The beginning of the end

Till now you have heard from the "intelligentsia" of our society, who are full of sympathy for the garment workers and have welcomed the MOU with both hands. Let me voice some concerns on behalf of the people within the industry. Hard working people, but not as able to vocalise their concerns. My feelings may not conform to conventional thought, but at least they will provide some food for thought.

Throughout the course of these incidents the popular support seemed to be behind the workers, while the owners have been widely chided for exploiting and abusing them. This is now commonly accepted by people outside our industry. Society feels that the owners are making abnormal profits at the expense of the industry workers.

It may be hard for people to believe but profits in the garment industry are not abnormal. Rather, the percentage of returns is minimal in relation to the outlay and risk of the entrepreneurs. There are many other industries where the percentages of profits are extremely high, such as real estate and telecom. The wealth that you see in this industry is because of the tremendous volume generated, which is possible due to the availability of the one resource that Bangladesh could tap -- the abundant labour force.

It is this industry that earns 80% of the revenue for our country. It is this industry that is enabling whatever growth, business, and advancement we are seeing today. Bangladesh still lags far behind in development in comparison to many of our neighbours and certainly there are many inequalities, inefficiencies and inadequacies in our society -- but whatever development we do enjoy today has been due to the finance injected into our economy from the earnings of this industry. Directly or indirectly, whatever you see when you look around you today is only because of the apparel trade in Bangladesh. Industries like telecoms etc use a fraction of the labour force while taking out much more money from our economy.

It has been a thankless job for the entrepreneurs and pioneers of the apparel industry who have enabled all this, and instead of receiving recognition from the nation they are being berated by our society and government. When most of the wealth has been brought in by this industry, doesn't it stand to reason that a majority of the wealthy will also be from this industry? People are constantly pointing fingers at apparel industry owners for having a large proportion of the luxury assets. But if 80% of revenue is coming through them, why can it not be accepted that most of the assets will also belong to them? It is not a free lunch they are getting, they have worked decades for this and the benefits are being reaped by them -- as well as the rest of the nation. They are the goose that has consistently laid the golden eggs for this nation.

That is my case for the owners, but of course I acknowledge the injustice to the workers. One accepts that a large number of factories are not responsible and have neglected to ensure the welfare of the factory workers (though, on the other hand, I have never heard that a number of factories are also responsible and welfare oriented, otherwise we would not have so many compliant factories producing for major brands). One accepts that the workers, who are the backbone of this industry, need protective laws. Weekly holidays, less working hours, on-time wages, and also higher wages need to be immediately implemented

It is truly shocking that wages have not been increased in over 17 years while the cost of living and prices of essentials have spiralled. In the last few years the increase in prices has been brutal even to the affluent, and fatal for the poor. But at the same time this industry certainly cannot handle a three-fold jump in wages that one is hearing about. This will cause more damage than good. Do you kill the golden egg goose just because it has become too expensive to feed it? Wages needed to be raised gradually over the years; and this should have been done long ago by our government. A gradual increase would have deterred the inefficient factories while fostering the efficient ones. What was needed was not done; now a sudden rise will strangle and choke the one industry that carries our future in its hands.

The other thing that is being established now is the power of unions. The rise of unions has been the downfall of industry in every industrialised nation. One can cite many examples -- our own jute industry, the American airline industry, the American auto industry -- all perished or are perishing due to the politics of unions. Even in India, despite a large technical work force, the apparel industry could not compete with us due to the presence of unions. I differ with anyone who claims that the planting of unions in the factories will serve to improve the plight of workers in this industry. Unions will only serve to fill the pockets of the union leaders, while the condition of the general workers will remain the same. In fact, once unions are entrenched, let me even venture and state that the conditions of the workers will deteriorate as it will eventually lead to widespread closure of factories and loss of jobs. In this country which desperately need these jobs, the establishment of unions in garment factories will prove lethal.

The way to address the current crisis and needs of our workers is not by handing over power to the uneducated and politically motivated union leaders, people who are otherwise unproductive and who most certainly will misuse this power. In my opinion, the way to handle this is for the government to step in and immediately ensure that all workers return to work with assurances that their issues will be addressed on priority. Then, meetings should be held between all the parties. Directives must be issued by the government which would address the issues of rights and higher wages immediately. These would incorporate all the workers' reasonable demands and take into account the current requirements of the workers, specially the issue of wages, without hampering the growth and stability of the apparel industry. Factories would be given a time-frame (say 3 months) in which to implement these laws and then regulatory groups (comprising of the 3 parties) would need to be formed to implement and enforce these changes in the factories. Any factories unable to comply could be shut down. It know it is easy to speak about all this in a single paragraph, but not as easy to implement, I strongly feel that a proper government initiative would have been much more progressive than the way it was currently handled -- by practically throwing the owners to the workers' mercy.

Once again our government failed to step in and anarchy ruled. This crisis in the garment industry will soon turn out to be one of the most critical issues in decades for Bangladesh's growth and financial health and stability. Yet we did not see the Prime Minister attend to this even once. What should have been a high priority task for her was delegated to some junior ministers and the entire burden of responsibility was left for the owners to shoulder.

Does she not realize that this is the sector bringing in 80% of the country's revenue? Clearly, the coming elections played a great part and the thought of a few thousand owner votes versus millions of worker votes induced the government to side with the workers. Well, we are used to that in Bangladesh by now. It makes no difference to the politicians whether Bangladesh is a producing nation or a begging one; they will get their slice of the pie, no matter what.

We have seen the workers living standards being compared to the standards of the owners, but has anyone compared the garment workers to those of the rest of the industries in this country. The workers in this industry are the highest paid at their skill and education level in comparison to any other industry. They still get more salary on time and higher benefits and bonuses than any other industry in our nation. The industry has provided phenomenal opportunity to the people, enabling many workers to increase their earnings from mere thousands to lakhs. It has enabled legions of our educated youths to earn thousands of takas and dollars thereby creating a budding middle class. If has supported arts, crafts, and also many other supporting industries. Will all this be possible in our country once the garment industry disappears?

I say "once the garment industry disappears" because I would like to put my money where my mouth is and make some predictions. I predict that, due to the inept handling of the situation by our government and the way the owners were muscled into accepting all demands as is, over 20% of the units in this industry will close down within the next two years. Eventually the uncertainty will also drive away these same buyers who are clamouring for "worker rights." They have allegiance only to profit and performance -- not to the Bangladeshi people.

And hence I predict, the garment business will be halved in the next 5 to 7 years. The massive job losses will eventually ratchet up our poverty levels which could well lead to more unrest, and possibly even culminate in civil war.

I pray to God that I am proved wrong and that one day I will have to eat my own words; nothing would make me happier. But somehow I feel that I am not wrong. I feel that once again the people of Bangladesh have managed to subvert their own future by allowing themselves to be misled by criminal leaders.

What was leading to more golden opportunities ahead may now end up in an ash-heap of failure and a day will come when these same people destroying the industry even as I write today, will regret what happened these last few weeks. If that day comes, my thoughts will lead me back to June 12, 2006, the day the tri-partite "MOU" was signed, which I felt that day to be the beginning of the end.

Wasim Rahman is a textiles entrepreneur.