A skilfully maintained anti-union environment

(July 2004)

Article published in Trade Union World n°5, also available at http://www.icftu.org/www/pdf/Dossier5-04bangladeshE.pdf

Scarcely 3% of Bangladeshi workers are members of unions. The serious repression of union activities and political involvement of too many trade unions mean that almost all Bangladeshi workers are left with no protection.

Bangladesh’s trade unions have a very bad image amongst the country’s employers, who view them all as being manipulated by political parties and serving their own interests rather than those of the workers. So they are very unwelcome in factories. It is true that a number of Bangladeshi unions are indeed much closer to the political elite than to the workers and are prepared to manipulate their members to please one party or other. But it is quite wrong to lump all the unions together. Some outstanding Bangladeshi union leaders are dedicating their lives to defending workers, but also suffer from the image conferred on the union movement by others, which the employers are happy to propagate.

                                   Bosses “under threat”?

As in many countries, it is in the export processing zones (EPZs) that the employers are particularly allergic to any talk of trade unions, despite the fact that working conditions and wages in the EPZs are better than elsewhere. The bosses claim they want to respect workers’ rights and discuss with them in "committees for workers’ wellbeing" that have no links to external trade unions. Their virulent anti-union rhetoric sometimes borders on the ridiculous. “We face a real threat since our investments, which are worth a billion dollars, would be cancelled out and 130,000 workers could lose their jobs if unions were allowed in the EPZs”, said Kihak Sung, the director of Youngone, one of the largest enterprises in the Bangladeshi EPZs, last December. Such exaggerated statements are part of the propaganda used by employers to try to dissuade the government from allowing unions in the EPZs. The government simultaneously faces pressure from the international trade union movement, including the ITGLWF, which has filed an official complaint with the ILO (1), and the United States, which is threatening to remove Bangladesh’s trade benefits under the Generalised System of Preferences if the anti-union restrictions in EPZs are not lifted.

Workers employed outside the zones are no better off. Of the more than 3,000 textile firms that produce for the export market barely 127 have an officially registered union and less than a dozen employers have serious negotiations with unions. Workers are frequently victims of sackings, beatings or false accusations by the police of militancy within their unions. Nurul Islam, who is 45 and has four children, is the General Secretary of the textile union UFGW (United Federation of Garment Workers, an ITLGWF affiliate) and the coordinator of the health centre set  up by three unions in the zone of Keranigonj. He has already been arrested a dozen times, the last being on 1 March this year. “I was in my union’s office, located in the same building as a local branch of a political party. The police arrived in large numbers and arrested everyone in the building. They threw us into prison and I was wrongly accused of holding explosives. I spent 11 days in a 4-person cell cramped together with 15 other people. The sanitary conditions were horrible”.

                                   Murders and harassment

Workers who try to set up a union are not protected before its registration and so are often subjected to harassment from their employers, which sometimes assumes a violent form with police support. The names of workers asking to register a union are often passed on to employers, who quickly try to transfer or sack them, above all in the textile sector. Even once a union has been registered, those workers suspected of activism are subjected to frequent harassment. “We managed to set up 18 unions in textile firms in Mirpur, a zone in the Dhaka area”, explains G.M. Rabbani, Vice-President of the BMSF (2), affiliated to the ICFTU. “In each case, the employee who had been most active in creating the union was sacked. Legal procedures are in place for reinstating them, but there is always a waste of time and energy. Employers continually use a range of annoying measures to discourage us, such as suspension of our wages for a month or two. They know they will lose in the courts but all these measures are aimed at discouraging activists”. 

It is not rare for anti-unionism to lead to murders. On 7 May 2004, Ashanullah Master, President of the Jatio Sramik League (JSL, an ICFTU affiliate), was shot during a demonstration. In early 2003, it was Aminul Islam Chowdhury, President of the Bhalo district committee of the JSL, who died whilst held for questioning in a military barracks. Bad management of protest movements can also lead to dramatic events, as with the case of the company Pantex Garments Ltd: on 3 November, during a demonstration by workers about working conditions, the police was given an order to arrest the workers’ representative. That sparked off discontent which spread beyond the factory to various other industrial zones. In addition to the police officers, five brigades of paramilitaries were called onto the scene to control the demonstrators. The result was one death and 200 injuries amongst the workers.

Respect for workers’ rights could be a definite advantage once the clothing industry is liberalised from January 2005. Unfortunately, though, Bangladesh’s employers and government have not yet got the message. 

                                                                                                     Samuel Grumiau

(1)   More information available on the website of the ITGLWF (International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation) : www.itglwf.org

(2)   Bangladesh Mukto Sramik Federation