Apr 24, 2013
Another four garment factories in Bangladesh became death traps today, and the Solidarity Center is mourning the senseless loss of life and the grievous injuries that have befallen hundreds of workers who were simply trying to make a living. The organization is calling on the Bangladesh government to enforce its labor and building codes, on brands that source from the country to prioritize health and safety conditions in factories, and on both to respect the rights of workers and to recognize that the only way Bangladesh will have safe factories is if workers have a voice on the job.
At least 80 workers lost their lives and more than 600 people were injured when the eight-story building collapsed, according to the Bangladesh government. Hundreds remain trapped.
“The status quo cannot be that workers have to face death just to try to feed their families,” said Alonzo Suson, Solidarity Center country director in Bangladesh. “How many more workers have to die before the government, the manufacturers and the companies that source from Bangladesh start to obey the law and respect international labor standards?”
According to local news reports, the building had developed cracks that threatened the structure’s integrity on Tuesday. Workers report being forced into the building to work on Wednesday.
For more than two decades, the Solidarity Center has been supporting workers trying to gain their rights in Bangladesh, where the minimum wage for garment workers is less than the World Bank’s international poverty line of $1.25 a day.
A major fire killed at least 112 Bangladeshi garment workers in late November, almost five months to the day of this latest disaster. Since then, there have been more than 41 fire
incidents at Bangladesh garment factories that have killed nine workers and injured more than 660 others, according to data compiled by Solidarity staff.
This Sunday, April 28, workers around the world will mark Workers Memorial Day, which provides a focal point to remember those killed and injured on the job, highlights the preventable nature of most workplace accidents and reiterates calls for workplace safety.
Apr 4, 2013
The Solidarity Center and the international worker rights movement are commemorating Bangladesh union leader Aminul Islam, who was brutally murdered one year ago today. His murderer or murderers remain at large.
Aminul, 39, was a plant-level union leader at an export processing zone in Bangladesh, an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS), and president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation’s (BGIWF) local committee in the Savar and Ashulia areas of Dhaka. He and his wife had three children.
In November, investigation of his murder was transferred to the Bangladesh Criminal Investigation Department, a move demanded by the Committee for Justice for Aminul Islam, of which the Solidarity Center is a founding member. To date, no arrests have been made.
“Aminul gave his life trying to achieve justice for millions of Bangladesh workers,” says Solidarity Center Asia Director Tim Ryan. “Yet the Bangladesh government has not expressed urgency in bringing justice to Aminul and his suffering family by identifying, locating and prosecuting those who murdered him.”
Aminul’s murder received worldwide condemnation, including from the global union movement, major apparel industry associations, U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan Mozena and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In recent months, the Bangladesh government issued a reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case.
Aminul, who was on his way to a mosque after work April 4, was later found dead by the side of a road more than 60 miles from his home, his body tortured and beaten. Since his murder, more than 100 Bangladeshi garment workers have been killed on the job, including 112 workers at a horrific fire in the Tazreen Fashions factory in November. Aminul sought to change the conditions that have led to the dozens of fires that broke out at Bangladesh factories in the last year alone. He believed that the locked factory doors and lack of fire safety measures—which have led to unacceptable death tolls—could most effectively be addressed by workers who freely form unions and collectively bargain to improve workplace safety and health conditions.
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest clothes exporter with overseas garment sales topping $19 billion in 2011, or 80 percent of total national exports. Yet garment workers in Bangladesh essentially risk their lives each day on the job for the equivalent of $37 a month—the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty.
The Bangladesh government recently has submitted a new safety plan for garment factories, though it has yet to be implemented or tested. Currently only a small percentage of the country’s thousands of garment factories see inspectors or face consequences when they do not meet safety or building codes. “We support any effort to ensure that workplaces are not death traps,” said Ryan. “However, promises are not progress. And when workers are not included in the process, such measures tend to fail.
Mar 15, 2013
Two massive fires at garment factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan last year killed hundreds of workers, many trapped in buildings with inadequate or locked exits. A new report examining both horrific incidents finds that the deaths and injuries were “caused or exacerbated by illegal, unsafe buildings, faulty electrics or machinery, poor safety procedures and avoidable hazards such as blocked or inadequate fire exits.”
The report, Fatal Fashions, points out that workers’ lack of freedom to form unions and bargain collectively to improve working conditions underlies this deadly environment. “Under different conditions, worker representatives could be expected to address this issue with factory management, but in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, factory owners generally refuse to allow trade unions into their factories,” the report says.
“In countries with generally higher factory safety standards, experience proves that involvement of workers in safety committees, the availability of complaint procedures and the freedom to refuse work under unsafe conditions, has contributed to improved safety.”
The report presents company profiles of the factory owners, Ali Enterprises in Karachi, Pakistan and Tazreen Fashions in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and details accounts of the September and November 2012 fires and actions taken in their aftermath, including victim compensation. The report was produced by the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and SOMO (Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen), an organization that provides independent research for civil society organizations. Among the report’s findings:
• Bangladesh has only 80 inspectors in the entire country—including 20 inspectors for occupational health and safety—for 24,299 factories, 3 million shops and establishments, and two major ports.
• Many of the workers and families affected by the garment fires in Karachi and Dhaka have not yet received any compensation or have only received compensation that fails to cover the loss of income for the survivors and their families. Neither Bangladesh nor Pakistan has ratified International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 121, which recommends a structured compensation plans for victims of workplace disaster.
• The legal minimum wage in both countries “does not equal a living wage.” Bangladesh garment workers are the lowest paid in the world, followed by those in Cambodia and Pakistan.
• Neither Bangladesh nor Pakistan has ratified ILO conventions on freedom of association or the right to a safe and healthy work environment.
In conclusion, the report states that the two cases “are not stand-alone incidents, but the result of systemic hazardous conditions in the garment industry in Pakistan and Bangladesh.” The fires “reflect systemic flaws on the level of government protection of human rights and lack of respect shown by the garment industry for workers’ rights.”
Read the full report.
Apr 16, 2012
The Solidarity Center is appalled at the murder of Aminul Islam, a longtime friend and colleague. Aminul, 39, was a plant-level union leader at an export processing zone (EPZ) in Bangladesh, an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS), and president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation’s (BGIWF) local committee in the Savar and Ashulia areas of Dhaka. He left behind a wife and three children.
“I can accept his death from illness or an accident but not like this. I want justice,” said Hosne Ara Fahima, his wife.
In recent weeks, Aminul had been trying to improve the working conditions of some 8,000 garment workers employed by Shanta Group, a garment manufacturer based in the Dhaka EPZ. He was last seen Wednesday April 4, outside the BCWS office. Four days later, his wife recognized him in a newspaper photo of a body found by the side of the road more than 60 miles away. He had been violently tortured, according to police, and all of his toes were broken. Reports indicate that he was beaten before his death.
Aminul began his transformation to a trade union leader and organizer in 2005 when his co-workers elected him convener of the Workers Representation and Welfare Committee at Shasha Denims Ltd., a garment factory located inside the EPZ in Savar, Dhaka. Trusted by his co-workers, Aminul took his duties as a worker representative seriously. For his activities, he was terminated from his job. Aminul did not accept the severance offered to him and appealed his case to the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) with the aid of the Solidarity Center. BEPZA ordered his reinstatement, but the company refused to comply and proffered a Writ Petition in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Since then the company has paid a partial monthly salary to Aminul as long as he does not return to work or the Writ Petition is disposed of.
After Aminuls’s association with the Solidarity Center, the BCWS hired him as a trainer and, at the same time, he joined BGIWF, a BCWS ally, as an organizer. The Solidarity Center has been working with the BCWS since the 1990s through BGIWF to educate garment workers about their rights under Bangladeshi law and international labor standards. In 2010, Aminul was arrested and beaten for his role as an activist.
“Aminul was a very hardworking and serious organizer,” said Babul Akter, BGIWF president. “He used to recruit an average of over 200 workers per month as associate members of BGIWF.”
“We had to tell Aminul to take a break sometimes because he didn’t know when to stop. He was always on the go, talking with and representing workers”, said Kalpona Akter, a colleague and executive director of BCWS. Rukshana Yasmin, a program officer with the Solidarity Center in Bangladesh, said, “Every time we had a meeting or training, I would tell Aminul to please bring 20 workers; he would bring 30 or more. Aminul is a problem solver. Many workers would go to the office wanting him to represent them in disputes with management. The office is always full of workers. With all the influence he has, Aminul was always humble and respectful.”
“Aminul Islam is a progressive Muslim,” said Akm Nasim, Solidarity Center senior legal counsel. “I had numerous discussions with him about union matters as well as religion where he was also well versed, and he is very opposed to fundamentalism.”
Aminul Islam’s eldest daughter, Akhi, said, “My father’s dream when he recently sold our house and bought some land was to build a madrassa (religious school) for girls and for me to be a teacher and administrator of the school. Our father has inspired us to take up the work of God.” She added that she and her twin brothers, Sakib and Rakib, miss their father very much.
Calls for justice for Aminul have been sent from numerous organizations to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, asking that an immediate and impartial investigation be carried out at the highest level and that the perpetrator of the murder be brought to trial and prosecuted. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was one of the first to send a letter to the prime minister. Others include Human Right Watch, the International Trade Union Confederation, Worker Rights Consortium, International Labor Rights Forum, Clean Clothes Campaign, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturing Employers Association (BGMEA), and the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan Mozena.
In a statement, Mozena expressed profound sadness at the loss of this dedicated union activist. “Mr. Islam worked tirelessly to confront the challenges and risks facing workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh,” he said. “His death is a reminder of the need to support labor activists around the globe, as they struggle to improve the plight of their fellow workers and the economic situation of their families. We call on the government of Bangladesh to fully investigate Mr. Islam’s death and to hold the perpetrators accountable.”
More than 300 workers and trade union leaders formed a human chain at the Press Club in Dhaka on Friday April 13, to call for Justice. A delegation of four European Union mission diplomats participated and extended their solidarity.
On Sunday April 15, more than 1,000 workers held another rally at the Press Club and then marched to the office of the Home Ministry. A delegation met with Home Minister Shahara Khatun. After the presentation of the memorandum calling for an immediate, impartial, and professional investigation of the murder, Minister Shahara Katun said that she had already ordered the Inspector General of the Police to conduct a full inquiry and bring the culprits to justice.
“The government of Bangladesh‘s failure to implement and uphold freedom of association in the garment industry has led to the death of Aminul Islam,” observed Alonzo Suson, Solidarity Center country program director for Bangladesh. “He was a victim of violence perpetuated by those who oppose worker rights in the industry. But he would want labor unions in the garment industry to work together, develop a strategy, and organize to overcome the strong resistance to trade unions.”
