Wage Theft, Secrecy, and Derealization of ‘Ideal Workers’ in the Bangladesh Garment Industry
基于对孟加拉国服装产业的纵向案例，运用巴特勒的非真实化概念，揭示了工资盗窃如何成为女性化工作场所中的主要暴力形式，并重新定义了‘理想工人’——即那些因脆弱性而无法反抗的年轻无子女女性。
This study addresses how violence is mobilized through wage theft in feminized workplaces thriving within the global value chain. Guided by Judith Butler’s concept of derealization, this longitudinal case study on the Bangladesh garment industry advances the current debate on violence in organization studies. First, it re-conceptualizes the notion of an ‘ideal worker’. Empirical evidence reveals that, unlike in Western societies, young and childless women in the Global South and their vulnerabilities woven into poverty, inequality, climate change, patriarchy, social stratification, and limited employment opportunities make them ‘ideal workers’. This status remains valid as long as they remain vulnerable and demonstrate no agency in resisting the discourse on dehumanization, dispossession, and displacement. Second, this study illuminates the practice of wage theft, which has emerged as a dominant form of violence in feminized workplaces. Organizations also deploy secrecy to continue theft, thereby inflicting further physical and psychological violence. This study highlights the fact that socioeconomic vulnerabilities and unresisted violence oppress a docile workforce to become ‘ideal workers’. It is a neoliberal myth that helps powerful actors shore up their power and privileges through derealization.