In 2023, thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh took to the streets with a modest, straightforward demand: a minimum wage of $208 a month. At least four people were killed by police during the protests. Thousands more were injured, many too afraid to seek medical help, knowing that visible wounds might expose them as protesters and cost them their jobs.
Climate change is compounding the crisis. Soaring temperatures bring new illnesses and higher medical costs. Flash floods force workers to stay home without pay. “There’s a knowledge gap about why this is happening,” former child worker and founder of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity Kalpona Akter said on the first day of the Summit. “Brands and factories should share information and money. But [currently,] there’s no adaptation fund. And the state must step in to ensure workers are protected.”
For too long, global climate agreements have privileged corporations, NGOs, and policymakers in the Global North, while sidelining the frontline communities whose lives and livelihoods are most at stake. And now, the European Union is scaling back some of its sustainability commitments, including its sustainability reporting and due diligence directives, potentially further weakening the protection of garment workers’ rights. “Either have a good agreement or no agreement,” said Akter. “[A] toothless directive isn’t going to make a difference to workers’ lives back home.”
Akter’s talk was nothing short of a call to action: Bring garment workers into the conversation. Climate and labor policies must be designed with workers, not for them. That means embedding worker voices into every stage of decision-making, directing adaptation funds to frontline communities, and creating legally binding frameworks that hold brands and manufacturers accountable—for poverty wages, unsafe conditions, sudden layoffs, climate-related disruptions, and the failure to provide meaningful redress when harm is done.
“When you are talking about the climate, talking about these policies, that must include workers’ voices,” Akter said. “You don’t know what the policies should look like. In all the conversations in this part of the world, there’s always a piece missing.” Workers.
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