Covid19 pandemic and the resilience of European-South Asian apparel production networks: Implications for firms and workers in moments of crisis

The world economy has become increasingly reliant on the organisation of global supply chains, with industries such as apparel leading the way. However, the Covid-19 pandemic made visible many of the key vulnerabilities of global lead firms, local suppliers and workers at the heart of these globally integrated systems of production. Supply chains have been disrupted, orders were reduced and cancelled, factories were closed, and workers have lost jobs. This project will examine the resilience of a key European supply chain (the European - South Asian apparel production network) in a post-Covid19 context to shed light on the implications of the pandemic for the organisation of work and workers, the majority of whom are women. In so doing, it takes the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan apparel industries as comparative case examples. By 'post-Covd19', I refer to the pandemic and its aftermath, essentially, the post-2019 era. Supply chain resilience is understood here as: a) the way European lead firms and South Asian manufacturers have negotiated fluctuating contract manufacturing relations (involving flexibility in relation to order volumes, prices, delivery times and ethical codes, etc.) during and after the pandemic in the attempt to sustain production, and b) how workers have coped with and responded to the implications of these changes to the organisation of work and employment conditions.

To do so, the project develops a novel 'labour regimes' framework that will be of value not only to this research, but also to understand employment outcomes in supply chains in general. The essence of this approach is that it connects both global production dynamics (contract manufacturing relations including order prices, delivery times, and ethical codes) and territorialised characteristics (production practices, state policies, labour politics, and socio-cultural relations) in investigating employment outcomes. In so doing, it offers an integrated framework for assessing the key drivers that shape employment outcomes beyond a single focus on the workplace. This connection is of direct value, given the way structures of global production networks straddling both 'global' and 'local' boundaries are irrevocably shattered and altered, and thus, the research on the global apparel industry in post-pandemic era calls for a holistic approach to understand the magnitude of the changes that the industry is undergoing, both from the perspective of global lead firms and their purchasing practices; and local, territorially bounded production and labour regimes.

The project has an inter-disciplinary relevance and speaks to scholars working across many disciplines including development studies, economic and human geography, sociology, business and management studies, global labour studies, and industrial relations and employment. The study's focus on the apparel industry and its significance for the economy, employment, and welfare standards in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also enhances its relevance to a spectrum of non-academic audiences, including national and international regulatory bodies, apparel industry authorities, lead firms and manufacturers, national and international human rights agencies, national and international civil society organisations, and think tanks. Therefore, in addition to advancing debates on labour regimes and the resilience of the global apparel industry in the post-Covid19 context, the project also considers public and private policy formulations to alleviate supply chain vulnerabilities through a range of outreach engagements.