladesh’s decade-long legacy is described as showing the value of collaboration in uplifting workers, empowering women, and supporting economic growth.