Is it really all about the class struggle between oppressed workers and the blood sucking garments/textile factory owners? May be. Most likely. Then shouldn’t we all, who talk and work for the oppressed, support all what is being done by the workers in Bangladesh today?
But I am really having trouble loooking at the events in plane black and white and take the right side i.e the side of the workers and start supporting all the anarchy that is happening in Bangladesh right now.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathy for the garments factory owners or current government. Garments and it’s subsidiary industry has the highest rich and poor gap in Bangladesh. Time and again I have seen what a lavish life the garments buusinessmen’s children lead around the private universities in Bangladesh. You, with your western wage, go to Helvetia and can afford to have a chicken brost once a while. This kids do it daily, hours after hours a day while indulging in Tk 5000 an hour pool game. And I have no doubt the money for this chicken brost and Tk 5000 an hour pool game comes from exploiting those poor teenage boys and girls working behind the locked collapsible gates.
But what good it brings to the nation when bands of hooligans go in rampage, start burning industries that come in front of them. These industries are backbone of the nation.
Today, about 500 garments factories around Dhaka are closed. They are closed for an indefinite period. What will be the immdediate implication?
Those poor daily paid workers will have no income for days. Who will feed the famly?
Factories will miss shipment datelines. They will definitely loose business to competitors in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam ,Cambodia, Mexico, Jordan, Oman, Nepal, Jamaica etc.
I know garments owners also play with the sentiment, they kind of blackmail the nation with these issues.
But other than being blackmailed by these businessmen, what option this nation has?
Like all of you, I also can write emotional or factual stories on garments horror. But what purpose it will serve?
Should we support the anarchy of burning all the compliant units, all the showcase better workplace units or the joint venture units in EPZs?
Then what?
Peace?
Prosperity?
How?
I see the media in Bangladesh has taken a middle of the road aproach in this event. Lets follow that lead. First let the anarchy stop.
Then keep vigil for a follow up. Lobby, pressurize the government, regulatory agencies, owners association to ensure a minimus wage, work hour requirement. With buyer’s help, this is doable.
Please don’t burn a single more industrial unit. Bangladesh needs more industry. Can’t afford to burn whatever few we have.
In the Middle of Nowhere 
May 24, 2006 at 12:54 am
Rumi bhai,
It is not a matter of taking side. Nobody supports anarchy, nobody supports burning of factories. Let us not make any assumptions or let us not get into any insinuation of conspiracy. That’s not our job. We simply do not have any information to suggest that. But we can assess plainly whether or not there is enough reason for the workers to demonstrate for their right.
The answer is yes. Hameeda Hossain has best reflected the views. http://www.prothom-alo.net/v1/newhtmlnews1/category.php?CategoryID=4&Date=2006-05-24
Everybody who has been concerned about the industry knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Owners simply paid no heed. They bear equal responsibility for this current mess for being too short sighted and profit driven.
May 24, 2006 at 7:12 am
” Let us not make any assumptions or let us not get into any insinuation of conspiracy.”
Asif, show me where you got this thing in my post.
I agree with all of you, that garments owners are oppressors and there are inhuman working environmnet in garments industry.
A lot need to be achieved in this units in terms of workers safety, wage, work hours etc.
Buyer’s pressure has achieved some and I am sure the rest also can be achieved in the same tactics.
But burning, destroying, rioting… that can not be the solution.
We left behind those days where murder was protested with murder, rape with rape, arson with another arson.
Let sanity prevail.
There is no logic to promote violent insanity.
May 24, 2006 at 7:18 am
I spent considerable amount of time Detroit, Michigan.
Go ask any of the thousands of bangladesh born engineers working in the auto industry in Detroit, Michigan.
UYou will know how, UAW, the auto workers union, by it’s never ending wage demand, overtime demand, healthcare demand, has simply ruined US auto industry.
Strikes, undue over wage has made US auto industry very inefficient and less competitive. That gave the chance of Japanese and Korean industry to take over more and more auto market.
Now UAW is voluntarily giving up their benefits, factories after factories are being closed and it is apparently too late to save the end.
May 24, 2006 at 7:35 am
My first disclaimer, I have nobody, no family or friend who is in garments business. So don’t see me sympathizing for the garments industry.
Question,
How true is the 900 taka wage story?
Just after I gradated from medical school in 1994, while I was doing post graduation in PG hospital, I used to work, part-time, in two garments factory as the medical officer.
I had close inside observation how this industry works.
Lowest in the workers pool, the unskilled helpers, cutting, sewing helpers used to be lowest paid. They may be the one with 900 taka wage.
But the moment they get the skill, they become sewing machine operator, cutting master, their salary go up exponentially.
Then floor supervisor. In 1994, a floor supervisor used to make 10-20 thosand taka a month.
The more senior, skilled you get as supervisor, the salary keeps on going up. Shafiq, one such supervisor in my unit, used to make around 35 thousand. It’s simply capitalism. If one unit fail to pay them good, competitor unit will simply would lure them away.
In 1994, a cutting supervisor would easily make 30-50,000. Then, if educated, they become production manager, quality manager. These are one of the highest paid jobs in Bangladesh.
And I, already an MD, as the medical officer used to get tk 3000 a month.
May 24, 2006 at 7:45 am
Timely salary issue.
I already told, the unit I used to work, is still known as one of the worst units in terms of compliance.
And even in this unit, I saw the owners and administrators, sweat to pay at least workers salary in time. You won’t understand, how tremendous is the pressure when you have 7-8 thousand empty pocket workers waiting in the street for the salary.
Since morning owner and accounting manager is in bank, every one in the office is tense, today is pay day.
Frantic effort to finally approve the LC, withdraw the money and run to office with the briefcase.
My salary used to be always 2-3 months late. I still didn’t get the last two months salary. But, no owner, how bad he/she is, can afford to delay workers salary. That’s the last thing in garments industry code.
May 24, 2006 at 7:56 am
On a separate note.
The owner of one of the two units I used to work, is a child molester.
Two eight years old girls, who were in the pay role, apparently as machine helpers, used to be called in to the owner’s room on a daily basis.
There were all kind of rumors among the officers about this.
While you all get carried away with pay/work hour demand, these sort of issues also need to be addressed.
May 24, 2006 at 2:52 pm
“I used to get Tk 700 a month for working 14 hours a day –8:00am to 10:00pm– without any day off,” said Bashar, a UKGT worker. The factory authorities increased his wage to Tk 1,000-1200 three months ago. The amount is too small even for a single person,” he said.
From Todays Daily Star
May 26, 2006 at 7:55 am
The garments industry riots in Bangladesh
Whether we accept it or not, we all are chained humans, there is a master above us and we are a master of someone. And the exploitation continues. The truth is no hero or revolution is going to break the chain saving us anytime soon.
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