Why this indifference to garment workers?
October 13, 2009
BANGLADESH annually earns about $12 billion from the export of readymade garments. The United States and European states are the main buyers. The industry employs about 2.5 million workers, mostly women, whose hard work fetches the foreign currencies.
But nobody, including the government, seems to care about them. For whom then governments are elected? For public servants only? It seems that the government feels no responsibility for public welfare and is only keen to raise the pay of public employees only.
The garment workers come from insolvent families. They work hard in garment factories for survival. Their miseries know no bound when they do not regularly get their wages. They are ill paid.
The minimum garment factory wage is only Tk 1500 per month. The factory in the export processing zones pay three hundred takas more.
Bangladesh Garments Sramik Oikya Parishad convener Amirul Haque Amin recently said the workers were pressing for a wage board to set the minimum wage at Tk 5,000 per month, implementation of labour law, reopening of the closed factories or providing alternative jobs for the workers of closed factories.
The garment workers suffer from malnutrition as they cannot afford food as per their requirements. The garment workers deserve special attention of the government. It should identify the factories, which can immediately raise the workers’ wages on the basis of their export earnings. The minimum wage should be fixed on the basis of essential prices and other expenditures.
As nothing can happen without its intervention, the government should step in as soon as possible to save the country’s main export earning sector and its neglected workers.
The garment workers had to barricade on busy city roads to get Eid bonus and arrear wages in the month of Ramadan over the last ten years. Did they have any other option?
This year, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) demanded Tk 30 billion from the government for paying arrear wages and festival bonus before Eid-ul Fitr.
The BGMEA later backtracked from the demand, apparently under pressure from the government and the trade unions.
BGMEA chief Abdul Salam Murshedy sought to justify the demand, stating that there was a 15-20 per cent fall in export in the first two months of this year compared to that of the previous year.
The trade unions described it as a lame excuse as apparel exports grew by 15 per cent in the last fiscal, despite global recession.
Of the country’s 4500 garment factories two per cent did not pay wages and bonus before the Eid. The payments varied from factory to factory. Some of the garment owners gave bonuses equal to a month’s wage. The others paid only Tk 500 or Tk 600 to each worker.
Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers Exporters Association (BKMEA) president Md Fazlul Hoque said that though it is not mandatory, most of the factory owners pay bonus because it became a practice in the country. Is it really so?
It is really sad that the workers whose hard work make the export earning possible are deprived of their basic rights.
Only a handful of the factories provide the provident fund benefit to the workers. But they do not get the gratuity at the end of service. They do not have insurance coverage. What future do they have?
The state-owned Shadharan Bima Corporation (SBC) could provide the insurance coverage to garment workers as it does for overseas workers against nominal payments.
The Foreign Minister, Dipu Moni, during her visit to the US in September requested her American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, to allow duty-free and quota-free access to Bangladeshi products to the US markets and continue the GSP facilities to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has long been requesting the US for special treatment to its garment products. Why then the owners would not provide the minimum benefits to the workers.
The importers somehow pay more attention to ‘child labour,’ though it is not so serious an issue in the Bangladesh perspective, as parents would prefer a garment job for their children compared to other hazardous work.
The government as well as the importers should require the garment factory owners to pay the legitimate wages and benefits to the workers, if they do not do it on their own.
Given dynamic leadership, BGMEA can motivate the owners to be fair with the workers. The industrialists should understand that happy and properly paid workers would benefit the industry no less as the American and Japanese experiences show.
The garment industry would not have to face the unrest it experienced in recent years if the workers were satisfied. A satisfied worker feels more committed to a factory he works for.
Written By : Emdadul Haque
The writer can be reached at emdadulhaque28@yahoo.com
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