Pandemic-induced wage theft claims and worker responses from Sri Lanka’s apparel industry

Concentrated corporate power and failures to appropriately manage the distribution of risk mean that workers bear the heaviest burden in globalised apparel supply chains. Drawing from the case of Sri Lanka, this talk examines how women workers sought to negotiate their wage-related rights during the pandemic. Law and associated normative frameworks seek to strengthen collective worker voice and other worker rights to tip the scales of unequal bargaining power to benefit the workers.

However, some of the traditional tools of labour law such as unionizing and collective bargaining have weakened over the years, and it was felt strongly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using networked governance and feminist insights the speaker will discuss how alternative forms of worker voice seek to fill in the law-practice gap, and the need to re-imagine workers' role in labour regulation of globalised apparel supply chains.

About the speaker

Achalie Kumarage is a Sri Lankan lawyer and a PhD Candidate at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at ANU. She researches on law and society, labour regulation, worker rights and women in the economy. Achalie has taught at University of New South Wales (Sydney) and Colombo University (Sri Lanka). Achalie is a published researcher and her work has won awards from the American Society of Comparative Law (2019), the Asian Journal of Law and Society and the Asian Law and Society Association (2022).

This seminar is arranged by the ANU South Asia Research Institute.