Mar 27, 2013
In Bangladesh, shrimp industry leaders—at the urging of workers and human rights groups—have taken a step toward improving working conditions for the nearly 1 million shrimp workers who toil during peak season across the supply chain.
The Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA), the Bangladesh Shrimp and Fish Foundation (BSFF) and the Solidarity Center signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) March 24 to implement worker rights according to Bangladesh labor law and International Labor Organization (ILO) core labor standards and to give workers the right to form trade unions.
The BFFEA, BSFF and Solidarity Center signed a memorandum of agreement to improve working conditions in the shrimp industry. Photo: Solidarity Center
The agreement creates a joint committee with two members each from the BFFEA, BSFF and Solidarity Center. The committee will oversee workplace surveys, including an analysis of contract workers, to determine next steps for ensuring their working conditions meet Bangladesh’s 2006 labor law. The law stipulates that workers must be paid at least the minimum wage and receive sick leave and vacation pay. It prohibits children under age 18 from working and provides maternity leave after six months on the job.
“Today’s MoA concretely demonstrates the resolve of Bangladeshi government, business sector and workers to ensure protection of workers’ rights and workplace safety,” said Dan Mozena, U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, who was among guests at the signing ceremony. Government officials taking part included representatives of the Bangladesh Ministries of Commerce; Fisheries and Livestock; Labor and Employment; and Foreign Affairs.
Bangladesh is the sixth-largest aquaculture producer in the world. A January 2012 Solidarity Center report found that “the predominantly female, low-income and largely uneducated workforce employed by major shrimp processors in the southwestern region of Bangladesh faces inadequate safety and health protections, receives near slave (or no) wages and has nowhere to turn for assistance.” Many of these workers, who toil long hours in often inhumane conditions, do not receive the workplace protections they are guaranteed under the 2006 Bangladesh Labor Act, a law directed at improving working conditions in fish and processing plants.
“Our previous experience says that the owners promise many things for workers, but the management staff who implement the owners’ decisions do not treat workers well,” said Khadija, a permanent worker at a shrimp processing factory in Khulna. “But we hope that the new relationship will bring changes for the workers.”
Referring to the many contract workers in the shrimp industry, BFFEA President Amin Ullah said, “Due to shortage of raw materials and seasonal business, we are unable to employ them permanently and it is also not feasible. But under the MoA, we shall try are best to ensure labor rights and privilege of contract workers also.”
The Solidarity Center began working with Bangladeshi nongovernmental organizations in 2005 to look at ways to ensure the rights of shrimp workers are protected at the workplace. In 2008, the Solidarity Center issued its first major report on the issue, “The True Cost of Shrimp.”
Jan 28, 2013
Seven young women, at least two of them teenagers, died over the weekend in a Bangladesh garment factory fire—the 28th fire incident to frighten, injure or kill Bangladeshi garment workers since a deadly blaze at the Tazreen factory killed at least 112 workers in late November, according to Solidarity Center staff in Bangladesh. At least 491 garment workers have been injured on the job since the Tazreen blaze, according to information compiled by the Solidarity Center.
“Nearly two months to the day we see another preventable tragedy fueled by the relentless drive for cheap production that often entails dangerous facilities, below-poverty wages, cramped conditions and an absence of health and safety programs,” says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Program Director Tim Ryan. “We want to express our deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those killed in the blaze.”
According to news reports, the 300 workers at the Smart Export Garments factory faced unsafe conditions similar to those found at Tazreen: locked doors and gates that prevented them from quickly escaping the blaze, a lack of fire extinguishers and piles of flammable material that were not stored in fireproofed areas. Some workers jumped out of windows to escape, and it took nine fire engines around two hours to stop the fire at the two-story factory building. Bangladeshi authorities have confirmed that the building was illegally constructed and lacked proper fire-safety measures.
Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of ready-made garments after China, and clothes account for up to 80 percent of the country’s $24 billion annual exports. Yet the base pay for a garment worker in Bangladesh is the equivalent of $37 a month—below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day.
Over the weekend in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, representatives of labor and civil society organizations gathered to discuss worker safety in the nation’s ready-made garment industry. Many participants said the ability of workers to freely form unions and get a voice on the job is essential to establishing safe working conditions.
“There is no alternative to [a] trade union for protecting the basic rights of the workers,” said Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, speaking at the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) conference where he is a distinguished fellow.
Yet workers who try to form unions often face abuse and even death, says Ryan. “Over the past three years, hundreds of garment workers have been injured, and some killed, in clashes with police while demonstrating or on strike for worker rights, most often for higher wages.” Last April, Aminul Islam, an organizer for the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), a Solidarity Center partner, was murdered, his body bearing signs of torture.
“Too often in low-wage economies, companies find little reason to protect the rights and interests of workers—and corporate self-regulation has proven a faulty tool for ensuring healthy and dignified workplaces,” said Ryan. “Meanwhile, vulnerable and impoverished workers cannot fight alone for their rights and, without the relative strength of a union to represent them, their lives hang in the balance.”
The Solidarity Center has been supporting workers’ rights—including providing fire safety training—in Bangladesh for decades.
Dec 21, 2012
It has been nearly a month since at least 112 Bangladeshi workers died in the horrific fire at Tazreen Fashion Ltd garment factory. A government probe has identified nine mid-level officials “who barred the workers from leaving the factory after the fire broke out,” according to the Bangladesh Daily Star Report. The factory owners kept fabric bales in the building’s basement, rather than in fireproof storage as required by Bangladesh law.
But the Tazreen fire is not an isolated incident. Since the Nov. 24 tragedy, 17 fires have broken out in Bangladesh garment factories, killing one worker and injuring dozens more.
In Bangladesh, where more than 4,500 garment factories employ more than 4 million workers, many of them young women, workers are paid wages as low as 21 cents an hour, producing clothes in crowded conditions. In the past five years, more than 700 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in factory fires.
Bangladesh’s $20 billion-a-year garment industry accounts for 80 percent of the country’s total export earnings. It is a powerful industry where factory owners often ignore labor laws—including regulations regarding health and safety—and the government does little to enforce those laws. A government official told the New York Times, “the Capital Development Authority could have fined Tazreen Fashions Ltd. or even pushed for the demolition of illegally built portions of the building.” But it did nothing, rather than confront one of Bangladesh’s most powerful industries, he said.
Just yesterday, 12 members of the U.S. Congress said Bangladesh appeared to be “going in the opposite direction” despite promises of labor reforms. “We are seriously concerned about the deterioration of working conditions and worker rights in Bangladesh,” they wrote in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
In Bangladesh and throughout Asia, the relentless drive for cheap production often entails dangerous facilities, below-poverty wages, cramped conditions and an absence of health and safety programs. And it is the workers who pay.
Vulnerable and impoverished workers cannot fight alone for their rights and, without the relative strength of a union to represent them, their lives hang in the balance. Yet when Bangladeshi garment workers seek to join together to make their workplaces safe, they are often harassed, fired, even physically attacked, to discourage other workers from following their example. One trade unionist, Aminul Islam, was found dead in April, after being severely tortured and beaten.
If authorities and buyers are serious about preventing a greater death toll, workers—whose lives are at risk and who know best how dangerous their workplace can be—must be able to assert their rights, organize unions with their co-workers, raise safety concerns and demand better working conditions according to their best judgment.
Dec 14, 2012
When Kona, a textile worker in Bangladesh, tried to help her co-workers win better conditions on the job, she was harassed to the point where she and her husband were forced into hiding. But through the assistance of the garment workers’ union federation, which negotiated a resolution with management, Kona ultimately resumed her life and work.
“Later, I could join my work and go back to my home with BIGUF’s (Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation) help,” she said. “I am continuing my struggle and will continue it until the last day of my life.”
Now general secretary of Masco Industries Ltd. Workers Union, which was formed in late 2011, Kona took part in BIGUF’s Eighth Biannual Convention and Council in Chittagong. Some 500 delegates gathered for the December 7 convention.
Some 280 women were among the participants, who included leaders from national garment workers federations, the Oil and Gas Workers Federation, Transcom Beverage Workers and Employees Union, and the Workers Association of Chittagong EPZ factories, along with allies such as labor lawyers.
The memory of the 112 Tazreen workers who died in last month’s factory fire infused the convention, which opened with a moment of silence to pay tribute to them and to other deceased workers and union leaders.
The conference focused on organizing and forming unions, which in the wake of deadly fires at Tazreen and other garment factories, is especially needed at the factory level, said BIGUF President Moriom Akter. She asked that “all our colleagues from other federations emphasize forming unions,” a call to action all union leaders said they planned to follow.
Discussing how the Tazreen fire highlighted the need for union organizing to challenge factory owners who did not follow the nation’s job safety laws, Rintu Barua pointed out that “it is always the workers who are arrested when they protest.” Barua, the general secretary of Global Garments Ltd. Workers and Employees Union, a BIGUF affiliate, added that “the owners are never questioned. Nobody ask them why the workers of his or her factory are protesting.”
Ruhul Amin, general secretary of Bangladesh Federation of Workers Solidarity, urged workers to refuse to work in factories where the fire escape routes are locked by management.
Ultimately, preventing death and injury on the job means workers—whose lives are at risk and who know best how dangerous their workplace can be—must be able to assert their rights, organize unions with their co-workers, raise safety concerns and demand better working conditions according to their best judgment.
As Moriom told convention delegates, “Unions make us strong.”
Dec 12, 2012
Bangladeshi garment workers no longer are forced to stay on the job for literally weeks without a break and employers’ physical and verbal abuse has decreased—but significant improvements, especially in factory safety, remain to be made in the country’s important garment industry, several garment union leaders told a high ranking U.S. State Department official last weekend.
Eight women from unions and workers’ rights organizations recently discussed factory working conditions with Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, during a meeting at the Solidarity Center in the capital, Dhaka.
Noting the recent tragic deaths of 112 Bangladeshi garment workers, Verveer asked about firefighting equipment in factories.
“Although there is some firefighting equipment, we are not familiar with it and the training is not adequate,” said Pushpo, a sewing machine operator at Natural Apparels Ltd. The workers said management sets up fire extinguishers in factories to show the buyers but does not instruct workers in how to use them. Further, said Solidarity Center Country Program Director Alonzo Suson, “Although the representative of the buyers claim that they conduct unannounced inspection, somehow management always knows when the monitoring team will arrive in the factory.” As one worker told Verveer, management tells workers what to say to factory inspectors and, in a comment that generated laughter, added that “even the toilets are sprayed with perfume.”
Those meeting with Verveer included five factory workers and leaders of the two leading garment worker federations, the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation (BIGUF) and the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF). Kalpona, a representative from the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS), a Solidarity Center partner, also took part.
The workers told Verveer that Bangladesh has made substantial progress in eliminating child labor. “When I started work in the factory, I was 9 or 10 years old,” said BIGUF General Secretary Morium Akter. “Now, the situation is different. Factories are strictly following the ‘no child labor’ policy.”
Although eradicating child labor is a big step forward, the workers say they see an ominous development. Increasingly, the government is aligning with factory owners to prevent workers from forming unions, a key step in their efforts to improve working conditions. Shumi, a sewing machine operator of Pastel Apparels Ltd., said she and her co-workers had submitted a registration certificate to the government, but it was denied. In the past four years, only two unions in Chittagong and one union in Dhaka received a government registration certificate, without which a union is not legally recognized.
Worse, after workers apply to the government for union registration, the government now sends the list of names to the factory, and the workers often are fired. “Now, we cannot differentiate between the owner and government administration,” said Akter. “We are still afraid of owners. Now we are afraid of the government as well.”
The union leaders meeting with Verveer understand that preventing workplace death and injury means workers—whose lives are at risk and who know best how dangerous their workplace can be—must be able to assert their rights, organize unions with their co-workers, raise safety concerns and demand better working conditions according to their best judgment. When Verveer encouraged the women workers to raise their voices to bring positive change to their workplaces, the workers said that with the support of unions and organizations such as BIGUF, BGIWF, BCWS and the Solidarity Center, they feel safe to speak out about safety and health and other key issues on the job.
