Jul 10, 2013
July 10, 2013—Newspapers in Bangladesh this week reported that charges against two worker rights advocates will be dropped and that the search for the people who tortured and murdered labor leader Aminul Islam last year will receive new focus. The news follows the decision by the U.S. government to suspend preferential trade benefits with Bangladesh because of chronic and severe labor rights violations.
Kalpona Akter and Babul Akhter were imprisoned in 2010 on false charges for trying to improve the working conditions of garment workers. While imprisoned, Kalpona, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), says she was interrogated for long periods and Babul was beaten. Kalpona and Babul, president of the Bangladesh Garments & Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), were later freed on bail.
The government has not officially informed Kalpona or Babul that the charges have been dropped, according to Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka, the capital.
In April 2012, Aminul’s body was found dozens of miles from his home, with signs of torture. Despite international outcry, including a U.S. congressional hearing and then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for justice in the case, his murder has gone unsolved. He had sought to improve the working conditions of some 8,000 garment workers employed by Shanta Group, a garment manufacturer based in Dhaka. In 2010, Aminul also was arrested and beaten for his labor activism.
“If true, the Solidarity Center is pleased that these false charges have been dropped because that would demonstrate that the government of Bangladesh can act when it has the political will and motivation to do so,” says Tim Ryan, Solidarity Center Asia Regional Director.
On June 27, the United States suspended its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) agreement with Bangladesh. Because the benefits are suspended and not terminated, Bangladesh has the opportunity to again qualify for the GSP benefit by improving worker rights, laws and practices. A key measure of that program will be whether newly registered unions will be allowed to represent worker interests.
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.
May 30, 2013
The freedom to form factory-level unions and negotiate job safety, living wages and fundamental social protections is key to any reform of Bangladesh’s labor laws, leaders and members of Bangladesh unions and worker organizations told U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). Over the weekend, Miller held two meetings at the Solidarity Center’s Bangladesh office with garment union leaders and more than two dozen workers from newly formed and registered unions at 20 garment factories.
“I come here to hear your stories,” Miller said as he opened one meeting, to heartfelt greetings. He assured participants he would bring their stories to his colleagues in the U.S. Congress and continue to support the struggle of Bangladeshi workers. When he asked for specific issues he should discuss with the Bangladesh government, the group suggested trade union rights, fire and building safety, and wages.
One factory union leader described how employer opposition made it extremely hard for workers at her garment factory to form a union—but how the work environment immediately improved after they succeeded in forming one.
“It was difficult to get our union,” said Maksuda, general secretary of the Sadia Garments Workers Union at Sadia Garments. (Like many in Bangladesh, Maksuda uses only one name.) “Workers were getting fired, thugs were in front of the factory gates harassing us and it was very discouraging. But we continued, and now we have our union registration. I am amazed that immediately we were able to hold a dialogue with management and were treated with respect right away. I am looking forward to changes that we can achieve with our union.”
Alamgir, a union president at a different factory, said benefit cuts and delays in receiving overtime pay pushed workers to form a union. Management fought their efforts. But once the union had its registration, the company engaged in talks with workers, returned benefits and gave workers a small, incremental wage increase.
Miller also met with leaders from Solidarity Center partners, including the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation (BIGUF), the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), the Bangladesh Federation for Workers Solidarity (BFWS) and the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF).
BIGUF Joint Secretary Rashedul Alom Raju said that while the government of Bangladesh has announced it would raise the minimum wage for the nation’s 4 million garment workers and make forming a union easier, “it is too early to tell how serious the government is” regarding other amendments to the labor code, which may or may not benefit workers.
The government announcement came after at least 1,127 garment workers were killed when the Rana Plaza building collapsed in late April just five months after a deadly fire at another factory. In recent months, the government has registered 27 factory-level unions and called for the formation of a minimum wage board.
May 20, 2013
At least 23 garment workers were injured today when a structure the workers used for rest breaks collapsed in Cambodia. The collapse comes just days after two workers were killed when a ceiling caved in at a Cambodian shoe factory.
Over the weekend, the owner of the Wing Star Shoe factory said negligence led to the collapse of an overloaded storage bin. He also said in a press conference last week that he does not expect to be prosecuted for the deadly incident. Another Wing Star official called the tragedy “a small incident.” Meanwhile, workers have been told to report back to work, despite government assurances on the day of the tragedy that a full investigation would take place.
“Although Cambodian garment factories have been hailed as providing safer working conditions than those in Bangladesh, that does not constitute a safe industry,” says Solidarity Center Cambodia Country Program Director David Welsh. “Of the 100 factories audited on an ad hoc basis, 25 were found to have safety and health violations,” he said, citing a recent International Labor Organization (ILO) report.
The report found “a worrying increase in fire safety violations,” in which only 57 percent of factories kept paths free of obstructions. The study, part of the ILO’s “Better Factories Cambodia” project, showed a large drop in compliance in fire safety measures, with the number of garment and footwear factories abiding by the legal requirement to keep access paths free of obstructions “unprecedentedly decreasing from 87 percent to 57 percent compliance.”
The ILO findings belie a statement by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia that the factory collapse was a one-time occurrence. A separate report on a pilot project on footwear factories found they were not in compliance with a host of labor standards, especially regarding occupational safety and health. Chemical safety is a special concern, because the use of toxic solvents is much more widespread than it is for clothing.
A spokesman for Wing Star Shoe factory also said the company will pay the cost of the two victims’ funerals and the medical bills of the 14 workers injured. The family of one of the workers killed said she was 15 years old.
Yet the Phnom Penh Post reports that families were told they had to take the amount the company offered or get nothing—and the compensation was significantly less than they had sought.
According to the Post: Rim Rorn, 29, uncle of Rim Roeun, 22, who died in the collapse, said talks between his family and factory representatives had broken down. “The representatives told us to accept their offer . . . or it’s hopeless for us.”
The garment and shoe manufacturing industry is Cambodia’s largest formal employer, with 500,000 workers in more than 500 factories, and generated $4.6 billion in exports in 2012. Most garments and shoes are exported to the United States and the European Union.
The May 16 tragedy follows the April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, where 1,127 garment workers were killed. The eight-story building housed five garment factories and a government inquiry pointed to shoddy construction as the prime trigger of the collapse.
May 14, 2013
The Bangladesh cabinet approved a change to the nation’s labor laws that it says would enable workers to more freely form unions. The proposal, which must be approved by Parliament, would allow workers to join unions without showing the list of union supporters to factory owners to verify their employment—a practice that effectively makes it impossible for unions to gather sufficient support to register with the government because factory owners often penalize or fire workers who support unionization.
The move follows an announcement that the Bangladesh government would raise the minimum wage for the nation’s 4 million garment workers. Bangladesh garment workers at minimum are paid $37 a month, the lowest wages in the global garment industry, while often risking their lives just to be at work.
The government’s step toward improving Bangladesh labor laws is welcome, but significant issues remain, says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Director Tim Ryan.
“Registering unions is only part of the difficulty workers experience when they seek to form a trade union,” Ryan says. “In the ready-made garment industry, workers who want to join a union report they face anti-union harassment and discrimination on the job. Until the government takes steps to afford workers their fundamental right of freedom of association by bringing its labor laws into full compliance with international standards, Bangladesh garment workers will not be able to have a voice on the job that they need to improve safety and health conditions.”
Ryan also points to the lack of movement in finding those responsible for the murder of Aminul Islam, a union organizer in the garment sector who was tortured and killed last year. “Finding the perpetrators of those who murdered Aminul and obtaining justice for him would emonstrate that Bangladesh respects the rights of its workers.”
On Monday, major retailers that represent the largest purchasers of clothes made in Bangladesh announced they would help finance safety upgrades at apparel factories. This move follows the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, which resulted in the world’s worst industrial disaster since the 1984 Bhopal explosion in India. The announcement comes as rescue efforts ended at the site, with the bodies of 1,127 workers recovered from the rubble. The building housed five garment factories.
These actions by the government and brands follow weeks of protests and walkouts by garment workers across the capital, Dhaka, who joined together to demand safe working conditions and wages that can support themselves and their families.
Three factories closed Monday after workers spotted cracks on a wall. They immediately evacuated the building that housed the factories and began protesting outside. After cracks surfaced in the Rana building on April 24, garment workers were told to report to work. Within hours, the building pancaked in on itself.
In Ashulia, near Dhaka, garment makers said yesterday they are indefinitely closing all factories in the area because of worker protests. Workers have been demanding pay increases, benefits and workplace safety for the past 12 days. Ashulia’s more than 300 garment factories account for nearly 20 percent of total garment exports.
Also on Monday, several hundred workers at a ready-made garment factory blocked a road in Mirpur area of the capital for more than two hours, protesting dismissal of 13 co-workers.
Arati Bala Das, 18, was among those pulled from the Rana building after being pinned under a concrete pillar for three days. “When the building collapsed, I felt that I was going down,” she told Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka. “When it stopped, I found myself in the dark. It was difficult to breathe. I could not see anything. I could not move a bit. I realized that two dead bodies had fallen on my legs and a pillar had fallen on those dead bodies. I was very much afraid and I thought I would not be able to return alive.”
Arati’s mother, Titon, was killed in the collapse and Arati’s right leg was amputated. Both worked at New Wave Style Ltd. factory. Her father Adhir Chandra Das, a day laborer, now faces the likely impossible task of supporting Arati and her three young sisters without the additional wages of his wife and eldest daughter.
In November 2012, a fire at Tazreen Fashions killed at least 112 garment workers. Since that blaze, 18 garment workers have died at their workplaces and more than 650 have been injured in 43 fire incidents, according to data compiled by Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka. Just days after the Rana collapse, eight workers were killed at the Tung Hai Sweater Factory.
May 3, 2013
More than 500 people have now been confirmed dead in last week’s building collapse in Bangladesh, the country’s worst industrial disaster on record. The dead are among the 2,868 victims pulled from the rubble of the eight-story building, which housed five garment factories where thousands of workers toiled on the upper floors. No one has been rescued alive for the past three days, and estimates of the number remaining in the rubble vary widely, from less than 200 to more than 1,000 people.
The mayor of Savar, where the Rana Plaza building is located, has been suspended on charges of failing to take proper action after several cracks developed and were reported by a structural engineer a day before the April 24 collapse. The mayor, Md Refatullah, also was charged for “irregularities” in approving the design.
A government inquiry concluded today that substandard construction materials and the vibration of heavy machinery in the five garment factories were prime triggers of the building’s collapse. The building owner, Sohel Rana, a prominent leader in the nation’s ruling party, was arrested over the weekend and his assets frozen. Despite the engineer’s warnings, Rana told factory operators the building was safe. Factory owners then demanded workers return the next day.
A 16-year-old garment worker whose right hand was amputated after she was pulled from the wreckage told the Solidarity Center that the factory owner said she would lose a month’s wages if she did not go to work. Solidarity Center Bangladesh Country Director Alonzo Suson and local staff are speaking with survivors, ensuring that they understand their rights and that their stories are not forgotten.
“If those workers had a collective voice to stand up to factory managers, this tragedy might never have happened,” says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Program Director Tim Ryan.
Thousands protested in Dhaka, the capitol, on May 1, internationally recognized May Day, demanding justice for those killed and injured at Rana Plaza. But garment workers from a variety of factories have been out on the streets of Dhaka for days, “demanding more safety” at the workplace, Suson told the Rick Smith Show. “Without a union at the workplace, there is no workers’ voice in making sure that safety of working conditions happen.”
While global apparel brands have taken steps to demand factories observe the nation’s job safety and health laws, they have not pushed for strong unions at the workplace—and without freedom of association, say Ryan and Suson, individual workers cannot press for safe workplaces. Nor can they demand wages they can live on. Bangladesh garment workers are paid $37 a month, the lowest in the world, to toil in conditions Pope Francis this week described as “slave labor.”
As Ryan told Public Radio International, “The brands can also be helpful when it comes to communicating with their contractors, with their companies, and say ‘Look, freedom of association is the law of the land.’
“Many of these brands have codes of conduct, which, again, are often just words on a page, but often they (mandate), ‘implementation (of) all existing labor laws and freedom of association,’ he said. “This is where the brands can put their money where their mouth is.”
For more than two decades, the Solidarity Center has been supporting workers trying to gain their rights in Bangladesh.
