Voice and power: Feminist governance as transnational justice in the globalized value chain

• Date: 01 October 2018
• Author: Fauzia Erfan Ahmed
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12192
• Published date: 01 October 2018

324  

|

  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Busines s Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2018;27:3 24–336.

© 2018 John Wiley & So ns Ltd

|

We face pressure fro m the buyer. If I don't meet their

deadlines, my b usiness suffe rs. Load shed ding and

hartals (str ikes) delay production. On the ot her hand,

as an employer, I also have res ponsibilities t owards

my workers.

What we need is a list of r ights and responsibilit ies of

everyone in the chain.

Factory owner A , 2013

The buyers are s till calling th e shots. They have n't

paid one penny for co mpliance. But t hey have de‐

creased the pr ice they give us for the items.

Factory owner A , 2016

We are not paid commens urate to our labor. If we ask

for a salary in crease, we are told that the buyers w ill

move to another count ry and the factory w ill be shut

down. And we will lo se our jobs.

Tareq, Male garment wo rker, 2013

Increasing wage s is not enough. We also n eed paid

maternity le ave and a guarantee that our job s will still

be there after we r eturn.

Samina, Female g arment worker, 2013

Things have improve d after Rana Plaza. I wi ll not deny

this. But we are coa ched on what to say to the buyer s

when they come on au dits. But I did n ot know this,

so when the buyer a sked me, I told him the truth: we

were not getting p aid on time. I was fired soon afte r.

And no other fac tory will hire me. I should have ke pt

my mouth shut.

Sayeeda, Female g arment worker, 20171

Fear runs like a river t hroughout th e interstices of t he globalized

value chain (GVC) of th e garment industr y in Bangladesh—as t he above

quotes reveal. Ga rment factor y owners are af raid that labor u nion

strikes will make it i mpossible for them to meet st ringent buyer dead‐

lines. Workers are af raid that if they ask for a salar y raise, the factory

will shut down, an d they will lose th eir jobs. But incr easing wages is

insufficie nt, as Samina arg ues; women fear t hat they will lose t heir

jobs if they take mate rnity leave or if they tell the au ditors the truth,2

as Sayeeda reveals. Their fears express their powerlessness. These

Southern voice s reveal the matri x of fear that refle cts the Nor thern

matrix of power in th e GVC.

This matrix of power i n the GVC is gendered. From th e cut flower

industry i n Kenya (Barrientos, Dolan, & Tallontir e, 2003) to the gar‐

ment ind ustry in Turkey (Dedeoğlu, 2010), the majority of workers

in these GVCs are wo men. But GVC governance sch olars (Bair, 2017;

Gereffi & Le e, 2016; Mayer, Phillips, & Post huma, 2017; Mosley,

2017; Posthuma & Rossi, 2017) do not i nclude gender. In gene ral,

Received: 15 Nove mber 2016 

|

  Revised: 22 June 2017 

|

  Accepted: 12 Apri l 2018

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12192

SPECIAL ISSUE

Voice and power: Feminist governance as transnational justice

in the globalized value chain

Fauzia Erfan Ahmed

Sociology and Gerontology, Miami

Universit y, Oxford, Ohio



Fauzia Erfan A hmed, Sociolog y and

Gerontolog y, Miami University, Ox ford, OH

45056.

Email: ahmedfe@miamioh.edu

Abstract

Women constitute the majo rity of workers in global value c hains (GVCs), yet few GVC schol‐

ars focus on the governan ce of gender. Based on an investigation (2013–2017) started after

the Rana Plaza disas ter in Bangladesh, this artic le presents “voice to the subordinate s trata”

as the first prin ciple of feminist governance in the GVC. F indings reveal the matrix of power,

which includes the I nternational Labour Org anization and the state that u nderpins the politi‐

cal economy of the Sout hern factory. This stud y provides a transformati ve model of feminist

governance as transnational justice. As the relational ethic that links justice in the workplace

to the quality of a woman's life , feminist governance is also the moral econ omy of the GVC

wherein the woman worker i s valued as a citizen in the global econo my.