Worker Power Comes from Workers

President Donald Trump's executive order to end collective bargaining with federal unions has been described by veteran labor journalist Hamilton Nolan as “the worst thing that the federal government has done to labor unions in my lifetime.” Stripping collective bargaining rights from federal government workers hinders their ability to negotiate for higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions. This is likely just the first attack of many that the Trump administration plans to unleash on U.S. labor over the next three-and-a-half years. When your own government is working against you, it is as good a time as any to remember that “workers don’t derive their power from the state, workers’ form of power is their labor and their ability to withhold that labor from their employers” as Moll Daniels, a lead organizer with Workers United (a labor union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union) puts it.

Workers in a number of East and Southeast Asian countries live and breathe this point every day as they have had to deal with governments and unions that are at best indifferent to their plight and at worst actively obstruct their progress. Textile and garment workers in these countries also face an additional set of challenges. They are paid notoriously low wages and operate under the constant threat of their employers relocating in search of even cheaper labor. On top of this, the vast majority of textile and garment workers are women. This means that, in addition to paid work in the formal sector, they are also responsible for a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities and unpaid care work. Yet, workers in this industry have fought, and continue to fight, for their rights and dignity, and to organize, resist, and win. As the following examples show, Asian garment workers were able to achieve some gains from such precarious positions, despite their government’s commitment to crushing worker solidarity, because they recognized the source of their power: collectively withholding their labor.

Vietnam: Wildcat Strike Central

In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, Vietnam exported $31 billion worth of clothing, making it the third largest exporter of clothing behind China and Bangladesh. That same year, textile and garment exports made up about 12% of the country’s total goods exports and 10% of its GDP (Vietnam’s exports contribute significantly to its GDP). The garment and textile industries are estimated to employ about 2.5 million people and span over 6,000 enterprises. Since the garment industry is labor-intensive, rapid expansion requires increasing the number of workers, the number of hours worked, or workers’ productivity to keep up. Thus, businesses are incentivized to keep workers in the factory and working for as long as possible, as fast as possible. This means workers work for longer hours, are often denied leave, and in some cases they may even be forced to work against their will (see sidebar). Although there are trade unions in Vietnam, they are all affiliated with the Communist Party and are not independent. Consequently, Vietnamese unions do not plan or encourage strikes. Thus, for the last three decades, workers have had to engage in illegal, wildcat strikes to protest their working conditions and general mistreatment.

One such example occurred on September 6, 2017, when 6,000 workers in the Thanh Hoa Province of northern Vietnam abruptly walked off the job in a wildcat strike. The strike began after some workers put down fabric to rest on during a break and their supervisor demanded they lie on the hard floor instead. In response, about 2,000 workers from one production line walked off the job and were soon followed by 4,000 more workers from the other two production lines. The workers stated that this incident was reflective of the broader inhumane treatment by the company, S&H Vina Co. Ltd., which produces clothes for companies like the Gap. The next day the striking workers presented a list of demands to the company which included wage increases, better maternity leave, and no deduction in wages for unexpected leaves due to illness or death in the family. To try to solve the issue quickly, management removed the supervisor involved in the incident and said they would consider some of the workers’ demands. The strike continued another four days until the company agreed to about half of the workers’ demands regarding salary, leave, bonuses, and wage deductions due to unexpected absences. In addition, the workers were able to secure full payment for their days on strike.

The Truth About Forced Labor:
Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930

On paper, U.S. law prohibits the importation of products made by forced and child labor. In practice, however, this law has not been effective in preventing goods manufactured with forced labor from reaching U.S. markets. Congress enacted Section 307 of the Tariff Act in 1930 to protect U.S. labor from competing with foreign forced labor, not necessarily to protest the forced labor itself. For example, Congress allowed imports made with forced labor in cases where domestic production could not meet U.S. consumer demand. Because of this loophole, Section 307 was rarely invoked to block U.S. imports. In 2015, Congress amended Section 307 to remove the “consumptive demand” clause. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has blocked more imports since the closing of the loophole, but the agency remains underfunded and understaffed. Maxine Bédat reports in her book Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment that the forced labor team of the CBP consists of just six members out of a 62,450-person staff.

The Vietnamese apparel worker tradition of wildcat strikes is still going strong. In 2023, 6,000 employees of Viet Glory, a Taiwanese-owned shoemaker, walked off the job to demand pay increases, adjustments in production quotas, bonuses, and other issues related to benefits and leave. Viet Glory manufactures mostly leather shoes and can produce up to 25 million products per year. The United States is the biggest market for Vietnamese-made footwear and about half of all Nike shoes are now made in Vietnam. After six days, the company increased worker allowances for travel and lunch in addition to doubling the amount of bonuses for meeting production quotas. Earlier that year, 300 workers at Saitex International, a denim manufacturer with clients such as J. Crew and Everlane, went on strike to protest the deduction of wages due to product defects. The strike only lasted a little more than six hours before the company agreed to return the deductions to workers.

These workers were able to extract material gains without any backing from an official union or protection from government labor laws. The strikes, for the most part, were spontaneous and leaderless, demonstrating that much can be won by just recognizing the fact that worker power comes from the ability to withhold labor together. In these specific strikes, the government and the government-run unions did not help Vietnamese garment workers win their battles, but they also did not actively work against them. In other garment exporting powerhouses such as China, the state has actively used its power to stifle workers’ demands on pay and working conditions and to break up strikes. But even in these cases, workers can still achieve some gains.

China: Local Government Suppression

China is by far the world’s leading exporter of apparel. In 2023 China’s clothing exports totaled $165 billion, or about 30% of total global clothing exports. China’s dominance in this sector was cultivated by two major governmental interventions. First, in 1978, Deng Xiaoping announced the “open door” policy which allowed foreign businesses to operate and invest in China. Second, the Chinese government used industrial policy to incentivize investment specifically in the textile and clothing industry. For example, the “six priorities” policy, which was adopted in 1980, sought to provide firms in this industry with access to credit and ensure the supply of raw materials and electricity.

In the transition from a planned economy to a more market-based one, the ownership structure of China’s clothing and textile industry slowly shifted from the state to the private sector. Prior to 1978, firms in this industry were either state-owned or collective (local government owned) enterprises. By 2011, the percentage of state-owned and collective companies in the clothing industry was 1.2% and 0% respectively, according to a 2016 paper by Zhang Miao, an international relations professor at Xiamen University, and her co-authors. This is a problem for workers because employment with a state-owned enterprise is known to come with superior benefits relative to the private sector, such as increased job security, better benefits, and higher wages.

The Xianyang textile workers’ strike in 2004 occurred in response to this shift. About 6,800 mostly female workers at the Xianyang Huarun textiles factory struck for seven weeks to protest layoffs, shorter hiring contracts, and reductions in wages and benefits. These changes were a result of China Resources, a private company, acquiring the textile factory from the state. The workers stopped production at the factory and maintained an ongoing 200-person vigil at the factory’s gates. As the strike continued, workers began to escalate pressure by going each night to the blocks where the factory managers lived and protesting the fact that managers received compensation for their loss of state-owned enterprise benefits, while workers did not. Late in the strike, workers blockaded a railway and only dispersed when 1,000 riot police arrived.

The local Chinese government intervened to end the strike several times. First, the Xianyang city government blocked the workers’ attempt to organize their own independent union, which would have provided them with a way to conduct transparent and fair negotiations with the employer. Second, officials from the Shaanxi provincial government told workers to stop striking and go back to work in a televised broadcast and also in person at the factory gate vigil. Third, the local police force was used to arrest strike leaders after the railroad blockade, effectively ending the protest.

Even with several levels of local government working against them, the Chinese textile workers withheld their labor for a remarkably long period, and it led to many of their demands being met: The workers that were rehired received longer-term contracts, the six-month probationary period (in which the workers would only receive 60% of their pay) was dropped, wage reductions were rescinded, and all of the strike leaders were freed. About 30% of the striking workers were rehired, about 27% were placed in other local jobs, and about 44% took the severance payout (mostly workers who had worked at the factory for decades, meaning a larger payout).

Although China is still a giant apparel exporter, the country’s market share in clothing exports has been on the decline since 2015. At the same time, its market share in the more capital-intensive textile exports market has risen. This shift toward more advanced manufacturing has left Chinese garment workers grappling with factories relocating to countries with even cheaper labor costs. For example, Pou Chen, the largest footwear manufacturer in the world, which supplies brands like Nike, Adidas, Asics, New Balance, and Timberland, has slowly shifted its production out of China to Indonesia over the past decade. When workers at the Yangzhou Baoyi Shoe Factory were informed their factory was closing at the end of 2023, they went on strike to demand clarity on their severance compensation and to point out the fact that the base salaries used to compute their severance did not reflect their typical income over the past year. The workers’ week-long strike ended with the factory owners explaining how the workers’ severance payments were calculated and agreeing to add an extra month of each worker’s average salary to their severance. Withholding labor is unlikely to reverse long-term supply chain restructuring and keep factories open indefinitely, but it can ensure that laid-off workers receive adequate compensation.

Bangladesh: The Belly of the Beast

While China shifts to more capital-intensive manufacturing in the clothing supply chain, Bangladesh’s economy is increasingly dependent on labor-intensive garment exports to maintain jobs and growth. Jobs in this sector are primarily cutting and sewing fabric versus the more capital-intensive textile production where large machinery is used to turn raw materials like cotton into yarn and then into various fabrics. In 2023, Bangladesh exported about $47 billion worth of clothing, making it the second largest apparel exporter behind China. In 1983, ready-made garments made up about 4% of Bangladesh’s total exports. By 2023, that number had grown to roughly 81%. According to the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, the ready-made garments industry contributes about 16% to the country’s GDP and employs about four million workers (mostly female) in more than 4,000 factories.

Garment workers in Bangladesh face perhaps the toughest economic environment for achieving labor victories. At 12,500 taka per month, or about $113, their pay is among the lowest of top apparel-producing countries. Employers and the government have incentives to keep wages as low as possible to keep attracting orders from foreign buyers. As a result, a government-appointed Wage Board has reviewed and revised Bangladesh’s minimum wage only every five years, whereas other countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia have annual minimum-wage revisions. Year after year, workers and unions fought against inadequate minimum-wage increases and inadequate worker representation on wage boards. For example, the last two minimum-wage increases, in 2018 and 2023, were only about half of what workers were demanding. The massive protests in response to these meager increases involved tens of thousands of workers taking to the streets only to be met with police repression, arrest, firing from their jobs, and in some extreme cases, death. With a government intent on keeping wages low enough to keep exports high, it is hard to see how workers can make any material gains.

Another symbol of the abysmal working conditions Bangladeshi garment workers face is the Rana Plaza factory disaster. In the eight-story Rana Plaza building thousands of garment workers manufactured clothes for brands like H&M. On April 24, 2013, the building collapsed, killing over 1,000 workers and injuring 2,500 more. The day before the collapse large cracks were found on the building. Despite this, management ordered the workers to return the next day, displaying the horrific lack of care for the workers. The resulting global outrage and mobilization of Bangladeshi and global labor unions led to the establishment of The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh which sought to improve the safety of garment factories (see sidebar).

Bangladesh’s Accord on Fire and Building Safety: Promise and Reality

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza factory building just outside of Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka, collapsed—killing 1,138 workers and injuring 2,500 others. Shaken by the catastrophe, the worst ever in the garment industry, a group of mostly European retail brands turned away from the business-as-usual approach of corporate codes that had failed to ensure safe working conditions in the factories that made their clothes or to protect the reputation of their brands. On May 15, 2013, 13 retail brands signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

The Accord was a five-year, legally binding agreement negotiated with two global unions, IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union, and with the participation of the Industrial Labor Organization (ILO). It created a board of an equal number of labor and brand representatives who oversaw independent safety audits of factory hazards and made their findings public. The Accord also required the brands to provide up to $2.5 million per company for repairs and made the brands responsible for making sure the needed factory renovations and repairs were made.

Eventually, over 190 global brands signed on to the Accord. The Accord was a stunning accomplishment especially in today’s global garment industry with brands in the Global North and with its export factories in Bangladesh and spread across the Global South.

With the Accord, safety conditions improved in the Bangladeshi factories contracting with the brands. Two 2018 reports confirmed that. The New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights found that 85% of the initially identified hazardous conditions had been remediated. The Penn State Center for Global Workers Rights (CGWR) found that “sweeping change has been achieved in the area of building safety.” But both reports pointed out that the Accord’s inspections did not extend beyond the large export factories that contract with the brands, which means that the inspections did not include the facilities of the thousands of subcontractors employed by the larger export-factories. Nor did the remediation. Beyond that, that CGWR reported that working conditions other than safety continued to deteriorate under the pressure of a source-pricing squeeze.
In August 2021, 77 brands signed the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry, negotiated again with the global IndustriALL and UNI unions. The International Accord retained the key features of the 2013 agreement, but also promised to:

--Cover general health and safety, rather than only fire and building safety. ---Expand the work of the International Accord to at least one other country within the first two years.
--Seek to include more brands.

Then, in December 2022, leading brands and global unions agreed to the Pakistan Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry. Finally, by the end of 2023, over 200 brands had signed on to the International Accord, and Accord agreements were under discussion in Sri Lanka, India, and Morocco. —John Miller

By combining their power to withhold labor with other collective action tactics, Bangladeshi garment workers have found some success in achieving direct demands. For example, in 2013, factory workers at Tuba Group, a company that manufactures clothes for businesses like Walmart, locked owner Delwar Hossain in his office and refused to let him out until workers’ promised bonuses for the Muslim Eid holiday were paid. Less than a year later, workers for the same company walked off the job to demand unpaid wages from May. This time around, the workers could not use the same direct confrontation tactic since Hossain was in jail for his negligent role in the Tarzeen factory fire. After several empty promises of repayment from factory management, the workers escalated tactics over the next two months by demanding the industry association Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) give them their back pay, occupying one of the Tuba factories, and engaging in an 11-day hunger strike. The strike ended after the police evicted the workers occupying the factory and arrested key leaders of the strike. Although the five Tuba factories ended up closing, the workers were able to secure two months’ worth of unpaid back wages from BGMEA. More recently, Teen Vogue profiled the stories of five Southeast Asian labor activists in the garment industry. Ratna Tigga, a factory worker in Dhaka, helped fight for back pay in a factory that was closing, and won. At her current job, she organized her coworkers to refuse to work until a coworker whose leg was severed in a a workplace accident received compensation.

Bangladeshi garment worker protests show that workers can still achieve gains, however small, despite government suppression, police crackdowns, and the crushing pressure of globalization. Collectively withholding labor is the core of worker power. But as these examples demonstrate, even when the state is actively working against labor, other collective action tactics can help build power and momentum, and bring awareness to injustices in the workplace. When workers stand up to employers in this way, power is built in several ways. First, workers overcome the fear of resisting. Second, workers’ class consciousness is further developed when they see other workers’ struggles and willingness to resist. Third, workers see what can be gained from resisting. Fourth, workers may be more likely to participate in future collective actions of resistance or to get more involved with the union.

What can we take away from these garment worker uprisings in East and Southeast Asia? First, sometimes workers have to exercise their power to get the bare minimum. Garment workers have struck to receive wages or bonuses that were rightfully and fairly earned. Second, even when it seems useless, fighting is still worth it. Factory closures have not stopped garment workers from striking to receive adequate compensation, which presumably would not be given without worker action. Third, and most important of all, worker power comes from workers. It isn’t granted by the state or by unions. Workers’ power comes from their ability to withhold their labor from their employer as a group. This is why some of the most exploited workers in the world were able to secure some gains in the face of an indifferent or outright adversarial state. Workers in the United States can look to these struggles for inspiration and for lessons on how to make progress in the next three-and-a-half years.

Amanda Page-Hoongrajok is an assistant professor of economics in the department of social sciences at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY.

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