BANGLADESH garment workers’ organisations will picket the wage board office in Dhaka on August 5th to demand Tk 16,000 as the minimum monthly wage for the ready-made garment sector. The decision was announced on Sunday at a meeting at the central office of the Communist Party of Bangladesh in the capital.
The labour leaders rejected both the proposals placed by the representatives of the factory owners and the workers to the wage board. The factory owners wanted the monthly minimum wage to be set at Tk 6,360 while the workers’ representatives sought Tk 12,020.
At the meeting, CPB advisor and labour leader Manzurul Ahsan Khan called on labour bodies to remain united and continue to compel the government to announce the monthly minimum wage at Tk 16,000. Manzur warned the workers to remain alert against conspiracies of the government and the factory owners.
Garment Sramik Odihikar Andolan coordinator Mahbubur Rahman Ismail; Garment Workers’ Trade Union Centre general secretary Joly Talukder; Garment Sramik o Shilpa Jatiya Mancha convener Abul Hossain; and Garment Sramik Sanghati president Taslima Akhter, among others, were present at the meeting.
The global union IndustriAll Bangladesh Council (IBC) on Saturday announced a programme of protests to reject the proposals to the wages board of both the owners and the workers’ representatives, to fix wages for ready-made garment workers. IndustiAll is also demanding Tk 16,000 as the minimum wage.
IndustriAll is a platform of global trade unions founded in Copenhagen on June 19, 2012 and 19 trade union federations in Bangladesh are affiliated to it. At a press conference at the National Press Club in Dhaka, the IBC leaders announced that a human chain would be formed on August 4th in front of the National Press Club to demand the immediate announcement of Tk 16,000 as the workers’ minimum wage.
The IBC said it would observe the protest programme in phases, including submission of petitions to the wage board, observing sit-ins and holding a rally in front of the minimum wage board office.
‘We reject both the wage proposals placed by the workers’ and owners’ representatives to the board as the proposals are not consistent with the workers’ demands and expectations,’ Salauddin Shapon, secretary general of the IBC said in a written speech to the press conference.
He said that in the name of ‘wage review’, factory owners were plotting to reduce the workers’ wages. ‘If we count yearly five per cent increment on existing minimum wage Tk 5,300, which was set five years ago, the actual amount would be Tk 6,400 but factory owners proposed Tk 6,360 as the minimum wage. ‘It is nothing but a farce for hundreds of thousands of workers,’ Shapon said.
Criticising the appointment process of workers’ representatives to the board, Shapon said if the board tried to adopt a unilateral decision bypassing the workers’ demands, the IBC would announce an agitation programme in Savar, Asulia, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chittagong. ‘It is very unfortunate that RMG factory owners consider workers as machines not human beings,’ said Shapon.
The IBC chairman Md Giasuddin Ahmed; National Garment Workers’ Federation president Amirul Haque Amin; Bangladesh Textile and Garment workers’ League president ZM Kamrul Anam; Combined Garment Workers Federation president Nazma Akter; and immediate past secretary general of IBC Towhidur Rahman, among others, attended the press conference.
• The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has announced that two landmark cases against multinational fashion brands brought under the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety have been officially closed. The tribunal hearing the case issued termination orders this week, and the cases were brought by global unions IndustriALL and UNI.
The brands have met all terms of the settlements, including paying more than US$2.3 million towards remedying unsafe conditions in Bangladesh ready-made garment factories. The Accord will distribute the money to those factories which are eligible.
‘These cases prove the Accord’s power to hold companies accountable and make work safer across the supply chain,’ said Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI Global Union. ‘Because of the legally-binding nature of the Accord, tens-of-thousands of potentially deadly hazards have been fixed and more than one million workers have been trained.
‘That is why we will continue to rigorously enforce the Accord and continue to look at innovative, effective ways to resolve disputes with brands.’ The arbitrations were filed in July 2016 and October 2016 to bring recalcitrant brands into compliance with the terms of the Accord.
The brands did not require the contracted factories to remedy hazards in a timely manner – leaving thousands of workers in dangerous conditions. The unions also charged that the brands did not ensure that contracted factories had the financial resources to fix ongoing safety issues.
The first brand reached a settlement in December 2017, and the second, in January 2018. ‘Prior to the Accord, a settlement of this size and scope on supply chain worker safety was unthinkable,’ said Jenny Holdcroft, Assistant General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.
‘The Accord has the power to fundamentally change the way garments and textiles are produced.’
Both settlements were made possible by pro bono representation provided to the two global unions by Marney Cheek and her team at Covington & Burling.
The Accord, which covered 2.5 million workers in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry, was established by IndustriALL and UNI in 2013 following the Rana Plaza disaster that killed over 1,100 garment workers and injured more than 2,000. It was the first agreement with a legally-binding mandate requiring fashion brands to require their contractors to eliminate fire, structural, and electrical safety issues. It expired in 31 May 2018. A second agreement with nearly 200 brand signatories, the 2018 Transition Accord, went into effect June 1st of this year.
It extends the Accord’s protections until 31 May 2021, unless a joint monitoring committee (comprised of Accord brand signatories, Accord trade union signatories, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the Government of Bangladesh) unanimously agrees that a set of rigorous conditions for a handover to a national regulatory body have been met prior to then.
Five years have elapsed since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, followed by commitments to improve both fire and building safety as well as fundamental labour rights under the Sustainability Compact signed by the ILO, the EU, the United States and the Government of Bangladesh (later joined by Canada).
However, the ILO supervisory bodies still have serious concerns over the lack of respect for the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining as well as the persistent violence and discrimination against workers.
Moreover, the continuation of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, which had been assuring the safety of garment factories for the past five years, is now facing serious opposition from the Government of Bangladesh. The ITUC is calling on the European Commission to hold the Government of Bangladesh to account for its failure to comply with the labour conditions of the EU GSP Everything but Arms scheme by initiating an investigation.
Moreover, says the ITUC, the partners of the Sustainability Compact should make it clear that the Accord on Fire and Building Safety must continue to operate until such time as a national regulatory body is fully ready to take over its operations, in order to prevent any further deaths and injuries of workers.
