Laundry workers affiliated with the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF) at the Jeans Express Ltd. Washing Division factory in Chittagong, Bangladesh, successfully negotiated a collective bargaining agreement following a two-day strike in May.
As a result of the strike, the 70 laundry workers won a 6 percent wage increase, improvements in leave, access to purified water, a union office, a prayer space and an area where workers can eat meals. The union and management also committed to a dispute resolution process.
Law Makes Legal Strikes Nearly Impossible
The strike action—which, as a legal strike, is extremely rare due to onerous legal requirements—prompted management to bargain a contract with the union.
The union had sought to begin the collective bargaining process in December 2015, but management refused to meet with the union. As per Bangladesh labor law, the union filed complaints with the government, which made several attempts at conciliation without success. On May 2, all but one union member who voted in a secret ballot election overseen by the government’s Joint Director of Labor (JDL) voted in favor of a strike.
“This has been a great success following a six-month-long struggle,” says BIGUF Organizing Secretary Chandon Kumar Dey. “Now we must now ensure implementation of the agreement and help the union build a constructive relationship with the management.”
On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh collapsed, trapping thousands of workers and ultimately killing more than 1,130 garment workers in a preventable workplace disaster.
The tragedy came five months after a fire tore through Tazreen Fashions Ltd., killing more than 100 Bangladesh garment workers.
“Rana Plaza was a clarion call for deep, fundamental change in Bangladesh’s apparel sector.”
-U.S. AMBASSADOR TO BANGLADESH DAN MOZENA
The day before Rana Plaza collapsed, a structural engineer reported cracks in the building so dangerous, he recommended it be closed. Workers were afraid, but factory managers said if they did not show up the next day, their pay would be cut or they would be suspended.
NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO GO TO WORK AFRAID
Photo credit: Solidarity Center
Three years later, 176 union leaders have completed the Solidarity Center’s fire safety certification training program, putting 62 Bangladesh garment factories on a path towards safer working conditions. The Solidarity Center has held nine 10-week intensive training courses on fire and building safety.
Through the Fire and Building Safety course, garment workers, union leaders and factory management learn about fire and building safety codes and preventative measures, and practice steps to take in an emergency. Garment workers take part in hands-on training with fire extinguishers to gain experience and confidence.
Credit: Solidarity Center
Tahsin Khan, a mechanic at Aliza Fashion Limited, had taken a fire safety training years ago, but the course did not include hands-on practice and he says he was never confident enough to apply what he learned. The Solidarity Center course encouraged him and provided the practice he needs to potentially save lives at his workplace.
“We are now confident after the training that we can help factory management and other workers if there is any incident of fire in our factory.”
-MOSAMMAT DOLI, UNION LEADER (BGIWF)
Credit: Solidarity Center
The Solidarity Center also coaches workers on how to approach factory managers about safety concerns and how to train co-workers in proper fire prevention methods. Bilkish Begun says workers at her garment factory could not discuss implementing safety measures with their employer until they formed a union because they feared they would be fired. Now, Bilkish and other women working in her factory can take measures together to ensure their safety, like organizing a fire safety training with the Solidarity Center through their union.
“I used to be afraid of fire erupting in my factory, but after attending training, I feel that if we work together, we can reduce the risk of fire in our factory.”
82 FEMALE UNION LEADERS | 20 FEMALE FEDERATION ORGANIZERS
Training women in fire and building safety is imperative because they make up approximately 80 percent of the workforce in Bangladesh’s garment sector. As women are taking on more active roles in their unions, the Solidarity Center is empowering female garment workers to share their knowledge and skills to ensure safe work environments for everyone. The female garment workers certified through the Solidarity Center Fire and Building Safety Training have gone on to train hundreds more.
344 WOMEN HAVE ATTENDED TRAINING WITH THEIR FACTORIES.
When Shilpi Akter attended training in her capacity as Women Affairs Secretary of Reliance Denim Industries Ltd., she learned that a cluttered or crowded production floor can obstruct passage in an emergency. Noticing that her factory’s production floor was blocked by cartons, she raised this issue to management, which fixed the problem after hearing from her.
Credit: Solidarity Center
TRAIN WORKERS, SAVE LIVES
By putting what they learned through the training course into practice, participants have already diverted potential disasters in their workplaces. After attending a fire safety training last August, Monir Hassain says he is now able to identify risks and is working to minimize those risks for workers.
EXCLUDING THE TAZREEN FACTORY FIRE, 34 WORKERS HAVE DIED AND MORE THAN 1,023 HAVE BEEN INJURED IN GARMENT FACTORY FIRES SINCE 2012, ACCORDING TO DATA COMPILED BY THE SOLIDARITY CENTER IN BANGLADESH.
When an electrical short-circuit caused a generator to explode at one garment factory, Osman, president of the factory union and Popi Akter, another union leader, quickly addressed the fire and calmed panicked workers using the skills they learned through the Solidarity Center fire training. They also worked with factory management to correct other safety issues, like blocked aisles and stairwells cramped with flammable material.
Credit: Solidarity Center
Credit: Solidarity Center
“People who worked at Tazreen and Rana Plaza had no training and had no union. This training is about making sure those things never happen again.”
-SAIFUL, UNION LEADER, RADISSON APPARELS
Credit: Solidarity Center
855 WORKERS TRAINED
“We need to know what to do and give workers the confidence to be leaders in their factories.”
-URMI, SOLIDARITY CENTER FIRE SAFETY TRAINING CERTIFIED
Credit: Solidarity Center
By working through their unions, garment workers can seek safe and healthy workplaces without fear of employer retaliation.
Yet fewer than 3 percent of 5,000 garment factories in Bangladesh have a union.
According to the International Labor Organization, 80 percent of Bangladeshi garment factories need to address fire and electrical safety standards.
Despite promises to improve conditions for garment workers following the Rana Plaza collapse, inspections show that by April 2016, half of all factories that pledged to reform have failed to implement sufficient fire safety measures.
Credit: Solidarity Center
To learn more about how Bangladesh garment workers are organizing for their right to safety, visit www.solidaritycenter.org .
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, the conditions Sharina describes at the garment factory where she works can be summed up in three words: dangerous, unsanitary and exploitative. Wages are delayed. Legally required maternity leave is denied. Workers are sometimes forced to toil until 3 a.m. and are fired if they refuse. Bathroom facilities are so appalling workers have difficulty focusing on work because of the odor.
Sharina (not her real name) says her co-workers do not speak out about these issues, nor do they point out potentially hazardous electrical problems to their employer because they fear they will be fired. And each day, workers put their health and safety on the line because they have received no safety training and no safety protections.
In fact, says Sharina, 30, only when safety inspectors show up do managers distribute safety equipment like rubber boots, gloves and masks to workers, and put needle safety guards on sewing machines.
“Things would be better if we had a union,” says Sharina, 30. Workers could negotiate with management to receive safety training and avoid deadly tragedies, she says, adding that the more than 1,130 garment who died and the thousands who were injured in the Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24, 2013, would not have had to risk their lives for their jobs if they had been able to join together in a union and collectively push for safe working conditions. With a union, workers have the protection they need against being fired when standing up for improvements at work.
Solidarity Center staff interviewed Sharina, who has worked at the factory since 2012, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster. The tragedy closely followed the November 2012 fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory that killed more than 112 Bangladesh garment workers and injured hundreds more.
Following the two disasters, the United States in June 2013 suspended its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) agreement with Bangladesh based upon chronic and severe labor rights violations. Soon after, the Bangladesh government accepted union registrations with increasing frequency as workers organized and formed unions to address safety problems and low wages. (When workers forms unions, the Bangladesh government requires workers to register their unions before they are officially recognized.)
But after reaching a peak in January 2015, government approval of union registrations has dropped precipitously: In 2015, the government rejected 73 percent of union registration applications, according to data compiled by Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka. Rejections of workers’ desire to organize continues in 2016.
International outrage over the Rana Plaza and Tazreen disasters also prompted creation of the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Accord process, a legally binding agreement in which nearly 200 corporate clothing brands pay for garment factory inspections. Dozens of garment factories have been closed for safety violations and pressing safety issues addressed.
Since the Tazreen fire, 34 garment workers have been killed in fire incidents and 1,023 workers injured, according to data compiled by the Solidarity Center staff in Bangladesh.
Over the past few years, the Solidarity Center has held fire safety trainings for hundreds of garment factory workers. Workers learn fire prevention measures, find out about safety equipment their factories should make available and get hands-on experience in extinguishing fires.
Four years after the tortured, lifeless body of Bangladesh garment worker organizer Aminul Islam was discovered in a ditch, his killers have yet to be arrested. Yesterday the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF) and Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS) demanded that authorities find and bring Aminul’s killers to trial.
Aminul was a well-respected labor leader among workers at Savar- and Ashulia-area garment factories in suburban Dhaka, the capital. At the time of his death, he was a BCWS organizer and BGIWF regional president, and working to resolve a dispute between workers and managers at a nearby factory. The police filed a case accusing an agent of National Security Intelligence (NSI) with the crime, but he escaped. The BGIWF and BCWS, both Solidarity Center allies, complain that the case was filed without a proper investigation, and rules for collection of primary evidence were not followed.
At a Dhaka press conference yesterday, Babul Akter, BGIWF president, demanded that the Ministry of Home Affairs reopen the case and conduct a legitimate investigation, including DNA testing of Aminul’s clothes, to identify, arrest and prosecute the murderers.
Since Aminul’s murder, more than 1,100 Bangladeshi garment workers have been killed on the job and at least 3,600 have been injured, including workers in a factory fire at Tazreen Fashions in November 2012 and in the collapse of Rana Plaza in April 2013. Aminul sought to improve the hazardous conditions many garment workers still face, as well as to redress exploitation such as wage theft. He believed that the lack of fire safety measures and other protections for workers could most effectively be addressed by workers who freely form unions and collectively bargain to improve workplace conditions.
Balmi Chisim is based in the Solidarity Center’s office in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Anju Begum, a garment worker and factory-level union leader in Bangladesh, describes how she became empowered through her union—and how she seeks to help other workers, especially women, advance their rights at work.
“I want everyone, here and abroad, all workers, especially women, to know their rights and bring them to the forefront.”
Union support goes beyond the workplace, as Anju explains in this video. When Anju was abused by her husband, her union stepped in to assist her. Gender-based violence is one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world and extends to the workplace, where gender-based violence often typifies unequal economic and social power relations between women and men.
The Solidarity Center is among many unions and other civil society organizations worldwide calling for the International Labor Organization to establish a standard covering gender-based violence at the workplace, an action that moved forward last fall when the ILO announced that a debate on the topic will be on its 2018 agenda.
Now president of a factory-level union affiliated with the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers’ Federation (BGIWF), Anju says in factories where there is no union, “I want women workers like me to take a leadership role and try to become president of the union.”
Chumtoli Huq, created this video for unions to use in their meetings as part of a Law@theMargins documentary project and urges organizations and individuals to share it on Facebook. To help with the project, you can contribute to the project’s Gofund me campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/mzjx0w
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