How can women workers in the manufacturing sector, especially from poor backgrounds, use digital platforms to share their grievances, and communicate directly to the top management to improve governance and future of workplaces? This will be a key issue that a project funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) will explore.

Usha Raman, professor at the Department of Communication, Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication, University of Hyderabad (UoH), and Erasmus University’s Payal Arora have been awarded a grant from the Canadian funding agency for this study.

This grant represents part of a larger consortium on Women and the Future of Work in the Global South, with partners from across the Asian region. Both the professors are working on a project titled “Organising Digitally: Opportunities for collectivisation among female workers in South Asia”.

They will work with garment workers in India and Bangladesh, and document how harnessing digital platforms for collectivisation will enhance the voice and representation of women workers in the digital era.

The overall objective of the project is to support initiatives that use digital platforms and social media to build a collective agency of women workers at the bottom of supply chains, and include them in larger conversations on working conditions and supply-chain transparency.

The project will develop a scalable model through digital platforms by reforming communication practices between workers with top management. It will also document the strategies for workers themselves to use digital platforms to build their collective agency.

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