The garment industry is a rising one in the country. About 3.5 million workers are engaged in this sector. Most of them are women. The importance of this sector in the national economy is immense. Since this sector is conducted by Global Supply Chain, any incident in this sector becomes a much-talked-about topic nationally and internationally.Conscious people firmly believe that if effective and meaningful steps are taken, the production and marketing in this sector will be double and 3.0 million more workers can be engaged in this sector. The sector has got 25 per cent more orders in the last three months within the existing market.
Besides, there has arisen a possibility of exporting ready-made garments to Japan, India, China, South Africa, Brazil and some other countries of the world.
Different organisations working for the protection of human rights and labour rights of the world always intensively observe this sector due to the volume of our exported goods and the ability of remaining in the competition in the world. It is not possible to conceal anything in this world of the free flow of information. So any incident in the export-oriented garment industry becomes the lead news of the national and international media. It is the demand of time to maintain and enhance the image of the industry in the global market. The announcement of the minimum wages for the RMG employees within the shortest possible time and the rescue operations taken up by the government after the fire incident in Ha-Meem Group are undoubtedly praiseworthy.
There has been a gap between the expectations and gains of the workers since the inception of the industry in the world. Dialogue and compromise are the way of maintaining stability and a healthy industrial relation is the only way to remove the gap.
We firmly believe in a constructive, responsible, creative, uncompromising workers’ movement not in violence and anarchy. We are uncompromising in the question of realising the demands of the workers. We are committed to play the role of a sleepless guard to protect the national industries. The globally recognized systematic and legal way of creating the environment of the dialogue and compromise is to ensure right to organize and right to bargain collectively ie to implement effectively and meaningfully the articles 87 and 98 of ILO convention and the existing labour laws of the country.
Some recent incidents have damaged the image of this sector nationally and internationally. The killing of 21 workers in the fire incident in Garib & Garib factory, killing of 4 workers by shooting during the worker unrest in Chittagong EPZ and killing of 28 workers in the fire incident in Ha-Meem Group garment factory in Ashulia of Savar were undesirable, painful and heart-rending. Some organizations around the world expressed mixed reaction over these incidents.
On behalf of the garment workers’ federation, we would like to clearly give a strong message to the government and owners that we want safe workplace not any death trap. We demand judicial inquiry of the fire incident in Ha-Meem Group. We strongly demand to publish the list of how many workers died and were injured. There is no workers’ representative in the inquiry committee formed by the government. So there is a scope for the inquiry not being unbiased and neutral. We also demand revelation of the report of the inquiry of Garib & Garib incident.
According to the information received from various sources, the factory of Ha-Meem Group is of international standard from architectural point of view and the fire-extinguishing equipment and infrastructure is modern. What the fire fighters did during the incident is also a matter of concern. The matter of the main gate being locked during the incident needs to be investigated.
The demands are:1. The right of forming trade union by workers in accordance with the existing labour laws and in line with ILO convention has to be ensured.
2. Constructing factories according to the Building Code and Factory Act must be made mandatory.
3. All tin-shed roofs of the factories must be removed.
4. The stairs of the factories must be widened and heaping goods on the stairs must be banned.
5. Tk 0.5 million (5.0 lakh) is to be paid to a dead worker’s family and proper treatment should be arranged for the injured workers. Full salaries of the injured workers must be paid until they join after recovery.
6. Effective fire-extinguishing measures need to be arranged in every factory and the gates of the factories must be kept open during the working hours.
7. The newly-announced wage structure must be implemented and corrected in case of any inconsistency.
Urges to the buyers:
The federation urges the buyers, brands and retailers that they would provide financial assistance to the dead and injured workers in accordance with the rules of Loss of Earnings showing due respect to CSR. In this case, the example of Voluntary Relief Fund of Spectrum Sweater Factory can be followed.
Urges to the international trade union and human rights organizations:
Paying respect to the concerns of international trade unions, human rights organizations and labour rights organizations we would like to say that they should press the buyers and retailers to raise the purchase price so that the owners of the industries of our county can get the increased price and be able to give the workers due wages. Our earnest request to them is to conduct campaign for the duty-free access of our goods to the USA. Thus it will be possible to conduct the activities jointly. If the campaign is conducted unilaterally and based on biased information, the development of the industry will be hampered and the working class, especially female workers, will be greatly affected which is not desirable and expected from a conscious human rights activist.
Source: thefinancialexpress-bd.com
