Garments Worker Riots
It’s both noteworthy and depressing that the only person who has blogged consistently about the garment factory labour riots that are currenty gripping Dhaka is Shafiur at Imperfect World. But thanks and credit are due because he’s doing a mighty fine job of collating the reports. See his posts here and here. In fact I’d recommend reading his blog just to keep abreast of the events because this is all he has been highlighting not just now, in this current crisis, but has been consistently covering the series of factory disasters that have taken place since February that have piled misery upon disaster for some of the poorest workers in the world.
Drishtipat has printed this report by Farid Bakht on the recent events and discusses some of the issues that have culminated in the riots.
Whenever the country is slammed for its high level of corruption and squabbling - even criminal - politicians, the garment industry is held up as a success story. But it does not take much effort to discover that there are deep-seated problems in the industry that have been brushed aside for too long. In April 2005, an entire building, housing hundreds of mainly female workers in the outskirts of Dhaka, collapsed. Sixty-four laborers, at work on their machines, were crushed to death, and 84 injured. With unremitting regularity, factories become death traps where workers are locked in and unable to escape fires, or find that fire escapes are non-existent or inadequate.
Some of the blame for this fallout that has shaken an already weakened BNP government has been attributed to the Bangladesh’s dismal failure at the WTO last Decemember.
May 28th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
I just had a lengthy conversation with my cousin today who runs one of the biggest textiles and garments firms in bd, about these riots. Not a single factory was burnt by its own workers it seems. There are many reports in the media about factory workers fighting the rioters who were trying to burn down their factories. Why would the workers burn down their own source of income?
The riots were very well organised, and the rioters do not seem to be everyday garments workers - they were mostly men well equipped (bear in mind most garments workers in bd are women) and it seems they came equipped wearing helmets even!
The story gets more sinister - in Dhaka, particular factories were singled out. Those factories producing branded clothing were targeted. For example, both factories that supply H&M (each producing over 100 000 pieces) were destroyed, but the small scale factories were not.
It cant even be put to domestic political conspiracy, even massive firms owned by prominent Awami League MPs were burnt down.
This completely contradicts the theory that it was about workers protesting their rights - the factories producing branded ones are the ones which give their workers the best treatment, including good pay, holidays, overtime etc. It was infect those factories that have no issues with workers rights that were burnt down. This is why the Garments Factory Owners are citing a conspiracy - why were only the big brand factories burnt down?
Undoubtedly, H&M will be forced to reconsider moving to a more stable location.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:26 am
This idea that there is some conspiracy behind this crisis sounds suspiciously like some garments industrialists who have called this as an “Indian Conspiray”. This is ridiculous and a recipe for further disaster. This seems to be like more venal smokescreening about garments worker’s rights (or rather the non-existence of) which in BD is one of the worst in the world.
Why aren’t these people in power facing up to real reasons why there is a crisis going on? As in these reasons. The silence on these matters by the government and its satellites is the real conspiracy, I’d say.
(I’d leave this comment on your blog except that it doesn’t accept comments from people who do not have a blogger account.)
June 1st, 2006 at 2:13 am
June 1: We have an industry first! Indeed a double first. An admission of fault and a mechanism to address the fault. And no talk of a conspiracy either:-
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=299276&sid=SAS
April 6th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
It’s a pain in everyone else’s butt. Let’s just stop discussing this crap, the topic is too questionable.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Humph, you’ve changed my mind! Your arguments are convincing indeed. Despite I’m not a person who is easy to be convinced.