Aug 9, 2013
The Bangladesh government has re-registered the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), a move that means the organization can fully function again and pursue its mission of educating workers about their rights.
The Bangladesh government revoked the organization’s registration in 2010 and arrested its leaders, Babul Akhter, Kalpona Akter and Aminul Islam, on criminal charges following protests by garment workers against unsafe working conditions and poverty-level wages. All three, who were held in custody and later released, say they were tortured in prison. In 2012, Aminul’s body was found dozens of miles from his home, severely beaten and tortured.
The government last month dropped charges against Babul and Kalpona and announced it would step up the search for the people who tortured and murdered Aminul. All these actions follow the decision by the U.S. government in June to suspend preferential trade benefits with Bangladesh because of chronic and severe labor rights violations. The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) reduced tariff benefits agreement is worth $34.7 million a year for Bangladesh.
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, Aminul’s 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.
Since his murder, two massive garment factory disasters in Bangladesh have killed more than 1,000 workers, including the April building collapse of Rana Plaza, where 1,133 were killed. On Thursday, another garment worker Monwar Hossain, 22, died from his injuries at Rana Plaza. In the past eight months, there have been more than 40 fire and fire-related incidents at Bangladesh garment factories, according to data compiled by Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka, the capital.
Aug 4, 2013
Women around the world work make up the vast majority of workers in dangerous, difficult and low-paid jobs—and in Bangladesh, garment workers, the majority of whom are women, often risk their lives for a chance to support themselves and their families. More than 1,100 workers were killed in the most recent garment factory disaster when the eight-story Rana Plaza building collapsed in April.
Morium Akter Sheuli, elected this year as general secretary of the 100,000+ member Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF), was 9 years old when she began work in a garment factory. At age 14, she began organizing co-workers to gain a collective voice on the job to improve workplace safety and wages.
Bangladesh has “more than 4 million garment workers, of which 80 percent are women (and) almost 70 percent of all women employment in the nation’s manufacturing sectors,” said Morium. She spoke last week in in São Paulo, Brazil, during a July 30-31 Solidarity Center conference, “Women’s Empowerment, Gender Equality and Labor Rights: Transforming the Terrain.”
Although garment exports account for 75 percent of Bangladesh’s exports, workers in the country’s 5,000 garment factories are paid a minimum of $38 a month while enduring dangerous and deadly workplaces.
Following the Rana Plaza tragedy and other mass deaths at Bangladesh garment factories, the United States in June suspended its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) reduced tariff benefits agreement with Bangladesh. In July, Bangladesh passed a new labor law, one that Morium says “is not enough for workers.”
“In some ways, the previous law was better than this one,” Morium said through a translator, in an interview with the Solidarity Center. “Workers are not very happy with the new law after Rana Plaza, thinking it is imposed on them.”
Although the government has made registering unions easier in recent weeks, the new labor code still does not apply to the hundreds of thousands of workers in the country’s export processing zones where a large number of garment workers are employed, according to an analysis by the AFL-CIO. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has found that current law that regulates labor relations in the zones violates core labor standards.
Like conference participants from a variety of countries, Morium, who has been actively involved in various union leadership positions and union organizing efforts, described how international support has been essential to improving women’s working conditions. She sees hope in the international Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a legally binding agreement committing the more than 80 major corporations that signed on to funding safety and building upgrades and holding independent factory inspections.
“I think that it will be a better tool for our workers in Bangladesh,” she said.
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.
