Ahmed, Md Shoaib and Uddin, Shahzad (2021) 'Workplace Bullying and Intensification of Labour Controls in the Clothing Supply Chain: Post-Rana Plaza Disaster.' Work, Employment and Society, 36 (3). pp. 539-556. ISSN 0950-0170

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Abstract

This article examines workplace bullying and the intensification of labour controls in the clothing supply chain. It appears that extreme forms of bullying are deployed to intensify labour controls, including locking workers in, frequent wage cuts, setting moveable targets and carrying out intense observations. The context of this study is surplus value-starved clothing factories in Bangladesh. Global supply chains’ production regimes and the absence of state protections and trade unions enable factory managers to systematically deploy bullying tactics to achieve production targets. Drawing on Burawoy’s works, this article advances the debate of how workplace bullying is impacted by wider structural conditions with managerial strategies of coercion in factories. It is argued here that when the state intervenes in the factory only to protect and preserve capitalists’ interests, explicitly and implicitly, coercive strategies of control turn into extreme bullying on the shopfloor.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Bangladesh garment industry; bullying; Burawoy; coercion; labour control; Rana Plaza; supply chain
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Essex Business School Faculty of Social Sciences > Essex Business School > Essex Accounting Centre
SWORD Depositor:	Elements
Depositing User:	Elements
Date Deposited:	06 Oct 2021 13:14
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2022 10:43
URI:	http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/30758

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