Garment industry
The garment industry employs around two million workers and the support industries like label, button, buying house, have many thousand employees on their payrolls. There have been discord and unrest in the garment industry for quite a long time. The real wages of the workers dwindled as the prices of the essentials increased by 150 to 200 percent. Electricity generation was erratic. The present government failed to contain the essential commodities' market because of its rent seeking nature, lack of grassroots level organisation, lack of understanding of the situations, introduction of inexperienced persons in the leadership, sycophancy and apathy of its situation control mechanism. It also abrogated all the previously signed contracts for power plant installations with known and tested outfits in one stroke in 2001, and failed miserably to negotiate power deals. Only a meagre 80 megawatt was added to the power grid in four and half years. Corruption of the BEPZA and unprofessional attitude of the floor level and mid-level managers of the garment industries contributed to this unrest, impasse and vandalism. One cannot work without food.
Thus the failure of the present government, and carelessness and lack of empathy of the garment owners led to mad, destructive, dangerous situations.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Bengalees are volatile, violence-prone, short tempered. They very quickly succumb to rumour. Industrial unrest is quite infectious. Interestingly, the first Bengali regiment in British Army, 49 Bengal Paltan, was disbanded in Mesopotamia (present Iraq) after the First World War as the soldiers raised unjust demands not commensurate with their status.
The suggestions for the remedy of the malady may be as follows.
1. Increase the salary of the workers to a 'humane' level, so that they can eat 'daal-bhaat'.
2. Meet some of their other demands in phases.
3. Allow them to choose some good leaders with whom the owners can talk and negotiate and who can also control the situations.
Lastly, good luck to Bangladesh and its toiling masses and entrepreneurs.
Let the situation be 'win win' for all the parties.