Occupational safety and health and productivity in the garment industry: Contradictory or complementary?

Poor working conditions are common in the garment sector in the emerging countries. One of the main reasons is the misunderstanding that occupational health and safety (OHS) and productivity are contradictory, and that the main instrument to ensure competitiveness is low salaries and ignoring OHS risks. This chapter shows how lean can be used to integrate OHS and productivity in operations at the micro level. However, to ensure implementation, it is necessary for factory management at the meso level to move beyond the contradiction myth and commit to the change process. Yet, despite the benefits for both factory owners and workers of integrated OHS and productivity, the institutional setting around the garment factories do not sufficiently support the change process. Buyers must support their suppliers in the change process and regulatory bodies such as labour inspections as well as multi-stakeholder initiatives are needed to create the necessary attention to OHS.