Garment sector in turmoil

The disputes have to be settled quickly to save the industry and the national economy.

We must condemn violence whatever might be the reason behind it. But we must at the same time be aware of the rights of workers.

They are the driving force behind our economy. Why should they be deprived of what they deserve?

The habit of shifting the responsibility to others' shoulders will not put out the fire. The blame game should be stopped. If any foreign connection worked behind the attacks on the country's apparel sector, it is again we who should be rebuked. Our security agencies are not blind, I believe. They have been able to catch militant gurus and destroy militant networks across the country. They better knew who were behind the attacks.

It has been said that the bona fide workers were not involved in the vandalism. Then comes the question, who these attackers were? Were they recruited from a foreign country? It will not be very difficult to find out if anyone from outside the garment factories was involved in the arson.

Finally, I would request the owners of garments factories to become more realistic and pay heed to the demands of the underprivileged segments of the society, before it is too late.

Fazlur Rahman Hijol Dhaka University

Imagine that you are a garment factory worker who makes living on a day to day basis. You live in a slum raising children who often get sick due to malnutrition and poor hygiene. You leave home, in the dark, before sunrise and come back, in the dark, after sunset. Sick or healthy, you work 15/16 hours a day and are not fairly paid. The prices of essentials have gone through the roof over the last few years, while your wage has stayed where it was four years ago. You and your children are eating less and less every day. You cannot afford a doctor anymore.

You see more and more high rise buildings and pricey cars, shining with all the glories of their owners. The glares of summer sunlight reflecting from those shiny buildings, cars and shiny faces of their owners blind you. You are locked inside the factory from dawn-to-dusk because your employer does not trust you. When fire catches up in any such factories dozens of people like you are burnt alive. You know you may be the next victim. You come home at night to find no electricity or water. Your night is nightmare.

You see launches sink under the water and dozens like you die. You see buildings collapse and dozens like you die. The owners, whose endless greed caused the misery, go unpunished because they have connections. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute you are losing your flesh and blood, while the rich are accumulating fat from what you are losing. You see the politicians are fighting like hungry wolves over your body. They are in endless blame game, while you see no hope, no end to this misery. Today's politicians are beyond your reach, they live in the fantasylands. They can buy your votes for money; they care for money only, not you.

Those who are cooking-up conspiracy theories should look around the world. Today's labourers are more aware of their rights. Latin America has moved more to the left, causing endless headaches for American capitalists. India has ousted its right-wing, who cared only for the city middle class when poverty-ridden farmers were committing suicides. Left has won a landslide victory in states like West Bengal or Kerala. Indian poor have hope for change through electoral process. Where the hope is lost the poor have to fight back. Like China, where the government had to put down thousands of protests over the last few years. With a controlled press, most of them go unnoticed by world media. Don't forget the "French Revolution" yet. Bangladeshi working class has apparently lost hope. They don't see any change in luck through electoral process. They don't see any benefit from regime change or they fear that "election engineering" will rob their verdict.

When income disparity goes through the roof social unrest is inevitable. In case of Bangladesh the worst human development in record has added insult to the injury of disparity. Please refer to "Human development catastrophe since 2001", The Daily Star, November 1, 2005 and the latest UNDP report of human development trend. After a healthy 2.4% annual growth in human development in 1996-2000, we are now having the lowest on record 0.9% growth. When our nearest neighbour was having about 6% GDP growth in the late nineties, Bangladesh was experiencing a similar rate. By now India has experienced double digit growth, while Bangladesh is stuck where it was then. Meanwhile, the prices of essentials have doubled in a few years. For the widening gap in poor versus rich please see "Rich-poor gap widens", The Daily Star, May 15, 2005. The report cites the Poverty Monitoring Survey Report 2004 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The report showed that rich had experienced a dramatic rise in income (more than 13%), while poor households saw about 4% reduction in income. Please also see "Inequality and poverty in Bangladesh", The Daily Star, October 22, 2005.

That is why labourers defy death. They have to fight for their rights; they have to fight to survive. Nobody else is doing it for them. They are not only the garment workers as the conspiracy theorists claim; they are all working class people. They are fighting for electricity in Kansat or Shanir Akhra; for fair salary and overtime in Gazipur, Ashulia, Savar, Dhaka, Rangpur. They are garment workers; they are stone breakers; they are farmers. The first spark was Kansat, now the blaze is everywhere.

Zakaria Khondker Bay Area, California, US

The garment factories are burning and getting vandalized, and any well wisher of Bangladesh cannot but be nervous and quite apprehensive about it. So much is at stake here. While things are getting back to normal it is time for a serious soul searching.

The prevalent notion in Bangladesh is that if you have money and/or political connection then you can not do anything wrong. A system is always there to hide your fault. This no-fault capitalism and the suffocating political corruption created a dangerous situation where no conflict or grievances could be resolved peacefully and systematically. We surrendered our judicial system to the corrupt political machinery and opted for the crossfire of Rab. Every action must have some reaction. And nurturing a bunch of corrupt and hapless police force is not helping anybody, reach or poor, as we can clearly see now.

But things must not be that bleak. There must be a way out. Other countries have done it and doing it everywhere. Let's go back to the basics.

These incidents show that we ignore our social responsibilities only at

our own peril. Do good to ourselves by doing good to others should be our

guideline. The culture of ostentation will breed hatred. The Porsche and BMW have no place in Bangladesh even if you can afford those with legitimately earned money. The recent incidents must bring home the message that the owners, the workers and the government are all in it together on a common journey.

Letting the system fail would not help anybody, not even the rich, powerful and well connected.

M. A. Islam, USA

The incidents in Savar and subsequent developments show the unwanted but real gap between the employers and employees in this most promising sector of the economy. Unfortunately, none were listening in the meeting on this issue rather they were taking sides. Multiple monologues took over effective dialogue. No moderator was seen. In the early phase of industrialisation in many countries including South Korea, Germany, USA, UK such things happened. Nobody wanted to know why so many fire deaths took place in one single industry. South Korean women workers excelled both in hard work and hard bargain- far better than the other countries. We can learn from the industrial histories of the other countries, perform better and set new norms for corporate good governance.

I wonder whether the garment owners will lose or gain if share is given to the workers. In that case the RMG workers will not only get salary but also enjoy part of profit. The workers will just buy a few hundred taka shares of the industry and legally become co-owners. Such co-ownership will bring better transparency. If they are the co-owners of the factory, in such a win-win situation they will be motivated to protect the properties of the industry. Share concept is nothing new, rather a universally practiced norm in the corporate world. If the workers earn more, the owners may not inflate foreign banks with super profit, but families of twenty million RMG workers will invest more in health and education. Their future generation will be better equipped to better adapt and face the challenges of the new century. Bangladesh will be a better place to live in. Exploitation brings suspicion. Suspicion brings destruction. A stitch in time will save nine.

Mohammad Zakaria Dhanmondi, Dhaka