The politics of sweatshop labour
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.5.1.172Palavras-chave:
sweatshop, indústria téxtil, trabalho sob condições abusivas, injustiça estrutural, instituições extractivas, hukou, BangladeshResumo
Este artigo oferece uma interpretação política das condições laborais degradantes ao sublinhar o papel
dos atores políticos no estabelecimento e manutenção das relações de exploração laboral nas empresas
do mundo inteiro. Nos debates académicos acerca do trabalho em condições degradantes, o foco tem
estado essencialmente na responsabilidade das empresas ou dos consumidores (cf. Arnold & Bowie,
2007;, Meyers, 2007; Zoller, 2015), ainda que haja alguns autores que abordam o papel dos sindicatos
e da sociedade civil (cf. Kabeer, 2000). De modo a oferecer uma imagem mais ampla, toma-se de
empréstimo a distinção, estabelecida pelos economistas Acemoglu e Robinson (2003), entre
instituições extractivas e inclusivas e aplico esta ferramenta interpretativa ao tópico das condições
laborais degradantes. Argumenta-se que estas condições são mais um problema político do que
económico, e procura-se fundar esta alegação numa exposição do sistema hukou chinês de registo de
domicílio bem como nas condições contextuais políticas existentes no Bangladesh.
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