Summary
The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in April, 2013 resulting in the death and
injury of more than 2000 workers from the country's export garment industry was one of the worst
industrial disasters in recorded history. The tragedy galvanized a range of stakeholders to take action
to prevent future disasters. Prominent in these efforts were two multi-stakeholder agreements
which brought together lead buyers, trade unions and NGOs in a concerted effort to improve health
and safety conditions in the industry. These initiatives represent a move away from the buyer-driven
compliance-based model that continues to dominate CSR to what is being described as a
'cooperation-based' model which brings together multiple stakeholders who affect, and are affected,
by the business operations of lead MNCs in global value chains. This paper is concerned with the
experiences and perceptions of workers with regard to these new initiatives. It examines competing
interpretations of stakeholder analysis within the CSR literature and uses these to frame its key
research question: has the shift from compliance to co-operation as the basis of CSR a promising
way forward or merely a shift in rhetoric? We use a survey of garment workers to explore the extent
to which these initiatives have brought about improvements in wages and working conditions in the
garment industry, where progress has been slowest and why.