Rana Plaza: Two Years after the tragedy
by Kanya D Aimeida and Haimul Haq
Some say they were beaten with iron bars. Others confess their
families have been threatened with death. One pregnant woman was
assaulted with metal curtain rods.
These are not scenes typically associated with a place of work, but
thousands of people employed in garment factories in Bangladesh have
come to expect such brutality as a part of their daily lives.
“I have faced many cases, and been arrested and jailed seven times.
The only charge they bring against me is raising my voice in favour of
the workers,”Mushrefa Mishu, President, Garment Workers’ Unity Forum,
said.
Even if they don’t suffer physical assault, workers at the roughly
4,500 factories that form the nucleus of Bangladesh’s enormous garments
industry almost certainly confront other injustices: unpaid overtime,
sexual or verbal abuse, and unsafe and unsanitary working conditions.
Two years ago, when all the world’s eyes were trained on this South
Asian nation of 156 million people, workers had hoped that the end of
systematic labour abuse was nigh.
The event that prompted the international outcry – the collapse of
the Rana Plaza factory on the morning of Apr. 24, 2013, killing 1,100
people and injuring 2,500 more – was deemed one of the worst industrial
accidents in modern history.Government officials, powerful trade bodies
and major foreign buyers of Bangladesh-made apparel promised to fix the
gaping flaws in this sector that employs four million people and exports
US$ 24 billion worth of merchandise every year.Promises were made at
every point along the supply chain that such a senseless tragedy would
never again occur.But a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released on the
eve of the two-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster has found
that, despite pledges made and some steps in the right direction,
Bangladesh’s garments sector is still plagued with many ills that is
making life for the 20 million people who depend directly or indirectly
on the industry a waking nightmare.
Based on interviews with some 160 workers in 44 factories,
predominantly dedicated to manufacturing garments sold by retailers in
Australia, Europe and North America, the report found that safety
standards are still low, workplace abuse is common, and union busting –
as well as violence attacks and intimidation of union organizers – is
the norm.
Last December the Bangladesh government raised the minimum wage for
factory workers from US$ 39 a month to US$ 68. While this signified a
sizable increase, it was still less than the US$ 100 wage workers
themselves had demanded.
Violation of labour laws
Furthermore, implementation has been slow. According to Mushrefa
Mishu, president of the Garment Workers’ Unity Forum representing 80,000
workers, only 40 percent of employers comply with the minimum wage law.
She told IPS that women, who comprise the bulk of factory workers,
form the “lifeblood” of this vital industry that accounts for 80 percent
of the country’s export earnings and contributes 10 percent of annual
gross domestic product (GDP); yet they have fallen victim to
“exploitative wages” as a result of retailers demanding competitive
prices.
Indeed, many factories owners concur that pressure from companies who
place bulk orders to scale up production lines and improve profit
margins contributes to the culture of cutting corners, since branded
retailers seldom factor compliance of safety and labour regulations into
their costing.
“These financial costs are heavy for the factory owners,” Meenakshi
Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “They
argue that a small compromise on the profit margin can go a long way in
helping Bangladesh factories achieve compliance.”
Blame
Wherever the blame for non-compliance lies, the negative consequences
for workers – especially the women – are undeniable: an April 2014
survey by Democracy International found that 37 percent of workers
reported lack of paid sick leave, while 29 percent lacked paid maternity
leave.
Workers who are unable to meet production targets have their salaries
docked, while HRW’s research indicates that “workers in almost all of
the factories” complained of not receiving wages or benefits in full, or
on time.
Forced overtime is exceedingly common, as are poor sanitation
facilities and unclean drinking water.But union busting and other
anti-union activity are rampant across the garments sector, with many
organisers beaten into submission and scores of others terrorized into
keeping their heads down.
Although Bangladesh has ratified International Labour Organization (ILO)
conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective
bargaining, those who try to exercise these rights face harsh reprisals.
“I have faced many cases, and been arrested and jailed seven times
but later released because they found no evidence against me,” Mishu, of
the Garment Workers’ Unity Forum, told IPS. “The only charge they bring
against me is raising my voice in favour of the workers. Whenever we
raise our voices against the garments factory owners, instead of
negotiating with us, they apply force to silence us.”
Mishu’s testimony finds echoes in numerous incidents recorded in
HRW’s report, including an attack in February last year on four
activists with the Bangladesh Federation for Workers Solidarity (BFWS)
that left one of their number so badly injured he had to spend 100 days
in hospital.
Their only crime was helping employees at the Korean-owned Chunji
Knit Ltd. Factory fill out union registrations forms.Other incidents
include a woman being hospitalized after an attack by men wielding
cutting shears, activists threatened with death or the death of their
families, and one organizer being accosted on his way home and slashed
so badly with blades he had to be admitted to hospital.
Intimidate
“We find that factory owners use local thugs to intimidate and attack
union organizers, often outside the factory premises,” HRW’s Ganguly
explained. “And then they blithely disclaim responsibility by saying
that the attacks had nothing to do with the factory.”In one of the worst
examples of anti-union activity, HRW reported that an activist named
Aminul Islam was “abducted, tortured and killed in April 2012, and to
date his killers have not been found.”
Factory safety
Ganguly told IPS that because the Bangladesh garment industry grew
very rapidly, “a lot of factories were set up bypassing safety and other
compliance issues.Unchecked expansion in the 80s and 90s meant that many
of these buildings were disasters waiting to happen. While incidents
like the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse and the 2012 Tazreen factory fire,
which killed 112 people, have largely taken the spotlight, a string of
similar calamities both before and after suggest that Bangladesh has a
long way to go to ensure worker safety.
Figures quoted by the Clean Clothes Campaign point out that between
2006 and 2010, 500 workers died in factory fires, 80 percent of which
were caused by faulty wiring. Since 2012, 68 factory fires have claimed
30 lives and left 800 workers injured, according to the Solidarity
Center.
Atiqul Islam, president of the industry’s leading trade body, the
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) said,
factory owners are taking far more precautions now to ensure that
preventable or ‘man-made’ disasters remain a thing of the past.Before
the Rana Plaze incident, he said, there were only 56 inspectors
overseeing thousands of factories. Now, there are over 800 inspectors,
trained by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to keep a check
on the many operations around the country.
Indeed, regulations like the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, an
initiative carried out on behalf of 175 retailers based primarily in
Europe, which is overseeing improvements in over 1,600 factors, as well
as the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety that is looking into
improvements in 587 factories at the behest of 26 North American
retailers, indicate progress.
But as Ganguly said, “Much more needs to be done to ensure worker
rights.” For a start, experts say that proper compensation must be paid
to survivors, or families of those who lost their lives due to
negligence in the Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashions disasters.
As of March of this year, only 21 million dollars of the estimated 31
million dollars’ compensation has so far been pledged or disbursed. HRW
also found that “15 companies whose clothing and brand labels were found
in the rubble of Rana Plaza by journalists and labour activists have not
paid anything into the trust fund established with the support of the
ILO to manage the payments.”
(IPS) |