Mapping worker grievance ecosystems in Vietnam's export-oriented garment industry

A/Prof Ingrid Landau, Dr Trang Thi Kieu Tran, 2025

Effective grievance mechanisms are a key component of responsible business conduct in the global garment industry. Recognising this, many garment brands have established their own grievance mechanisms that can be accessed by workers in their supply chains and/or participate in multistakeholder initiatives. These mechanisms are intended to complement factory-level and state grievance systems but in practice they can lead to multiple grievance channels within the one factory and to overlap, duplication and confusion for workers and businesses alike.

Working with the ILO’s Better Work Vietnam program and three global garment brands, this project takes an innovative ‘ecosystem’ approach that maps and evaluates the multiplicity of grievance mechanisms available to workers in a sample of factories in Vietnam’s export-oriented garment industry. Combining qualitative interviews with brands, suppliers and other stakeholders with a large-scale survey of workers, this project aims to produce practical insights to improve business practices and access to remedy for workers in global garment supply chains.