Garments and Grievances: New Labour Institutions?

Introduction: Contexts and Contingencies

The discourse around one of the key labour issues in India, today, adequately typifies a major objective in writing this paper. This relates to the ongoing conflict between the central government’s attempt to notify the four new Labour Codes, which were announced in 2020, and have been met with consistent protests by some of the leading central trade unions in India ever since (Sundar, 2023)[1]. Heralded as the ‘unfinished agenda’ of the macroeconomic and industrial reforms that were initiated in 1991, and which integrated the Indian manufacturing sector with the global economy through a host of liberalization, privatization, and globalization policies (Mishra, 2025; Panagariya, 2004)—the impending labour reforms, as per the central government, are intended to achieve simplification of a plethora of labor laws and their adequate implementation to secure a certain ease of access to entitlement by the workers, extend the labor laws to the unorganized sector of the Indian economy, and enhance India’s rank in the ‘ease of doing business’ index, broadly speaking (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GoI).

During the three decades since the 1991 reforms (Bhattacharjea, 2022), the debate over labour regulations has inadvertently hinged on the question of labour market flexibility—epitomized by the ‘contentious’ clauses pertaining to layoffs and retrenchment within the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, but involving a host of other issues as well (Roychowdhury, 2018)[2]. This is even more so the case with the formal or organized Indian manufacturing sector, where this debate is rather pronounced, detailed, and attributed as a direct causality in the lack of industrial growth[3]. While, broadly speaking, there are apologists of greater flexibility being afforded to industry to engage labour by way of reforms (Bhagwati & Panagariya, 2013; Gopinath & Lahiri, 2019; Hasan & Jandoc, 2013; Panagariya, 2024; Gupta, Hasan, & Kumar, 2010; Planning Commission, 2002, p. 2), there is also an equally large body of work by critics who maintain that such a flexibility is already afforded to industry through loopholes and inconsistencies within the labor laws framework or their inadequate implementation (Jha & Golder, 2008/1; Ghosh, 2004/1; National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, 2009; Papola, 2009; Gupta, Hasan, & Kumar, 2010; Nagaraj, 2007)[4].

A cursory look through these debates over the question of (in)flexibility in engaging labour within the formal industrial sector reveals an inadvertent predominance of the traditional tripartite model of industrial relations—drawn within the national or state-level jurisdictional domain— between employers (capital), workers (labour), and state, where the antagonism between the former two is mediated by the national or state governments. This, however, seems ill-suited to a number of industrial sub-sectors and clusters in India today, which are marked by an ever-increasing integration within the global value chains and the attendant regulatory frameworks, especially in the wake of global sustainability movement.

Within the globalized industrial relations today, employers (capital) entail supplier and buyer firms (at the least); the state entails the national and state-level governments, encompassing those who govern the buyer firms and their supply chains, and which are predominantly concentrated in the global North, along with other international organizations such as ILO, OECD, EU etc; and similarly, workers encompass the various segmentations of those engaged within the supplying factories, going as far as those within the lower ‘tiers’, up to the home-based workers engaged in smaller, fragmented tasks, and products. The attendant nature of relations, hierarchies, and the frameworks that govern production and trade have also shifted substantially (Gereffi, 2018; Barnes, 2018; Mezzadri, 2016; Jha & Chakraborty, 2014; Nathan, 2021). Now, within this complex of industrial relations, we have an almost labyrinth-like system of regulatory frameworks governing global value chains, and one of the fundamental objectives of this paper is to insert within our national debate over labour, the case-studies and analysis of those developments that have issued from such integration into the global production networks[5]. Conversely, a related objective of this paper is also to demonstrate that the analysis of the novelties that have resulted from such globalization of industrial relations must incorporate the contexts and debates which one finds within the scholarship on industrialization conducted within the national discourse in India.  

The case of the Indian garment industry is strategically situated to highlight the import of these developments. Together with the textile sub-sector, it is one of the second largest contributors to employment in India after agriculture, contributes 2.3% to the GDP, 13% to industrial production, and 12% of total Indian exports, out of which the bulk is made up of apparels, positioning India globally as the 6th largest exporter of textiles and apparel. Moreover, it attracts a considerable amount of Foreign Direct Investment and the Global North makes up for the bulk of Indian exports of textiles and apparel (Ministry of Textiles, 2025; Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 2025). Thus, as one of the first few supply chains that was pegged for integration within the global production networks due to the 1991 reforms, there is a distinct tendency, of late, to further the global integration of the Indian garment manufacturing industry via exports as producer of final, finished wage good superseding that of textiles or intermediate or capital goods.

Whereas, at the turn of the century and until rather recently, there may have been ‘obstacles’ in its global integration marked by policies such as small-sector reservations and the multi-fiber agreement; today, these factors have waned, and merely the ‘secular’ ones impinge on its growth and integration within the GVCs, such as that of scale and productivity, investments, quality, export promotion and, most importantly for our purposes, ‘onerous’ and ‘archaic’ labour laws (Ramaswamy & Gereffi, 2000; Tewari, 2008; Ministry of Textiles & Apparel Export Promotion Council).

Being interpellated as such, a large part of the Indian garment manufacturing industry is formally, and an even larger part of it is informally, incorporated within the global sustainability frameworks that govern its production processes. Arguably, the garment global supply chain is one of the most heavily regulated ones with environmental and social aspects covering all stages of the production process—from how textiles are produced within the agricultural sector to how products and waste is discarded (Alexander & Lund-Thomsen, 2023; Kuruvilla, 2021)—a “regulatory storm” looms over it, as the Apparel Export Promotion Council of India calls it (AEPC India). From amongst these, the focus of this paper is on the worker-centric social sustainability frameworks which I argue are fundamentally reshaping industrial relations in a crucial, if not the most important, segment of the Indian garment—the export oriented, formal manufacturing sector and clusters. However, before we move forth, a brief overview of these regulatory frameworks is important.

1.1.  Worker-Centric Regulatory Mechanisms in the Global Garment Industry—New Spaces and Possibilities?

Analytically speaking, there are two ways of categorizing worker-centric social sustainability frameworks—either on the basis of the rights that they cover, such as those of occupational safety and health, social security, forced labour, freedom of association, wages, anti-discrimination etc. or on the basis of their authoritative, judicial standing which takes into account their issuing agencies and enforceability. Within this matrix, on the basis of agencies and enforceability, there are:

• Global North countries where the brands and buyer firms are located and which have passed transnational human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislations such as UK Modern Slavery Act of 2015, Dutch Child Labor Due Diligence Law of 2019, French Duty of Vigilance Law of 2017, Norway’s Supply Chain Transparency Law of 2021, Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Law of 2021, amongst others (Gustafsson, Schilling-Vacaflor, & Lenschow, 2023; The Remedy Project)[6];
• Then, there are conventions, standards and frameworks which issue from international bodies such as ILO’s Decent Work Agenda, UN’s Global Compacts ‘Ruggie Framework’ and Sustainable Development Goals, OECD regulations, etc. and which also in some cases provide a complaints mechanism in the event of violation of rights and standards;
• Then, the brand-buyer specific codes of conduct which apply to suppliers and are known variously as corporate sustainability frameworks or corporate social responsibility and which are drawn, mostly, from international or national worker rights standards (Kuruvilla, 2021, pp. 2-3)[7];
• Then, there are accreditations and audit frameworks which are developed variously by organizations such as International Organization for Standardization, Social Accountability Initiative, Ethical Trading Initiative, etc. and which apply to supplier firms for their compliance needs (Murmura & Bravi, 2020; LeBaron, Lister, & Dauvergne, 2017). These, too, hinge upon internationally recognized labour standards.
• Finally, there are the national and state-level regulations which impinge on the domestic stakeholders such as industry and workers. For India, on a national scale, they comprise a host of legislations such as the Factory Act of 1948, Payment of Wages Act of 1936, Trade Unions Act of 1926, Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act of 1970, Employee State Insurance Act of 1948, the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act of 1952, the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976, amongst others.  Apart from these, there are ‘softer’ frameworks such as National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct too.

In thematic terms, there are two tendencies of regulatory ambit with some policies covering multiple areas of work and working conditions and with some concerning merely one aspect. Operationally, however, it must be borne in mind that there is a high coincidence amongst the regulatory frameworks whereby a right or a standard and its safeguard falls within multiple layers of regulations, in principle[8].

There are two points to be noted of the nature of their intersections and enforceability. Firstly, by today, there is an emergent coincidence between regulatory frameworks to the effect that though it may be easier for suppliers to evade one level of regulations due to a variety of reasons such as weak implementation, inadequate provision, they cannot do so at all levels. Moreover, if found ‘guilty’ in one, it raises questions around the entire edifice, leading to novelties which may be even more stringent. The best example of this is the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh for the global garment supply chains anchored there, which was enacted in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza building collapse claiming over a thousand casualties (Anner & Bair, 2022; Industrial Union, 2013; Anner, Bair, & Blasi, 2013).

The second point relates to the ‘penalization’ when labor standards are violated. Although literature separates the ‘hard’ regulations, such as those which are judicially enforceable resulting in criminal culpability, reparations, incarcerations, etc., usually directed by the involvement of state actors, from the ‘soft’ pressures of economics which may translate into reputational losses, consumers boycott of goods, and declining market shares—there is a crucial intersection when viewed from their promises and limits to upholding labour standards, by today. This difference between ‘hard’ governmental regulations and ‘soft’ non-governmental regulations has systematized itself in the difference between public and private regulation of supply chains with regards to worker rights and standards (Gereffi & Mayer, 2010; Locke, 2013, pp. 1-24; Elliott, 2022; Kuruvilla, 2021). Though it is beyond the scope of this paper to review and comment upon the vast body of literature that deals with such novelties in regulatory framework, we locate our point of departure in the ‘possibilities’ that scholars have expressed that exists due to such innovations—either due to the ‘layering’ of private and public regulatory mechanisms, or due to the ‘chance’ contingencies of local and global integration of production. These have resulted in what Jennifer Bair terms as ‘hybrid governance’ models for ensuring labour standards (2017). This, however, must be historically qualified.

In the 1990s, the very emergence of the private regulation of labour standards was due to a certain dilution of the public regulatory mechanisms noted in the developing countries which were hosting the global garment manufacturing supply chains, either due to the lack of ‘institutional capacity to fully regulate’ or ‘intentionally’. So,  the enforcement of such regulations would drive up the production costs and drive away the sources (read buyers) of economic development, employment generation, and taxation. However, the three decades of the private regulatory mechanism of labour standards has not delivered its intended results of improvement either and has come under critical scrutiny from scholars (Locke, 2013, pp. 10-17)[9]. The modality of ‘voluntary’ enforcement of the private regulations and the proliferation of the extremely profitable ‘audit’ and ‘monitoring’ industry which ‘responds to and protects industry and commercial interests’ have been specifically criticised (Kuruvilla, 2021, pp. 7-17; Locke, 2013, pp. 1-24; LeBaron, Lister, & Dauvergne, 2017)[10].

Since the proliferation of such innovations in regulatory mechanisms, however, a novel space has ‘opened up’ now amongst the workers and their stakeholders in the major garment exporting clusters of India, which is equally as cognizant of the non-nation state-based worker-centric regulatory mechanisms as the traditional state-centric labour laws, and which they mobilize to safeguard their rights and entitlements[11]. The two case studies in focus in this paper—The Dindigul Agreement on Prevention, Remedy and Elimination of Gender Based Violence and Harassment (henceforth, Dindigul Agreement) & the Fair Wear Foundations “Access to Remedy” Programs’ performance in India—symptomize these ‘spaces’ and their ‘possibilities’ well. In essence, being grievance redressal mechanisms (GRM), they embody a modal shift in how the worker-centric regulatory frameworks are operationalized (Laplante, 2023; Hossain, Joshi, & Pande, 2024). They go beyond sole reliance on either private or public regulations and layer them, and also move beyond the often-criticized modality of audits, certifications, and ‘voluntary’ codes of conduct that have characterized private regulations of labour standards[12]. In positing them here, my intent is also to contribute to the scant attention that such governance models and these specific case-studies have received in the scholarship concerning Indian garment industry, which have usually cast aspersions on the private regulation of labour standards (Neve, 2012; Mezzadri, 2014; Mezzadri, 2012; Murmura & Bravi, 2020). Finally, the two case studies as symptomization of this new ‘space’ in a specific industrial sector and cluster forces us to ask whether they can be considered as new though nascent labour institutions?

My sense of this institutionalization rests on two theoretical strands. Firstly, from the interdisciplinary study of institutions, which is fed into by notions and disciplines of temporality (history), sociality (sociology), (in)efficiency (economics) and power (political science), and which, abstractly speaking, can be defined as “intertemporal social arrangements that shape human relations in support of particular values” (Jupille & Caporaso, 2022, pp. 1-6). Adapting this to our case of labour and especially, of labour which is engaged within the global value chains of the garment industry, another strand that informs my theorization is derived from the discipline of institutional economics and the notion of transaction costs. Simply speaking, transaction costs are those which are entailed in the coordination of production, alternative to the price and market-based coordination, and which arise from ‘negotiations, inspections, dispute settlements’ etc. which determine the life of a contract (Coase, 1992, p. 6). They have been central to understanding the emergence and dynamics of global value chains and firm relations (Gereffi, Humphrey, & Sturgeon, 2005).

In our context, by new labour institutions, I mean the emergence of new ways in which labour rights and standards (national and/or international) are enforced and legitimized amongst the globalized industrial relations and which determines the life cycle of labour, both as a person and an activity. In what we will see, apart from a certain ethical claim, these new labour institutions also advance an economistic rationale for maintaining labour standards based on the notions of productivity. Although it is not within the scope of this paper to draw out their implications beyond a certain limit, we may say that they are reshaping and informing, most intimately, the subjectivity of labour within the global production networks. They can be seen as informing the very notion of a legitimate grievance and demand amongst workers, the tactical choice in pursuing such demands, the non-worker stakeholders that they mobilize as their allies along with informing the discursive processes of segmentation and unity that operates amongst them. This, in turn, has a substantial bearing on the nature of relationships that exist within the various dyads within the global garment industry such as worker and their representatives, worker-suppliers, workers-brands, brands and workers representatives, etc.

1.2. Methodological Notes & Outline of the Paper

In presenting the two case studies and their analysis I have utilized the information that is available publicly about them (and which is either published by the organizations themselves or endorsed by them) for the sake of credibility and a broader transmission. Difference of opinions on my analysis from the readers and responders is welcome and appreciated.  Moreover, it must be mentioned that my reading of these sources and analysis, in itself, is due to my experience in working with these institutions and the concerned labour stakeholders, either directly or indirectly. Although due to reasons of consent and sensitivity, I have withheld the exact nature and terms of my engagements with such stakeholders; broadly speaking, I have worked and continue to engage with these organizations in a number of capacities. My engagement has been in the clusters of Delhi NCR, Ludhiana in Punjab, Kanpur and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh and in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu.

Theoretically speaking, although these two case-studies symptomize the ‘space’ that I talk of above, some ethnographic notes from my experience on the nature of this ‘space’ would be prudent. The workers experience this ‘space’ multifariously. It is experienced when ‘buyers’ and ‘auditors’ come for a physical inspection in the factory, talk to the workers and ask them ‘are you happy with working here?’; or when the ‘troublemakers’ are asked to stay at home during the inspection days by the management so that they do not ‘spill the beans’ about the working conditions; or when certain facilities are upgraded, or washrooms, which are usually kept closed for workers, opened on the day of inspections and visits; or when the workers are temporarily asked to wear the safety gear, etc. .

What this is registered by the workers, is, primarily, that the ‘bosses’ on the shop-floor do not wield as absolute authority as they perform every day. Such ‘spaces’ are also experienced when cluster-based labour stakeholders such as NGOs and trade unions engage the workers in rights-based capacity building and training, inside and outside the factories. Whereas, in my own field work, many have expressed their doubts about the efficacy of such experiences and have stated that the experience of the workers with respect to public regulations or labour laws is similar. The point is how such experiences are expressed by the workers themselves in their day-to-day negotiations.

Thus, during the ‘hot’ periods of conflict when the tendency of collectivization is sharper amongst the workers, I have been privy to a number of instances where workers have sought recourse to these newer, private regulatory mechanisms to express their discontent and articulate their demands, if not with a certain disdain for the public industrial relations machinery. There have been instances where workers have sought to register cases of joint-liability against both the suppliers and the brands in the local state-based labour tribunals, and there have been instances where the local state-based labour tribunals have been bypassed against raising complaints through these new nodes. Private regulations have been able to, sometimes in addition to public regulations and mechanisms, create a space amongst the workers which informs their day-to-day negotiations. By today, the difference between the private and the public regulatory mechanisms is merely one of intensity of assertion and recourse to either or both is a matter of tactics.

However, insofar as institutionalization is always in ‘support of certain values’, these new institutions do not merely enhance the ability of the workers or their stakeholders in improving adherence to labour standards but also limits them. One of my most instructive experiences  has been from a major factory in an export-oriented cluster where, on the cusp of a strike for wage increments, payment of bonuses, etc., the internal solidarity amongst the workers petered out when a few started asserting that the company would be unable to meet their demands as it was not getting ‘enough orders’. Ironically, the ‘slump’ in this particular unit was on account of corporate restructuring and the relocation of the company in response to the growing tendency of collectivization amongst the workers, as my interactions with the management later revealed. This move had resulted in mass lay-offs and retrenchments. Moreover, as one may hint from the case-study of the Dindigul Agreement below, these new institutionalizations may also have an adverse impact on the more ‘covert’ forms of resistance by the workers such as assembly line sabotage, slowing down of production, increasing of productivity and more waste generation, etc., practices known as ‘acts of resilience’ (Mezzadri & Sehgal, 2023, p. 25).

Below, I present the two case studies to establish this process of institutionalization where the difference between public and private regulation is even more blurred than above. Moreover, my analysis below is also intended to augment the position that exogenous factors such as the local dynamics of labour/capital contradiction have a distinct role to play in the success of these new institutions, in the discourse around regulatory mechanisms in enforcing labour standards. A careful reader will note the difference between the Dindigul Agreement and the Fair Wear mechanism, with the former more successful than the latter due to its local embeddedness.

In what proceeds, in Section 2, I present the Dindigul agreement based on its two-year progress since 2022 and in Section 3, I present an analysis of the Fair Wears’ GRM based on 21 complaints available on its public repository between 2023 and 2025. In presenting both the mechanisms, I mobilize relevant context(s) and situate them within it, for the sake of my objectives, and also present potential critiques of each. In conclusion, I draw parallels between the two case studies to highlight which aspects contribute to the successes and limits of each while offering some concluding implications.

2. The Dindigul Agreement – Exemplar or Exception? 

Signed in the June of 2022 (and in effect till the June of 2025) as an interlocking set of agreements between Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU) and Eastman Exports Global Clothing Pvt. Ltd (Eastman Exports), primarily, and appended with agreements between Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), Global Labor Justice (GLJ), TTCU & brand firms such as H&M Group, Gap Inc., and PVH Corp. (including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger)—the Dindigul Agreement is the first Enforceable Brand Agreement (EBA) to have been signed in India, and represents how the fluidity of the multifarious labour-centric regulatory mechanisms operating in the GVCs may be uniquely institutionalized to address systemic issues, such as that of gender based violence and harassment (GBVH) (Barrientos, 2019; Nathan, et al., 2022; SLD, AFWA & BHRRC, 2022)[13].

One amongst a few examples of worker-driven social responsibility institutions (other examples include the Lesotho Agreement,  the Bangladesh Accord, etc.), globally, the Dindigul Agreement was signed in the aftermath of the ‘Justice for Jeyasre’ campaign launched against the murder of a woman worker Jeyasre Kathiravel of the Natchi Apparels (owned by Eastman Exports) by a male company supervisor in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu in 2021 (Fudge & LeBaron, 2024). The campaign received international attention and was able to uncover a pervasive problem of GBVH in the factories of Eastman Exports, with allegations of two prior similar deaths of women workers, before Jeyasre (Worker Rights Consortium, 2022; Kelly, 2022).

In its essence, the agreement institutes a multi-tier GRM which imposes upon Eastman Exports the obligation to prevent and remedy a number of forms of GBVH, and grants the TTCU the privilege of regular monitoring and negotiation in case of violations. In addition, it also institutes an oversight committee to deal with escalation of conflicts pertaining to GBVH and a shop-floor mechanism populated by the women workers of the factory for its everyday operations (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023, pp. 110-25). In doing so, the agreement builds on multiple layers of worker-centric regulations, such as those which issue from the Indian national law (such as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace [Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal] Act of 2013; Trade Unions Act of 1926; the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947; and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act of 1948), along with international ones such as ILOs C190 – Violence and Harassment Convention of 2019, United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, OECDs Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for Best Practices for Corporate Due Diligence, a number of Transnational Human Rights Due Diligence legislations, along with the private regulations such as Buyer Brands Responsible Codes of Conduct (Fudge & LeBaron, 2024).

More important, however, is the fact that the agreement does not merely rest on such ‘hard’ regulations which grants the worker representatives the privilege to initiate arbitration proceedings against the supplier and buyer firms in the event of violations (AFWA, TTCU, GLJ, 2023) but also mobilizes the economic and market-based power of firms engaged in the global value chain to make compliance towards women worker rights tenable. In this regard, the agreement has secured the commitment of the brand signatories to penalize the supplier firm by imposing business consequences upon it in the event of non-compliance[14]. Important to note, however, is the point that though this reads as a reinforcement of the monopsonist powers of the buyers against the supplier firms, the Dindigul agreement, in its short span of two years, has demonstrated multiple instances of balancing suppliers’ interest against the multiple stakeholders involved (Nathan, et al., 2022). The most remarkable of these is the removal of Eastman Exports from the banned manufacturers list maintained by the US Customs and Border Protection (US CBP) under the sections of Tariffs Act of 1930 of United States, which authorizes US CBP to prevent goods from entering American markets on ‘reasonable suspicion of forced labour’ (Fudge & LeBaron, 2024). The rescinding of the prohibition was, notably, at the behest of the labour stakeholders of the agreement. Other examples also abound. 

Thus, in its progress reports, the agreement is said to have increased workers productivity, decreased attrition rate and labour turnover costs, increased the ‘reporting to work timings’, and decreased defective pieces rate (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023, p. 94). Then, there are examples of the workers suggesting process and design improvements in the production process, curbing the need for overtime employment and consequently, overtime wages that the management is obligated to pay (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023, p. 87); the grievance mechanism being utilized by the factory management and supervisors to report productivity losses and investigate and remediate reasons which lead to such situations (Jerrentrup & Kuruvilla, 2024); the union stepping in to clarify misunderstandings amongst workers regarding certain contingent managerial decisions, amongst others. The progress reports stress the cordiality and collaborative essence of management and union relationships resulting in ‘mature industrial relations’ and the practical viability of ILOs’ social dialogue model as a result of the agreement  (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023; ILO, 2024).

Of its core constituency—women workers and the systemic issue of GBVH in garments supply chains—the agreement has institutionalized a methodical and as systemic a mechanism for redressal and prevention. Thus, the multi-tiered GRM, which has built in feedback loops, is assisted by an equally robust training module which conducts basic trainings on GBVH and its intersections with freedom of association and mobility, which is administered in a rights-based approach to all stakeholders within the factories (such as the workers, guards, supervisors, managers, helpers, bus and hostel facility service providers, etc.). Then, there is an advanced training for the shop floor management personnel which are usually ‘deployed’ in 1:2 production line ratio and ‘marked’ by wearing a distinctly colored vest. The efficacy of these trainings can be gauged by the fact that the progress report of year two (conducted by independent evaluators) notes that a number of issues do not even reach the stage of formal complaining with the shop-floor monitors proactively intervening in conflict situations (such as when they witness mistreatment and other more apparent forms of GBVH) (Jerrentrup & Kuruvilla, 2024, p. 13)[15].Source: Jerrentrup & Kuruvilla, 2024, p. 27

In the two years of its functioning, the grievance mechanism has recorded over 400 complaints that follow a robust documentation with most of the complaints being raised by women and only growing from year one to two.  The grievances are recorded with over a 90% resolution rate and within two weeks. It is, however, the content of these grievances and what they have been able to institute that reflects their novelty. Firstly, to talk of the primary thematic locus, GBVH related complaints make up roughly 12% of the total complaints, and their resolution and penalization modality is rather creative. Though mostly the issues of GBVH related complaints are resolved through a written or a formal apology from the perpetrator towards the women; they have also entailed identification and termination of repeated offenders along with meting out ‘demotions’ to cultivate empathy amongst supervisors. Moreover, given that the mechanism mobilizes the Asia Floor Wage Alliances definition of GBVH as “violence that is directed against women because she is a woman and violence that affects women disproportionately” (Alliance, 2019, p. 7), the grievance investigations have in multiple instances identified labour process issues which escalate as issues of GBVH. Thus, the grievance resolution process remediates GBVH that occurs due to mismanagement of order intensity and working capacity of workers and takes steps to allocate resources more efficiently, or when it occurs when occupational safety and health issues are concerned and workers demand reassignment of duties, etc.

Of the bulk of the other complaints are issues of occupational health and safety, social security entitlements and provision of basic amenities such as clean drinking water, ventilation, cleaner toilets, healthy food in the canteens, creche facilities etc. There are also a number of complaints regarding the hostel and transport facilities which entail minute instances such as when drivers refuse dropping workers at a certain place, reduction of transport charges levied by the factory, and restrictions on mobility outside of working hours for women hostellers, which is managed and provided by Eastman exports.

What such minutiae of complaints along with their growth reflects is the embedding of the grievance mechanism in the quotidian life of the workers and the trust that it has been able to cultivate. Moreover, due to the fact that TTCU is also operational outside Eastman, workers have also been noted to present their putative ‘non-work’ complaints of domestic violence to the mechanism. Overall, there is a general consensus amongst all evaluators that the agreement has resolved issues in the favor of women workers without alienating the other stakeholders.

The agreement, in this case, reflects the actualization of the C190’s definition of harassment and violence either at the workplace or out of work (ILO, 2019, p. Sec. 3). Additionally, the fact that the agreement has been able to facilitate upward mobility of women workers as managers and supervisors within the factory; or the factory provides educational scholarship (named after Jeyasre Kathiravel) to children of workers or migrant young women to complete their formal education—testifies to the comprehensive approach to preventing and remediating conditions of GBVH[16].

Anyone familiar with the industrial dynamics of Tamil Nadu, or with the issue of women workforce participation or the garment manufacturing supply chains in the global South would be able to appreciate the embeddedness of the agreement within that context(s) and its role in actively trying to reshape the labour process (Better Work; Neetha, 2001; Veeravalli, 2010; Delaney & Connor, 2016). We must also appreciate how the contextuality of inter-firm relations that mark the garment GVCs have been mobilized by the agreement for the mutual benefit of all, especially the workers. Its regional embeddedness raises serious questions of the linkage of the Dindigul Agreement and the record of women’s economic mainstreaming within the developmental model of Tamil Nadu—which is the cause and which, the effect?  (Sundarajan; Chowdhary & Mondal, 2025). The answers perhaps lie in the fate of the agreement in the future, and one’s ideological positions over the questions of (a) whether business and worker rights can go hand-in-hand, (b) whether the absorption of women from unpaid to paid segments of the economy signifies a worsening or improvement, (c) whether the Dindigul agreement is both, effectively and causally, related to absorption of women workers within the labour force, and finally, (d) whether it is a mere exception to the general industrial relations that marks garment supply chains in the global South?

In conclusion, we must note a few points which go beyond the scope of description of the agreement and its functioning. Firstly, most of our account is based on the reports and literature which is either produced or  endorsed by the stakeholders involved in the agreement (especially, the labour ones). Thus, any measure of contrary opinions based on the same or other sources are inevitable. Secondly, ‘reading between the lines’ raises a number of questions with regards the role of trade unions engagement with the entire affair. Firstly, careful reading of the progress reports over the two years suggests that out of the multiple entry points afforded to the workers, the ‘union-management remediation meeting’, which usually occurs biweekly, has been most dominantly mobilized with 73% of the total resolutions occurring in them. This may become a bit of a challenge for any attempt to scale the agreement and its institutions to sites beyond Eastman exports since the union is usually not afforded a welcome by the industry stakeholders within Tamil Nadu (as per the author’s own experience during a couple of field works for research projects). This is also belied in the fact that the initial reception of the union representatives by even the managerial employees of Eastman exports was not very ‘warm’ (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023, p. 81).

Relatedly, the deeper engagement of the union with the Eastman exports management runs the risk of reputational losses amongst the workers in Eastman exports and in other factories of the cluster, with the chance of a certain mis-prioritizing of issues that come before it. It must also be noted that there is not much information available on whether there is any other non-TTCU union or collective of workers functioning in the units and what the relation of the agreement stakeholders is with such organizations, if any such exists.

3. Fair Wear Foundations ‘Access to Remedy’ Program in India

Fair Wear Foundation, a multi-stakeholder initiative and a global not-for-profit organization, has been active with the mission to improve labour conditions in the global garment industry, since 1999. Comprised of stakeholders such as brands, factories and suppliers, workers, trade unions and NGOs, Fair Wear works through alignment with the international standards and approaches that issue from United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, ILOs’ decent work agenda, OECD, and a host of transnational HRDD acts. It has a dynamic understanding of power imbalances within the supply chains of garment manufacturing and believes in established international conventions of social change (Fair Wear Foundation, n.d.). Of its key labour standards, the following form its Code of Labour Practices to which each brand and their suppliers must adhere to in order to maintain their membership in Fair Wear Foundation—

Source: (Fair Wear Foundation, n.d.)

As of today, Fair Wear works with 100+ brands from all over the world engaged with the global supply chains of a number of garment industry commodities (Fair Wear Foundation, n.d.).

Out of its many programs, such as those relating to training and capacity development of the various stakeholders of the garment supply chains, audits and certifications, performance checks, policy advocacy, one of its key programs is the “Access to Remedy” Program, which is an essential membership criterion for the brands to operationalize in their Tier-1 suppliers and which has been working since 2009[17].

In its current iteration, the “access to remedy” program is anchored through the ‘soft’ regulatory frameworks such as the UN HRCs’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, ILOs’ Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, OECDs’ Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and its Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector; along with the ‘hard’ ones such as  EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the German Supply Chain Act, and the French Duty of Vigilance Law . The GRM model, although referred to as an ‘external’, ‘non-judicial’ model which ‘leverages’ various powers that stakeholders and other forms of regulations have to remedy a grievance, must be seen as working either in tandem or ‘on top of’ the judicially mandated and state-based grievance mechanisms that are to operate at the factory level and has a certain oversight relationship with them (Fair Wear, 2025)[18]. Although the individual complaints will bring this aspect more to the fore, it can be located in the process design itself of the Fair Wear GRM, whereby each complaint that it receives ought to be related to the ‘internal, factory-based’ GRMs either in the form where it counsels the complainant(s) to utilize the latter, and provides assistance in filing of complaint to the ‘internal, factory-based’ GRM or, in the event that they are not functioning towards their intended outcome, include their improvement as part of the remediation process (Fair Wear, 2018, pp. 11-12). Of late, the “Access to Remedy” program has been extended to the brand members of other Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives too such as Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, Amfori, etc. (Fair Wear, 2022; Fair Wear, 2025).

3.1. The Design of Fair Wears GRM

With regards to the design of the Fair Wears GRM, there are a number of salient points[19]. Firstly, and more importantly, it provides a number of entry-points for complaints for ease-of-access and comprehensiveness, beginning from the provision to maintain anonymity of the complainants, entertaining former workers complaints, allowing for NGOs, Trade Unions and other labour stakeholders to use the mechanism including provisions for suo-moto cognizance by Fair Wear, entertain individual and group grievances and operate a helpline and an internet-based mechanism of grievance raising. Once the grievance is received, Fair Wear Complaints handlers are supposed to counsel and provide assistance to the workers in utilizing the internal, factory-based GRMs, should the workers prefer so; establish authenticity of the complaint via other workers or stakeholders who are available in the vicinity along with ruling out malintent on the part of the complainant. Then, once considered admissible, the handlers categorize the complaints on the basis of their severity, such as those relating to child labour, occupational safety and health, minimum wages, and other such complaints, which may be immediately dangerous to the workers and those relating to dismissals, freedom of association, which may play out in a longer term, and intimate the brand partners of such a compliant in their supplier factory entailing a specific timeline of resolution according to the severity category. At this stage, Fair Wear may also rope in other non-brand stakeholders such as other brands who may be sourcing from the factory in question, relevant trade unions or labour stakeholders, MSIs etc. Throughout the process anti-retaliation measures are adopted variously to safeguard the interests of the complainant(s).

Once the complaint is admitted, raised to the relevant stakeholders, the investigation process commences, which determines whether the violation in question was documented in the previous audit reports of the factory. In the former case, an independent investigation process commences, which utilizes documents, visual inspections, management interviews, workers on-site, and off-site interviews to determine whether the complaint is ‘grounded’, i.e. valid; ‘not-grounded’, i.e. there’s evidence that the labour standards were not violated; and ‘no-conclusion possible’, i.e. adequate evidence was found wanting. In the latter case, in the event that the complaint is found determined through previous audit reports, Fair Wear monitors the remediation process entailed in the post-audit improvement plans. This follows a remediation, monitoring and feedback processes in case the complaint is ‘grounded’ and involves all stakeholders with steps such as resolution of immediate issue and feedback of the complainant at each step, identification of the larger-structural issue such as purchasing practices, internal GRMs malfunction, etc. and the remediation and public reporting of the issue in the shape and manner in which Fair Wear deems fit for the purposes of ‘leverage’.

3.2.  Case Studies from India[20]

Since 2023 until 2025, there have been 21 complaints, publicly available on its online repository, most of which have been raised by workers or former workers in the supplier units of its member brands with a mixed bag of results such as those which have been closed, under-remediation, under-investigation, or inconclusive. Mostly, these complaints and, ergo, violations occur at the intersections of multiple labour standards, all of which highlight a certain interplay of the formal standards and local norms interspersed with the question of workers agency and entitlements. Suggestive is the case of the violation of the standard “Legally Binding Employment Relationship” which shows up most dominantly in the records. Let us posit a few case studies to show the nature of the violation of this standard.

The violation of “legally binding employment relationship” seems to be distinctly stemming from the issue of lack of well-defined and documented terms of engagement between the workers and the factory which impinges upon a number of issues. These include issues of notice period in the event of resignation by an employee (1649), leaves policy (1552, 1706 & 1627), illegal termination without any credible grounds or due process, evasion from paying social security by the factory through improper documentation and the use of contractual employees (1717 & 1621), conflicts over regular working hours and overtime which impinges upon the right to be paid an overtime wage premium (1552, 1621), evasion of the obligation to pay gratuity and bonuses (1552  & 1553), etc. As has been variously documented, this issue of contractualization of employment and lack of proper documentation is one of the most widely known problems in the enforcement of labour laws in India which opens up the means to a number of evasions on part of the factory management and is exactly what is known as the growing informalization of employment within the formal sector, a tendency noted since 2000s, and rather rampant in the garment industry (National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, 2009, pp. 13-16; Mezzadri & Sehgal, 2023, p. 52; Goldar, 2023).

In fact, reading the case details, it becomes apparent that Fair Wear complaints handlers record the violation of this standard as a short hand, when there is a conflict over the terms of engagement (of leaves, wages, bonuses, gratuity, social security, illegal termination, etc.) between the workers and the management. One of the common routes through which this occurs is over the issues of termination or resignation of the worker and the settlement of their final dues by the factory (see cases 1717, 1706, 1639, 1649, 1553, 1520, 1482, 1466). The record of the mechanism in getting the workers their claimed dues remain mixed ranging from full recovery to partial recovery to no final information on the issue.

Moreover, inasmuch as this issue hinges upon the problem of contractualization of workers, one of the most interesting cases recorded in its repertoire is no. 1439 wherein at stake is the conflict over ‘unfair termination’ of workers by the factory whenever there aren’t enough ‘orders’ or when workers take ‘longer’ leaves than they are normatively and colloquially entitled to (in the absence of a written contract). The case document records that the management maintains that it doesn’t violate any ‘laws of the land’ whereas Fair Wear maintains that it does with specific and extremely detailed references to national and state level labour laws along with legal and judicial precedents. What is interesting in this case is that regardless of the non-judicial nature of the GRM, it shows that it relies heavily on the judicial precedents with regards to the grievance redressal. It must be noted that the resolution of this case also doesn’t lend itself easily to whether it was a successful resolution or not.

Moving from the mixed record in terms of outcomes to how it has impacted processes of industrial relations, we again come across a similar tendency. Most symptomatic is to see this through the standard of freedom of association. Two polar opposite tendencies can be seen in the case studies. First is the case that gets recorded in the complaint no. 1520 in October 2023 when a few former workers registered a complaint regarding the payment of their final settlement amounts after a resignation. Investigation, however, records that the resignation is due to a certain collective action that the complainants most probably had taken part in ‘as leaders’ for wage increment[21].  In its inability to agree to a wage increment, the management cited reasons of the declining market activity and slumping orders from the brands, post the COVID recessionary phase and clarified that it had behoved the Fair Wear member brands too to increase their orders from this particular supplier which, however, was not met with. In its resolution, Fair Wear records the affair concluded on the basis of payment of final dues to the complainants without any comment on the wage increment or the brand-supplier relations.

At the other end of the extreme is the multiple complaints against the management of a supplier unit from Gujarat in January, June and August of 2023 (1432, 1448 & 1466). These included a number of issues such as forced overtime and non-payment of overtime premium wages, leaves, non-provision of employment contracts, use of toilets, use of mobile phones, provision of drinking water, provision of lockers and undue payments for the use of lockers, delays in payment of wages, and the timely payment of minimum wages, illegal termination in the case of one employee and their subsequent settlement of final dues. In this case, the Fair Wear GRM seems to have been mobilized by the workers in the process of their collectivization against gross violations of workers rights by the management. An estimate of the management’s imposition against the workers can be seen in the fact that they imposed a system of tokens against the ‘indiscriminate’ use of toilets by the workers, with one token per production line limiting the number of workers who can be absent at a certain point in time, provided videos from the washrooms to establish the claims of such ‘indiscriminate’ use violating the workers right to privacy, one the one hand; and on the other, imposition of forced overtime, non-payment of overtime wages and its adjustment in leaves, thereby limiting leaves.

Whereas in this case also the outcomes are difficult to evaluate because of the quality of records, it appears that Fair Wear is able to solicit the managements culpability in a number of issues and loosen the disciplinary techniques with regards to lockers, toilets and the use of mobile phones. The complaints record the issue as ‘resolved’ and ends with a more scrutinizing involvement of the brand and a local NGO in initiating a capacity building exercise with an intent to enhance social dialogue, and initiate a remediation and monitoring plan of the structural issues identified[22]. However, the success of these remediations is not available online.

The Fair Wear GRMs complaints are a reflection of the nature of workers and suppliers’ conflicts in various locations in India but its success seems irregular. Foremostly, this is due to the principled neutrality of the mechanism whose foremost critique is visible through the violation of the standard of ‘legally enforceable employment relationship’. In the general case that workers cannot even be legally established as workers, let alone be safeguarded against the violation of their rights, this principled neutrality often goes against the interests of the workers. Although the mechanism has the potential to be leveraged by the workers as one of the means through which they secure their rights due to its principle of maintaining anonymity, this doesn’t seem to have produced much of the results. Finally, of its tactic of ‘leverage’, it must be noted none of the case studies mention any strict or ‘hard’ action against any supplier by the member brand for the labour standards violation and the usual modus operandi seems to be a more scrutinizing involvement of the member brands and Fair Wear within the supplier units[23].

4.    Conclusion: Implications & Lessons

From the accounts of the two case studies above, it becomes rather apparent how immanently these institutions have the capacity to modify the relations that constitute the global supply chains. If on the one hand, we see that they can act as a force to shift the very nature of buyer-seller or interfirm relations that characterize the global apparel value chains (Gereffi, Humphrey, & Sturgeon, 2005), towards more equitable and just arrangements for the sellers against the monopsony powers of the buyer-brands[24]; on the other hand, they also have the capacity to modify the non-firm, interpersonal relations between the workers in clusters, and at their homes, or what has been termed as Global (re)Production Networks by Stephanie Barrientos (Barrientos, 2019). On other registers, they may offer to the Indian government better and more consensual standards to navigate the ‘regulatory storm’ by establishing minimum baselines and, more importantly, effective implementation through such innovations in administration. Furthermore, they also seem to have a reconciliatory response to the often-cited antinomy of ‘business interests’ and ‘human rights’ within the global sustainability movement. Although the nascence of these new labor institutions may question drawing such wide-ranging implications, a few lessons on what works better from the above two case studies can be drawn, regardless.

First of all, one may begin by saying that the ‘principle of neutrality’ often does little in a situation such as the Indian labour market which is marked by a vast amount of informalization and a situation where there is a vast gap of knowledge, or effective implementation between rights and their assertion amongst the workers. In such a context, even a partisan, worker-centric principle may take time to yield its intended outcomes where the initial time-period is marked by more volatility before it matures into better industrial relations, as we see in the case of the Dindigul Agreement. In this regard, a high input of complaints may not necessarily be against the interests of the management and the business interests of a firm since they may improve efficiency and productivity but may be against certain managers and supervisors.

Secondly, the comparison between the case studies also highlights that any regulation of labour standard has to be embedded within local and relevant contexts if it is to yield any success. This local and relevant contextualization may be in the way of the operational mechanism be rooted in certain sites such as factories and shop-floors or clusters or be rooted in certain stakeholders such as local trade unions or collectives or the workers committees themselves. The sheer number and trajectorial evolution of complaints in Dindigul Agreement vis-à-vis the Fair Wear Remediation program is testament to these lessons. Thirdly, in terms of the thematic scope of the two case studies, it becomes apparent that a specific aspect has a better chance at effective implementation with noted spillovers and externalities than a generic, broad-based mechanism safeguarding multiple labour rights and standards.

Fourthly, any well-designed mechanism of workers’ rights in the manner of adequate layering of regulations and embedding them will have external spillover in terms of benefits or losses for other actors in the global production networks such as suppliers-manufacturers or brands-buyers. The success of any new labour institution will depend on whether it is able to incentivize those actors, including the national governments and industrial relations machinery along with the suppliers, which are disadvantaged in the global value chain power asymmetry.

Having said that, we must conclude by drawing a word of caution. It has been widely noted within the particular literature of GRMs (Hossain, Joshi, & Pande, 2024) and within the literature of trade unionism in India (John, 2012) that both the institutions in their full swing may suppress certain voices of alternate forms of self-organization amongst the workers. The success of Dindigul Agreement as a case study, besides hinging on the uncertainty of renewal and continuation, also engenders that a crucial legitimizing trope of it is economistic – how adherence to labour standards increases productivity. This endangers a subservience of workers’ rights to business interests and also may play a diffusionist function against the autonomous and antagonistic tendency of workers that was afforded within the traditional tripartite model of industrial relations.

Appendix 1: Fair Wear “Access to Remedy” Program India Case Studies[25]

Endnotes

[1] The Indian central government had introduced the 4 new labour codes in 2020 namely, the Code on Wages (2019), Industrial Relations Code (2020), Code on Social Security (2020) and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020) (Mishra & Dwivedi, 2024). Ever since 2020, however, the attempt to notify and implement the new labour codes have met with two fronts of opposition (Centre for Workers’ Management, 2025): Primarily, this has come from the central trade unions which, in opposition to a recent push by the central government towards notification, had called for another general strike, a tactic, ongoing since 2020 (which, however, was delayed to July, 2025) (Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2025; The Hindu Bureau, 2025); and secondly, from the State governments since labour and its aspects falls within the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution on which the central and the state governments exercise shared legislative powers (The Hindu Bureau, 2024).

[2] Such as issues relating to the use of contract labour, financial obligations on the employers over and the above the payment of immediate wages (in itself, governed by the minimum wages acts) such as bonus, gratuity, social security insurances, provision of occupational safety and non-hazardous working conditions, etc.

[3] The organized or formal industrial sector in India is generally used interchangeably and refers to those enterprises which are included within section 2 (m) of the Factories Act of 1948 (Jha, 2016, pp. 34-6). For an overview of the debate over labour reforms since 1991 macroeconomic reforms and its linkages with a certain stagnating performance of the Indian manufacturing sector, see (Mishra Y. , 2025).

[4] The latter school of authors also draw attention to the tendency of informalization of employment within the formal sector whereby the workers are bereft of certain entitlements such as social security benefits, paid leaves and a written employment contract to prove themselves as ‘workers’ in the event of an industrial dispute (National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, 2009, pp. 13-16; NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, pp. A-222).

[5] In this paper, I use the terms Global Value Chains, Global Production Networks and Global Supply chains interchangeably (Scholvin, 2020).

[6] Many other trade specific regulations such as the United States Tariff Act of 1930 or its Generalized System of Preferences also entail clauses against unsustainably produced goods in terms of labour standards violations.

[7] See, for example, (H&M Group; John Lewis Partnership; Levi Strauss & Co. , 2022)

[8] To take the example of occupational safety and health of the Indian industrial workers engaged in the GVCs of garment or automotive industry, it is covered under various regulatory frameworks such as, the Eighth UN Sustainable Development Goal, International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s Centenary Declaration Para II.D. and III.B., Principle 3 of National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India; fundamental rights and directive principles of the Indian Constitution enshrined in the Factories Act of 1948 or Employee State Insurance Act of 1948, along with non-State, non-judicial mechanisms such as management standards of OHSAS 18001 or ISO 45001: 2018 or a variety of supplier codes of conducts or sustainability compliances of international brands and companies.

[9] Although it is too ‘bold’ a claim to question the entire industrial relations machinery of India as being ‘ineffective’ in protecting labour, and merits attention in its own right, there may be a certain truth to this claim as can be seen from the following governmental or garment industry specific reports (Second National Commission of Labour, 2002, p. 247; Mezzadri & Sehgal, 2023; Sehgal, 2018).

[10] This was exacerbated in the failure of the private regulations during the Rana Plaza tragedy of Bangladesh (Appelbaum & Lichtenstein, 2014)

[11] Although these developments are unsystematized and under-theorized in the case of India, some reference may be found in (Gross, 2013 (Though Factory, 9; RLS South Asia Working Paper Series) ). More contemporarily, such developments can be gleaned in the labour violations that occurred during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the recessionary brunt that was faced by the workers and that was raised in (SLD, AFWA & BHRRC, 2022).

[12] It may be worth noting that, again, it was in the Bangladesh’s ACCORD agreement that we find one of the first models of hybrid governance along with the modality of grievance mechanism for the workers (Kuruvilla, 2021, p. 157)

[13] The agreement is operational in the 7 units owned by Eastman Exports such as its garment factories, spinning mills, training centre, printing unit, and the women hostels and dormitories. It covers around 5000 workers (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023, p. 28. ) For details about the participants of the Dindigul Agreement, see (Fudge & LeBaron, 2024).

For a definition of Enforceable Brand Agreement, see (Bureau of International Labor Affairs, US Dept. of Labor).

[14] It must be reiterated that, conversely, since the investigation of the culpability of Jeyasre’s murder to the legally binding clauses within the agreement whereby upon failing to perform its duties, the brands may be brought a suit against in their ‘home’ countries, the agreement also implicates the buyer firms for whatever transpires in the lower tiers of the supply chains. Moreover, it must also be noted that apart from strengthening the brands monopsonist position within the matrix of relations, the essence of worker-driven social responsibility or EBAs is a certain ‘chipping away’ of what has come to known the purely market-based governance of the buyer-driven commodity chains since it ‘fixes’ the culpability of brands and buyer firms by either a host of means, the least of which is the commitment to continue to source from suppliers who are in focus (Fudge & LeBaron, 2024, p. 7; Gereffi, Humphrey, & Sturgeon, 2005).

[15] Another aspect of these trainings worth appreciating is that they occur within the factory premises and are ‘on the clock’ meaning that they are considered part of waged work.

[16] These and other more detailed insights can be found in (AFWA; TTCU & GLJ-ILRF, 2023; Jerrentrup & Kuruvilla, 2024). The preceding section is based on these reports itself.

[17] Based on the first complaint available on their online public repository (Fair Wear Foundation, b, p. No. 378 ).

[18] For our purposes, we must note that various GRMs are mandated within the Indian national labour and factory laws such as Industrial Disputes Act, Factory Act, POSH Act, Payment of Wages Act, etc.

“Leverage” is described by Fair Wear during the remediation process of a complaint, by the “share of the production volume the brand buys from a factory and the length of the business relation, but is not a static concept. It can be influenced by a range of mechanisms, including by inserting contractual provisions, but also through collaboration with other customers or parties” (Fair Wear, 2018, p. 18).

[19] This entire section on the GRM design is condensed from (Fair Wear, 2018).

[20] The relevant case no. is in brackets and can be accessed from Appendix 1 below.

[21] Interestingly, the case records that when the management refused to accept the demand for increment, many other workers who had resigned qua ‘walk-out’ were reinstated when they requested so from the management whereas the 4-5 ‘leaders’ who had ‘coerced’ the other workers to agitate were not reinstated, even after requesting so.

[22] Interesting in this entire affair is the individual case of an employee, in the same factory, who raised a personal complaint regarding her termination and problems of settlement of final dues by the management, within the intersections of all the problems highlighted above. In this case, there is evidence of retaliation against the employee for utilizing the fair wear mechanism and a hint of unsatisfactory resolution of her complaint for reinstatement (1466).

[23] These readings are also influenced by the authors own personal experience with assisting in a case of Fair Wear Complaint.

[24] But also reinforce the market-integration of the firms in the GVCs (Gereffi, Humphrey, & Sturgeon, 2005)

[25] The cases are linked to their respective online record.