Labor Rights - It's All of our Business

Harvard Center for International Development

Earlier this year, thousands of Bangladesh garment workers clashed with the police as they tried to push for higher wages. One person was killed as the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters. This is unfortunately common throughout low-end supply chains. Governments try to repress laborers in order to curb minimum wage increases and keep costs low. This week Salimah Samji, Director of CID’s Building State Capability Program talks to Alice Evans Lecturer at Kings College London and Associate at the Building State Capability Program on possible solutions to this pressing issue. Read Alice Evans' report on Increasing Pro-Labour Reforms: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/incentivising-pro-labour-reforms // www.bsc.cid.harvard.edu // Interview recorded on February 13, 2019. About Alice Evans: Alice Evans is writing a book on "The Global Politics of Decent Work". Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers' rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality. She is a Lecturer at King's College London, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Labor%20rights.pdf