Aug 20, 2024
With the unexpected shift in Bangladesh political leadership, garment workers say they are hopeful but cautious about the effect on their wages, working conditions and fundamental civil rights, such as the freedom to form unions.
“We hope something positive will happen. However, after the fall of the government, some factories … were prevented from opening in some places,” one factory-level union representative* told the Solidarity Center. “It should not happen.”
After weeks of peaceful student protest were met with deadly government suppression, long-term Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee the country on August 4. Students were rallying against a government jobs quota system granting coveted decent work opportunities to family veterans of the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence. More than 600 protestors have been killed.
The economy of Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter, depends on garment factories, but producers say customers are concerned about violence and disruption. In 2023, 4 million garment workers contributed 85 percent of Bangladesh’s $55 billion in annual exports.
The recent disruptions, including a government internet shutdown, closed factories, but some garment workers were back to work August 7.
“We only wish our garment sector to thrive,” another worker said. “Our hope is all the factories remain open.”
Lack of Union Freedom Represses Decent Wages, Work
Government repression against workers seeking to form and join unions has prevented garment workers from achieving the living wages and safe working conditions they have sought to achieve, workers say.
With a new government, garment workers seek a crucial change: The ability to freely exert their internationally recognized freedom to form independent unions and bargain collectively for wages and working conditions.
“We want to be able to exercise our trade union rights to the fullest with no pressure from anybody,” says one union leader, who has received threats for efforts to stand up for worker rights.
Although most factories have resumed production, garment workers say their monthly wage still must be increased.
“Many families live on the income of garment workers,” said the union representative.
While many garment workers received wages in July, union leaders tell Solidarity Center that in many other factories, especially those without unions, workers were not paid. In Gazipur, ready-made garments and textile factories demanded their due payment.
Last fall, garment workers who held protests for higher wages were also brutally repressed. The government raised wages to $113 a month, an amount union leaders say does not cover the cost of living, and about half of what workers sought. Multiple labor organizations, including the Industrial Bangladesh Council and Garments Sramik Parishad, said garment workers’ monthly minimum wage must be at least Tk 23,000 a month ($195.81).
Workers said last year’s wage revision did not cover basic needs as “the prices of daily commodities have skyrocketed.” One garment worker who has been on the job for 15 years said, “Usually, our wage is revised every five years. We expect the new government to do that in three years. It will be really beneficial for garment workers.”
* All workers interviewed for this story asked to remain anonymous.
Sep 15, 2021
When hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets for weeks last spring to protest the government’s move to give wealthy corporations and rich individuals huge tax breaks while raising taxes on working people, workers and their unions were at the forefront.
Despite the state’s brutal response, in which violence—including illegal detention, torture and the use of lethal weapons—was directed against workers, women and Black and Indigenous communities, the National Strike Committee, a broad coalition of rural workers, the LGBTQ community, environmentalists, women’s organizations and young people, won big victories, says Francisco Maltés.
Maltés, president of the Unitary Workers Center (CUT), the largest union confederation in Colombia, speaks with Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau in a special episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast.
“We were able to do away with the worst tax reform proposal that had ever been seen in Colombia,” says Maltés, describing one of the movement’s gains. Just as important, he says, is that for “the first time in the history of social struggles in Colombia,” unions and their allies can define an agenda and help shape public conversation.
“We are now able to talk about basic income, free tuition, wage subsidies for small and medium businesses. Issues that matter to workers and the average people in Colombia.”
Listen to this and all Solidarity Center episodes here or at iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, Castbox or wherever you subscribe to your podcasts.
Stay Tuned for Season Two!
The Solidarity Center Podcast, “Billions of Us, One Just Future,” highlights conversations with workers (and other smart people) worldwide shaping the workplace for the better.
We will back in a few weeks with Season Two, so be sure to join us for a new episode each Wednesday!
Meantime, listen to our special summer episode with union leader Phyo Sandar Soe who speaks from a safe house in military-controlled Myanmar to share how workers have risked their lives on the frontlines for democracy since the February 1 coup.
Also: Check out the full first season of The Solidarity Center Podcast.
This podcast was made possible by the Ford Foundation and the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under Cooperative Agreement No.AID-OAA-L-16-00001 and the opinions expressed herein are those of the participant(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID/USG.
Oct 16, 2019
More than 40 labor organizations in Haiti joined a call for vast nationwide legal reforms, including free and fair elections and the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse. The move follows weeks of massive demonstrations against rampant government corruption and wasteful spending that has devastated the economy.
The most recent round of protests began September 2, sparked by fuel shortages, spiraling inflation, a lack of safe drinking water, environmental degradation and food scarcity. Factories, schools, and businesses have sporadically closed with the near daily protests. In one of the largest rallies to date, thousands turned out on Sunday in a peaceful demonstration, with human rights organizations, popular artists, and business leaders joining unions, young workers and the many others hard-hit by the country’s economic crisis.
In the Joint Declaration for a National Rescue Government, issued October 11, more than 100 organizations—including three Solidarity Center union partners–urge all segments of society to join together to demand a return of public services and implementation of an emergency program for the most vulnerable groups. The Joint Declaration also seeks an end to the culture of impunity in the judicial system and demands a clean accounting of public finances.
More than 60 percent of Haitians survive on less $2 a day, and more than 2.5 million fall below the extreme poverty line of $1.23 per day. Haitians are outraged that the island has received millions of dollars in aid since the 2010 earthquake, but public services and infrastructure are nearly nonfunctional.
A Solidarity Center survey this year found that the daily minimum wage for export apparel workers in Haiti is $5.07—more than four times less than the estimated cost of living. These workers—the majority of whom are women who support families—are forced to toil longer for less due to diminished purchasing power and are unable to cover daily necessities, including food.
“The High Cost of Low Wages in Haiti,” which tracked living expenses for garment workers from September 2018 through March 2019, recommends the government increase the minimum wage to an estimated $18.30 per day and allow workers to select their own representatives to the country’s tripartite minimum wage committee. Unions are advocating for these measures and raise them as key remedies to addressing the crisis underway.
Mar 28, 2019
Recent massive teacher protests in Morocco demanding the government create permanent employment contracts is not an issue confined to the education sector—the extent to which decent jobs are available affects the future of the country, say leaders of the Democratic Labor Confederation (CDT).
A recent government decree making it no longer possible for workers with renewable two-year employment contracts to integrate into the public sector as before means workers have no access to fair wages and social benefits like retirement. The move “outlines the direction and policies of the state to dismantle the public service as a right of citizenship and to disengage from its responsibility towards citizens,” according to a CDT statement.
At least 10,000 teachers protested Sunday in Rabat, Morocco’s capital, to demand the government replace renewable contracts with permanent jobs that offer civil-service benefits, including a better retirement pension.
The Sunday protests came hours after police used water cannon to disperse an overnight demonstration. Many teachers had spent the night in the streets of Rabat after the first event before marching on Sunday from the education ministry to Parliament.
The weekend protests follow nationwide strikes in the education sector on March 13 and 14, and union leaders say more protests are likely.
More than 25% of Young Workers Are Employed
While overall unemployment hovers around 10 percent, more than one-quarter of young people in Morocco are without jobs.
Half of Moroccans who have jobs work in the informal economy, generally in precarious positions with low wages on farms, in construction, textiles and in the food and tobacco industry.
“Despite the strong opposition of the unions, the government is determined to continue hiring with contracts in the education sector and in the public sector in accordance with the recommendations of the international financial institutions, which demand a reduction in the wages,” the Moroccan Labor Union (UMT) says in a statement.
International lenders are pressuring Morocco to trim civil-service wages and cut back on public-sector services.
In addition to CDT and UMT, other unions supporting the march include the Democratic Federation of Labor (FDT), General Union of Moroccan Workers (UGTM) and the National Teaching Federation (FNE).
