Sep 8, 2014
Garment workers at Chunji Knit Ltd., in Dhaka, Bangladesh, can now freely organize a union, and workers fired for union activity will be reinstated, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by Chunji management and the Bangladesh Federation of Workers Solidarity (BFWS).
The August 21 agreement follows a months-long struggle by workers to be paid the legal minimum wage and freely form a union. Workers protested in February after Chunji did not raise their wages in accordance with the country’s new $67 a month minimum wage for garment workers.
That same month, several union organizers and garment workers were physically attacked and beaten when talking with workers about forming a union. Two workers were hospitalized and some union supporters left the area for their personal safety.
The Wall Street Journal at the time quoted Shahnaz Begum, 25, a four-year Chunji factory worker, who said that factory managers had warned workers not to join the union before the incident in February.
Aug 18, 2014
When 1,300 Bangladeshi garment workers started to organize a trade union at their factory in the Gazipur suburb of Dhaka, the capital, they faced an uphill battle.
However, with assistance from their union federation, the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Federation (BIGUF) and the Solidarity Center, and by working to develop a constructive relationship with their employer, Masco Cotton, both sides have been able to sit down and negotiate and resolve issues in the factory. And the dynamics have changed.
“I am very happy that we have established a good relationship with our employer, but it hasn’t been a smooth path,” said Faruk, president of the Masco Cotton Ltd. Workers Union. “At first, I was suspended along with three other workers for trade union activity, and it was two and a half months before we were reinstated.”
Faruk continued, “It took a lot of hard work for us to make the employer understand our problems. The training we received from BIGUF helped a lot. They trained us how to talk to and negotiate with the management.”
Sanjida Akhter, worker and president of Masco Industries Ltd. Workers Unity Union (one of the three union factories affiliated with BIGUF in the five-factory group) said, “Before we formed a union in our factory, (the workers) had no way to communicate with our employer. But now things are different. Management will even approach the union to work out and discuss issues in the factory.”
Through the process of negotiation, workers in the union factories have bargained with their employer to ensure they receive their salaries on time, and to increase attendance and other bonuses as well as night-shift differentials. The unions and management now meet monthly to discuss routine labor disputes and other issues. For example, they met most recently to negotiate leave for the religious holiday Eid and to increase the number of fans on the factory floor.
“Though the workers now have built a much more positive relationship with the employer, initially we had some serious challenges,” said Raju, acting general secretary of BIGUF. He said that despite some workers losing their jobs and one of the union applications being rejected three times before it was registered by the Joint Director of Labor (JDL), they worked hard to demonstrate to the employer that worker empowerment through a trade union could be beneficial for the factory overall if both sides sat down and negotiated.
Mahbubul Alam, executive director of the Masco factory group said, “There is a prevailing negative opinion about trade unions among employers … but it can be beneficial for both the workers and the employer when we work with the unions. If we want to ensure harmony in the factory, we need to maintain a good relationship with workers—and we took this on as a challenge. If we can do it, we can be an example to other RMG (ready-made garment) factories in Bangladesh.”
Mahbubul says that training for both the management and the union can play an important role in developing a constructive relationship and maintaining industrial peace.
“The potential benefit of having a union in the factory is that we hear the voice of all the workers. Management can then understand the workers’ issues and work to solve those problems,” he said.
Jul 11, 2014
Twenty-four garment worker union leaders and organizers in Bangladesh have completed a first-of-its-kind, in-depth training course on fire and building safety, conducted by the Solidarity Center and Selim Newaz Bhuiya, former deputy director of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense.
The 10-session course aims to equip union leaders with essential knowledge and skills on workplace safety. These workers will now, in turn, educate their co-workers and strengthen their unions’ ability to raise and rectify unsafe factory working conditions.
The training was supported under a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Sanjida, a worker and newly elected woman union leader from Masco Industries Ltd. in Gazipur, said, “I am now a graduate of the fire and building safety course, which makes me very happy. By participating in this training program, I now know how to protect workers from fire and how to identify risks. I learned new skills that will help me to teach other workers and be a stronger union leader.”
In a ceremony concluding the training, 18 factory-level union leaders and six organizers received certificates in recognition of their hard work and new knowledge on workplace safety. These leaders are the first of 14 groups who will eventually complete the course and will go on to help their unions build effective occupational safety and health committees to raise workers’ safety concerns with their employers.
Speaking at the event, attended by U.S. Ambassador Dan Mozena and Bangladesh Labor Secretary Mikail Shiper, Solidarity Center Bangladesh Country Program Director Alonzo Suson said, “Workers around the world have found that, by forming unions and speaking with a collective voice, they are better able to ensure safer working conditions. These new union leaders will be able to take what they’ve learned back to their co-workers to make their factories better, healthier and safer places to work.”
Jul 7, 2014
The Solidarity Center’s Bangladesh Worker Rights Defense Fund has received $11,537 in contributions as of June 30 and donations already have assisted with medical bills for union organizers beaten while talking with garment workers and provided a one-month salary for union leaders assaulted and fired by management.
In February, four union organizers, Hashi, Selim, Ali Hossain and Rita, were badly injured when about two dozen people beat, kicked and threw them to the ground as they were speaking to workers in the dormitory where they live. One of the organizers was taken from the scene, beaten severely and dumped, unconscious, nearby. According to several witnesses, the attack was carried out by Chunjee Garments Ltd. factory managers and other men and women.
Your contributions helped pay medical costs for the organizers, two of whom were hospitalized. Donations also replaced the organizers’ mobile phones, which were taken during the attack.
Defense Fund donations have paid for one month’s salary for several union leaders fired in April, including Nazrul Islam, general secretary of Raaj RMG Washing Plant, who was physically assaulted and terminated by the management. Also, five committee members of the Taratex (BD) Ltd., Workers Union each received a one-month salary after factory management fired them. Without your support, they would have been unable to pay their rent.
These examples are just a few ways the Defense Fund has so far provided crucial support to union organizers, enabling them to continue their efforts to help garment workers gain a voice on the job.
The Solidarity Center launched the Bangladesh Worker Rights Defense Fund in April after an increase in violence against union organizers in seeking to improve the safety in some of Bangladesh’s 5,000 garment factories. Following the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013, and other high-profile catastrophes, the government showed signs of recognizing worker rights and its own labor laws, allowing workers to form their own unions. As a result, garment workers have registered more than 130 factory-level unions in the past year.
But violence and retaliation in recent months against workers seeking to exercise freedom of association has gone unpunished.
It’s not too late to contribute to the Bangladesh Worker Rights Defense Fund and help the brave women and men who often risk their personal safety to improve the safety of garment workers.
Please donate now.
Jun 26, 2014
CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH—In this coastal city of 6.5 million people, the second center of garment production in Bangladesh after the capital, Dhaka, a re-energized labor movement is making real progress in organizing workers. At a Solidarity Center training program for two trade union federations, 12 young organizers—most on the job for less than six months—were advancing beyond the basics of organizing and moving up the knowledge ladder fast.
It helped that two other attendees—Nomita, president of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF), and her colleague, Chandon, BIGUF vice president, joined the training to support and inspire. Between them, they have two decades of experience organizing in a hostile environment, and have been instrumental in guiding the new activists into a ramped up, more strategic form of organizing.
This was not their first training program, and the organizers were delving into more sophisticated material, including chapter and verse on labor law, organizing women workers, developing leaders and representative unions, incorporating new tactics into campaigns and how to interview workers to document the unfair labor practices (including sexual harassment, firings, threats and violence) that they and their colleagues are facing on a daily basis.
Since the Tazreen Fashions factory fire of November 2013 through the end of May 2014, several independent unions including BIGUF and the Bangladesh Garment Workers Independent Federation (BGIWF), also represented at this training, have organized 251 unions, with 166 achieving registration, a government requirement. In all, the factory unions represent 75,000 workers. In Chittagong alone during this period, workers organized 45 unions with 34 gaining registration—a 79 percent success rate.
But organizing and registration is just the beginning for these brave workers. The next step is employer recognition. After that, unions will present a charter of demands (which might include items taken for granted in the West, such as payment of the minimum and overtime wages, and improved factory safety) to management to form the basis for collective bargaining. Then, hopefully, negotiations. Each step is difficult, but these new organizers are well aware how critical these benchmarks are to the lives and livelihoods of Bangladesh garment workers.
