Starving for a pay rise

Bangladeshi garment workers have finally received their wages from May, June and July after an 11-day hunger strike.

1,600 garment workers in five Bangladeshi factories for the TUBA group – which supplies clothes for Walmart, IKEA and other western retailers, some endorsed by FIFA – stopped working on June 10 because they hadn’t received their wages from May. The workers, 1300 of whom are women, had been on hunger strike since the 28 July to demand their pay, overtime pay and Eid festival pay.
Many of the workers on hunger strike collapsed, and 20 were hospitalised, but the authorities banned medical aid from entering the factory. Police ousted labour leaders and activists from the premises, injuring 20 people.

From the August 6, police stopped water and saline supplies to the hunger strikers. Rubber bullets, teargas and water cannon were also used to break up the protest.

While workers were being treated in this appalling, inhumane manner, managing director of TUBA group Delwar Hussein was released on bail after being charged for negligence and homicide following the death of 112 workers in a factory fire in Dhaka in November 2012.

President of Garment Workers’ Unity Forum Mushrefa Mishu said, “Withholding workers’ wages was dirty politics from the owners to have Delwar bailed out.”

Nearly four million people work in the Bangladesh garment industry, the majority of them women. Most workers have moved to cities from rural areas to seek better living conditions. The garment industry pays a monthly minimum wage of ÂŁ40, whereas poor women would often otherwise work as domestic help, earning ÂŁ11 a month.

The Bangladeshi trade union movement has been growing since the collapse of the Rana Plaza in 2013, where 1,113 workers died and 2,500 were injured. From 1 December 2013 the minimum wage for garment workers was raised by 77 per cent to 5,300 taka (£40). This came after workers’ protests forced 250 garment factories to close in the Ashulia region on the outskirts of Dhaka.

Trade unions have only been permitted since July 2013 when the government amended the Bangladesh Labour Law. There are now 222 registered trade unions in the garment sector, with 34 trade union federations.

But not enough workers are members of trade unions. Mishu said, “The only reason the garment industry does not have functioning trade unions and has poor wages is the poor bargaining capacity of female workers.”

Trade unionists often face harassment and violence, so recruitment is a mostly secret process.  Shiuly Begum, a trade union leader, speaking to Al Jazeera, said: “There are some people hired by the factory who follow us around. They also tell us not to do trade union work – they say that if you do this they can’t hire you to work for them.”

Two years ago a labour leader was found tortured and killed, and the murderers have never been caught.

Tony Burke, Unite assistant general secretary, said,“A delegation from Workers Uniting – the global union formed by Unite and the Steelworkers in the USA – visited Dhaka four years ago and we were shocked at the way the workers were treated.

“Workers demonstrating for a pay increase were beaten by the police and many of the factories were literally death-traps so we undertook to highlight working conditions in the garment industry by taking adverts out in newspapers in Bangladesh supporting the workers’ demands for a pay increase and the right to form unions without intimidation from employers.”

The garment industry is hugely profitable for Bangladesh. Monika Kemperle, assistant general secretary of the IndustriALL global union, to which Unite is affiliated, said,“The women and men who toil in the garment industry in Bangladesh are our members and we will fight for them. They are the backbone of a very profitable industry which can’t afford to treat people like this.”

Tony Burke added, “Unite has worked with the global union federations IndustriALL and Union Network International to highlight the appalling working conditions garment workers endure in Bangladesh.

“Unite supports the campaign to get Western retail brands and outlets to sign up to a charter which ensures decent working conditions and the right to form unions in Bangladesh – and to pay compensation to the families of those killed and injured in the tragedies as well as ensuring proper health and safety provisions apply.”

Thousands protest in Bangladesh after the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory, April 24, 2013