Labour Movement Ecosystems and Gendered Bargaining: Learning from agreements to prevent gender-based violence and harassment in Asian garment supply chains

Abstract

This article highlights two global supply chain agreements to tackle gender-based violence and harassment in the garment industry—the Dindigul Agreement to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in India (2022), and the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice in Indonesia (2025). The article is grounded in my experience negotiating and implementing both agreements. Drawing on and contributing to feminist theoretical advances in industrial relations, I argue that effective anti-GBVH supply chain agreements in the garment industry must be founded in freedom of association and embedded within labour movement ecosystems. I introduce the concept of labour movement ecosystem as a framework for analysing labour movement organisations and interrelationships, and the resulting impact and interactions within global supply chains, leading up to the signing and implementation of such agreements.