Business at the cost of life: experience of the apparel workers' of Bangladesh

Working in garment factories like living in Dozakh „Ÿ Kulsum: Worker of a garment factory The paper explores perspectives of the involved communities „Ÿ mainly workers, leader of trade union federation and activists working on labour rights issues „Ÿ about the functioning of the global production system of ready-made garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh and compliance mechanism in order to map out where in reality the social responsibility norms of business or issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are grounded in. The condition of emergence of the study lies in the collapse of the building Rana Plaza, which caused death of 1133 garment workers, mostly women. Most of the workers of this industry are indeed women. Review of institutional and academic discourse regarding CSR suggests the issues of human rights and labour rights underpin the design and strategies of CSR within the Global Value Chain of commodity (GVC) production. In the case of the context of developing countries or for postcolonial states CSR, GVC of production, sustainability and sustainable development all are interrelated concepts, while we find in reality these notions are marked by the price of life and free of cost product. Hence, the paper poses a question whether CSR is a notion in the case of a postcolonial state like Bangladesh? Key words: Bangladesh, Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, human rights, and global value chain of production, ready-made garment sector, and postcolonial state.

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