anti-caste

RANA PLAZA AFTERMATH: NO RESTITUTION FOR FAMILIES OF WORKERS KILLED AND NO SIGN OF IMPROVEMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL SAFETY

No Justice for the Dead in Bangladesh (The Nation)

“Five months on, sweeping promises about improving factory safety and cracking down on illegal subcontracting remain hamstrung by scant resources and a near-total lack of coordination among parties. Victims’ compensation ranges from inconsistent to nonexistent. According to the Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies, none of the 4,000 families affected by the tragedy have received the full payments promised by the government or the [Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Exporters Association (BGMEA), the powerful trade body that represents the $20 billion-a-year industry]. [...]

“BGMEA vice president Reaz Bin Mahmood concedes that in a country as cash-strapped and chaotic as Bangladesh, inspections are ‘a very scratch process.’ The BGMEA has just ten inspectors. The fire department has eighty but says it needs ten times that. Teams staffed by engineering teachers struggle with inadequate equipment and the labor ministry is trying to hire and train 200 more inspectors in the coming months. In the meantime, there remains no central coordinating body to keep track of what the various agencies are up to. Manufacturers complain that certain factories have been inspected multiple times while others are ignored. [...]

“Some owners say that even third-party auditors dispatched by the major brands take bribes. And even if they’re legitimate, they never look further than the big factories. One owner, whose office boasts certificates for excellent safety standards from H&M;, the second-largest garment company in Bangladesh, admits that, under intense pressure to deliver orders in less time, he still has to outsource some stages of production. ‘There are so many uncertainties—strikes, shipment delays, holidays, corrupt officers at the port—that subcontracting will always’ be a part of garment making in Bangladesh. ‘The brands know it,’ he adds, but ‘they pretend they don’t.’”

See also:

After Bangladesh Factory Collapse, Bleak Struggle for Survivors (New York Times, December 18, 2013):

“[W]hile the Rana Plaza disaster stirred an international outcry — and shamed many international clothing companies into pledging to help finance safety improvements in other Bangladeshi factories — the people most directly affected are still living without any guarantees of help or financial compensation.

“Families who lost the wages of a son or daughter, husband or wife, are struggling.

“Those who lost limbs, like Ms. Khatun, are uncertain if they will ever walk or hold things again. And many volunteer rescuers like Mr. Forkan and survivors are struggling to deal with debilitating emotional scars.”

And see: on anti-caste:

RANA PLAZA: HUNDREDS OF WORKERS KILLED IN BANGLADESH FACTORY COLLAPSE (April 25, 2013)

and

ICL ARTICLE ON INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER FROM THE TEXAS FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION TO THE BANGLADESH FACTORY COLLAPSE (May 3, 2013)

ICL ARTICLE ON POLITICAL CRISIS IN BANGLADESH

Islamist upsurge threatens women, workers and minorities:
Bangladesh in turmoil
For a socialist federation of South Asia!

(Workers Hammer No. 223)

“With the country engulfed in a crisis over the war crimes trials, the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry shocked the country and the world. The Rana Plaza factory building collapse in April annihilated more than 1100 mainly women garment workers. This act of industrial murder showed the real workings of the capitalist market in one of the poorest countries in the world. Some 5000 factories in Bangladesh produce garments for major North American and European brands. The workers toiling in near-slavery in these deathtraps are paid the lowest wages in the world for that industry — as low as $37 (£24) a month, far below subsistence, often working 15-hour shifts.

“At the same time, the garment industry is a cornerstone of the country’s economy and the millions of workers in these factories have potential social power. To prevent such power from being unleashed, the local garment bosses, aided by the Awami League government, brutally suppress trade unions, to the point of targeting union activists with murderous violence (see Workers Vanguard no 1023, 3 May). Nevertheless, a number of strikes have swept the industry in recent years. And when news of the Rana Plaza disaster spread, hundreds of thousands of these workers walked out of work and marched on the headquarters of the garment manufacturers’ association demanding ‘we want execution of the garment factory owners!’

“The women who work in these factories are drawn from the villages, where illiteracy rates are high and the influence of religion and anti-woman prejudices are pervasive. For these women, a job in the garment industry opens up the possibility of escaping from the backwardness of village life. The ability of women to find employment in the cities breaks the taboo on mixing with men outside the home and enables women to become financially independent of their families. This fuels a backlash by the Islamists because it undermines the material basis for the traditional village and family hierarchy, within which women are blatantly traded as property. Dowry was prohibited by Bangladeshi law in 1980 but the legislation had little effect and the practice remains widespread. All aspects of personal and family law — regarding marriage, separation and divorce — are religion-based. Muslims are subjected to Islamic law, Christians to laws agreed by Christian churches and Hindus to Hindu codes. Numerous reports have documented an extremely high level of violence against women in Bangladesh. ‘Sulfuric acid — able to burn through skin, muscle and bone — is thrown on women for various reasons including “refusal of marriage offers, rejection of male advances, dowry disputes, domestic fights, property disputes, and even a delayed meal”’ (quoted in ‘Bangladesh: Violence against women’, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2004). In 2002 the government introduced special laws to stop acid attacks; in 2011 the state restricted the sale of certain kinds of acids in an effort to reduce the number of these gruesome attacks.

“Women have most to gain from the overthrow of capitalism in Bangladesh and, as indeed in all of South Asia, they will be a motor force for socialist revolution. The fight for the most basic needs of women — for literacy, education, contraception, an end to forced marriage and a way out of grinding poverty and oppression — requires a struggle to root out the very foundations of capitalist society. In 1994, when Jamaat launched a murderous anti-woman campaign against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, we wrote that ‘Nasrin’s case raises questions far beyond the important democratic issues of women’s rights, freedom of speech and the separation of religion and the state’, questions ‘that only a revolutionary socialist program can answer’.”

Read the full article

COMBINED AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN CAPITALIST INDIA

A Small Town Near Gurgaon Wrestles With Change by Asgar Qadri (New York Times)

“Twenty years ago, Dharuhera was a quiet village of famers, who mostly worked on the lands of the local feudal lords, the Rao clan. The Raos owned most of the land and controlled the lives of people.

“‘We fought the Raos like our fathers had fought against the British,’ Suresh Chand, a farmer in his 70s, told me. In his youth, Mr. Chand worked as a laborer on the Rao lands. ‘It was pure bondage,’ Mr. Chand said. ‘There was no morning or evening for us. We worked on their lands all the time and got almost nothing in return.’

“The Raos had collaborated with the British and were given thousands of acres of land by the colonial authorities. The fortune is now divided among the various Rao scions. They continue to be the most powerful and the richest family in Dharuhera. The Raos too have made a transition like the town they ruled: they have reinvented themselves as real estate moguls. Daruhera is dominated by buildings carrying the Rao name: Rao Inderpal Shopping Complex, Rao Matadin Shopping Complex, and Dilip Rao Market. Each complex houses 100 to 150 shops. [...]

“The feudal world of Dharuhera began to crumble in the early 1980s after the Haryana government acquired a large swath of agricultural land and designated it as an industrial estate. Companies with large operations, like a paper producer, Sehgal Paper Mills, and a synthetics group, East India Synthetics, came and began employing thousands of locals as workers in their factories. A few years later, in 1985, Hero Honda, India’s largest scooter and motorcycle manufacturer, set up its manufacturing plant in Dharuhera. Thousands of jobs were created. Indian Oil, the state-owned petroleum company, set up a plant.

“A job in a factory brought freedom from centuries of feudal servitude and bonded labor. The great transformation of the feudal town also tore through the hierarchies of the oppressive caste system. Tej Kumar, a Dalit now in his 50s, was one of the workers to get a job at the Hero Honda factory in 1990.

“‘We were forced to wear a piece of shroud,’ Mr. Kumar recalled. ‘Our huts were made to face south to ward off the dirty winds.’

“He earned 2,000 rupees ($33) per month in his factory job — a princely sum for him at the time. A few years later, he was promoted as an electrician. After two decades at the factory, Mr. Kumar, who now makes 22,000 rupees ($367) a month, bought a modern double story house in one of the newly built housing complexes in Dharuhera. Mr. Kumar’s was the first Dalit family to move into the new residential complex. ‘I am hoping to buy a car now,’ he said.

“Over the last decade, however, the enthusiasm that the workers of Dharuhera had about factory jobs has been tempered. Hero Honda, like other manufacturers, has reduced permanent workers and turned to employ more contract workers, who are paid much less. [...]

“Although the Kumars have been able to move out of the confines of the feudal bondage and the persistent caste system, the old heart of Dharuhera continues to be divided into the upper caste Yadav quarter with spacious houses, clean, wide streets, and the derelict lower-caste Dalit quarter.

“‘They still refer to us as Harijans,’ said Makhan Lal, a shopkeeper in the Dalit neighborhood. ‘At least now we live in houses instead of thatched huts.’”

ICL ARTICLE ON INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER FROM THE TEXAS FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION TO THE BANGLADESH FACTORY COLLAPSE

Capitalist Profit Drive Kills:
Texas, Bangladesh Disasters

“Barely a week after the Texas explosion, the Rana Plaza building in Savar, Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on the planet, collapsed on more than 3,000 garment workers toiling in five sweatshops. Mostly young women, they had resisted going to work after walls in the building began to show cracks the previous day. ‘Management forced us to go up and said there was no problem with the building,’ recounted one survivor. ‘Just after that, I sat at my table to work, and the building just collapsed’ (Democracy Now!, 25 April). Despite heroic efforts by firefighters and other rescue personnel to find survivors, nearly 400 dead bodies have been dug from the rubble in what is the worst disaster in the history of clothing manufacture. More than 1,200 other people were injured.

“Mass protests erupted as news of the disaster spread, with hundreds of thousands of outraged workers walking out of plants in and around the capital city, Dhaka. Highways were blockaded and two factories whose bosses refused to shut down production were set ablaze. Protesters marched on the headquarters of the garment manufacturers association, chanting: ‘We want execution of the garment factory owners!’ When police firing rubber bullets and tear gas could not quell the crowds, the industry announced on April 26 that all factories would be shut for the upcoming weekend. The Rana Plaza building owner was subsequently arrested trying to flee across the border into India.

“The giant retailers who subcontract production to the Savar sweatshops—e.g., J.C. Penney, the French retailer Carrefour and the British Primark—expressed “shock” about the collapse and denied any complicity. But the depraved indifference exhibited by the capitalist magnates to the lives of those they exploit plumbs new depths when it comes to the semicolonial world, where the U.S. and other imperialist powers have imposed the most wretched conditions. The 5,000 factories in Bangladesh that produce garments for major U.S. and European brands are a cornerstone of the country’s economy. The millions of workers toiling in near-slavery in these deathtraps are paid the lowest wages in the world for that industry—as low as $37 a month, far below subsistence, even after working 15-hour shifts.

“The long trail of capitalist industrial murder in Bangladesh includes an earlier building collapse in Savar that left 73 workers dead and a fire at Tazreen Fashions in nearby Ashulia last November that took more than 100 lives. At Tazreen, a source for Wal-Mart and Sears, managers blocked the stairs to keep workers at their sewing machines even as flames spread on floors below. The truth of the matter is that the multinational corporations are calling the shots and are well aware of what it takes to produce clothing at the prices they contract for, aiming to squeeze out the maximum profit. If orders go unfilled, they pick up stakes and move elsewhere. The local bosses are simply the whip hands, lining their own pockets in the process. (For more on conditions in Bangladesh, see ‘Women Garment Workers Fight Starvation Wages,’ WV No. 974, 18 February 2011.)

“To facilitate their many crimes, the garment bosses, aided by the government in Dhaka, brutally suppress unions, the only effective safeguard workers have against the rapaciousness of the capitalist profiteers. Trade unionists are banned from organizing in the factories and are frequent targets of arrest, torture and killing. A key organizer of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, Aminul Islam, was murdered a year ago. As a result, labor unions are almost nonexistent in the garment plants; none of the Rana Plaza factories was unionized. Nevertheless, a number of strikes have swept the industry in recent years.

“The industrial murder at Rana Plaza, and Tazreen Fashions before it, is a searing indictment of the daily workings of capitalist-imperialism. The situation cries out for union organizing drives—backed in action by the labor movement internationally—demanding decent wages and working conditions. These sweatshops are the first links in a ‘just-in-time’ global cargo chain extending all the way to the retail stores in the imperialist countries, with key choke points at the ports and in the warehouses. Coordinated solidarity action could go a long way toward advancing the cause of labor in the semicolonial world and imperialist centers alike.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

See also on anti-caste:

BANGLADESH FACTORY COLLAPSE: HUNDREDS OF WORKERS KILLED (April 25, 2013)

INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER: 112 BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS KILLED (December 17, 2012)

RANA PLAZA: HUNDREDS OF WORKERS KILLED IN BANGLADESH FACTORY COLLAPSE

Outrage Builds After Collapse in Bangladesh (New York Times)

“As rescuers struggled on Thursday to reach survivors in one of the worst manufacturing disasters in history, pointed questions were being raised about why a Bangladesh factory building was not padlocked after terrified workers notified the police, government officials and a powerful garment industry group about cracks in the walls. [...]

“‘Even in a situation of grave threat, when they saw cracks in the walls, factory managers thought it was too risky not to work because of the pressure on them from U.S. and European retailers to deliver their goods on time,’ said Dara O’Rourke, an expert on workplace monitoring at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that the prices Western companies pay ‘are so low that they are at the root of why these factories are cutting corners on fire safety and building safety.’ [...]

“What is increasingly clear is that the collapse should not have been a surprise. Factory fires have killed hundreds of garment workers in the past decade. At the same time, many factory buildings are substandard and unsafe. Bangladeshi fire officials say the upper floors of Rana Plaza were illegally constructed. [...]

“Bangladesh is the world’s second-leading exporter of apparel, and the domestic garment industry depends on a low wage formula in which the minimum wage is about $37 a month. Garment exports are a critical driver of the Bangladeshi economy, which creates pressure to keep wages low and workers in line. Labor unions are almost nonexistent in the industry; one labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was brutally killed last year in a case that is still unsolved.”

See also:

Death Toll in Bangladesh Passes 1,100 (AP, May 11, 2013)

And see on anti-caste:

INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER: 112 BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS KILLED (December 17, 2012)

WHO WILL DEFEND LABOR RIGHTS UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF CAPITAL? BANGLADESHI WORKERS NEED A STATE OF THEIR OWN (August 23, 2012)

CLASS STRUGGLE IN BANGLADESH: WORKERS SAY WAGE HIKE WON IN 2006 IS NOT ENOUGH! (August 2, 2010)

INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER: 112 BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS KILLED

Bangladesh Finds Gross Negligence in Factory Fire
(New York Times)

“Bangladesh has more than 4,500 garment factories, which employ more than four million workers, many of them young women. The industry is crucial to the national economy as a source of employment and foreign currency. Garments constitute about four-fifths of the country’s manufacturing exports, and the industry is expected to grow rapidly.

“But Bangladesh’s manufacturing formula depends on keeping wages low and restricting the rights of workers. The minimum wage in the garment industry is $37 a month, unions are almost nonexistent, and garment workers have taken to the streets in recent years in sometimes violent protests over wages and work conditions.

“Workers at Tazreen Fashions had staged small demonstrations in the months before the fire, demanding wages they were owed. On the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were inside the eight-story building, working overtime shifts to fill orders for various international brands. Fire officials say the fire broke out in the open-air ground floor, where large mounds of fabric and yarn were illegally stored; Bangladeshi law requires that such flammable materials be stored in a room with fireproof walls.

“The blaze quickly spread across the length of the ground floor — roughly the size of a football field — as fire and toxic smoke filtered up through the building’s three staircases. The factory lacked a sprinkler system or an outdoor fire escape; employees were supposed to use interior staircases, and many escaped that way.

“But on some floors, managers ordered workers to ignore a fire alarm and stay to work. Precious minutes were lost. Then, as smoke and fire spread throughout the building, many workers were trapped, unable to descend the smoke-filled staircases and blocked from escape by iron grilles on many windows. Desperate workers managed to break open some windows and leap to the roof of a nearby building and safety. Others simply jumped from upper floors to the ground.”

See also:

Documents Indicate Walmart Blocked Safety Push in Bangladesh
(New York Times, December 5, 2012):

“[T]wo officials who attended a meeting held in Bangladesh in 2011 to discuss factory safety in the garment industry said on Wednesday that the Walmart official there played the lead role in blocking an effort to have global retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve their electrical and fire safety. [...]

“The meeting was held in April 2011 in Dhaka, the country’s capital, and brought together global retailers, Bangladeshi factory owners, government officials and nongovernment organizations after several apparel factory fires in Bangladesh had killed dozens of workers the previous winter.

“According to the minutes of the meeting, which were made available to The Times, Sridevi Kalavakolanu, a Walmart director of ethical sourcing, along with an official from another major apparel retailer, noted that the proposed improvements in electrical and fire safety would involve as many as 4,500 factories and would be ‘in most cases’ a ‘very extensive and costly modification.’

“‘It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments,’ the minutes said.”

WHO WILL DEFEND LABOR RIGHTS UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF CAPITAL? BANGLADESHI WORKERS NEED A STATE OF THEIR OWN

MADE IN BANGLADESH: Export Powerhouse Feels Pangs of Labor Strife (New York Times)

“Bangladesh’s manufacturing formula depends on its having the lowest labor costs in the world, with the minimum wage for garment workers set at roughly $37 a month. During the past two years, as workers have seen their meager earnings eroded by double-digit inflation, protests and violent clashes with the police have become increasingly common.

“In response, Bangladeshi leaders have deployed the security tools of the state to keep factories humming. A high-level government committee monitors the garment sector and includes ranking officers from the military, the police and intelligence agencies. A new special police force patrols many industrial areas. Domestic intelligence agencies keep an eye on some labor organizers. One organizer who had been closely watched, Aminul Islam, was found tortured and killed in April in a case that is unsolved. [...]

“Bangladesh’s Home Ministry, in a written response to questions, said the government does not favor factory owners over workers but acts as a ‘referee/umpire’ while maintaining an ‘investment friendly’ environment for foreign and domestic investors.

Yet Ms. Hasina’s government has resisted expanding labor rights in a country where the owners of about 5,000 garment factories wield enormous influence. Factory owners are major political donors and have moved into news media, buying newspapers and television stations. In Parliament, roughly two-thirds of the members belong to the country’s three biggest business associations. At least 30 factory owners or their family members hold seats in Parliament, about 10 percent of the total. [...]

“At the Rosita factory, workers elected a 15-member association last December[...]. In January, a female employee complained that a Bangladeshi middle manager was pressuring her to have sex with one of the Chinese bosses. Enraged, workers demanded that the management address her complaint as well as the discrepancies over annual raises and earned leave. Six weeks of confrontation and chaos followed. In February, equipment in the Rosita factory was damaged during a rampage. Nearly 300 workers were accused of vandalism and fired, with their names posted on a blacklist at the gate of the Ishwardi zone. [...]

“[O]n March 20, workers discovered that managers had cut the piece rate, a type of production bonus, meaning a loss of wages. Another standoff ensued as managers closed the factories. But when workers returned March 25, the wage cut had not been fully restored.

“Hundreds of workers gathered outside the front door of the factory in an impromptu sit-down strike. Eight workers, interviewed in June, said all the managers had left the factories. A small contingent of police officers soon arrived and ordered everyone back to work. A seamstress said a police officer knocked her to the ground, beating her unconscious with a stick and shredding her clothes. ‘I kept asking them to stop,’ said the seamstress, who asked not to be identified, fearing reprisals. ‘But even after I fell to the ground, they kept beating me and pulled my hair.’

“Workers began throwing stones and chanting slogans against the police, who fled. Hours later, after officials in Dhaka were notified, officers from the Rapid Action Battalion as well as surrounding police stations arrived. Officer Hossein, the police supervisor, denied that the police were aggressors, saying officers were told that foreign managers were trapped inside the factories and that angry workers were vandalizing equipment. [...]

“Cellphone videos show police officers firing rubber bullets and pummeling workers with cane poles. ‘They treated workers as if they were not human beings,’ one worker said. [...]

“Many of the workers involved in the March 25 clash are back on the job, despite their anger over how they have been treated. The seamstress who was knocked unconscious, her clothes shredded, said she had little choice, since she was the family’s sole breadwinner. ‘I am helpless,’ she said. ‘We have to get food.’”

REPORT: GARMENT INDUSTRY IN TAMIL NADU RECRUITS UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN AND GIRLS AS SUPEREXPLOITED LABOR

“Maid in India”: Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO [Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen]: The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Netherlands))

“Recruitment is targeted at young, mostly unmarried, women and girls, aged between 14 and 25. The majority of these workers have a Dalit (so-called scheduled castes) or other low-caste background and come from poor, often landless and indebted families that depend on irregular income earned as agricultural coolies in the dry south of Tamil Nadu. Orphans and children of single parents are also targeted. When free education ends at the 8th grade (at the age of fourteen) parents or relatives lack the means to enroll children in school. Agents that recruit for spinning mills or garment factories are aware of the situation and may approach poor families at this precise time. Brokers convince parents to send their daughters to the textile and garment factories with promises of a well-paid job, comfortable accommodation, three nutritious meals a day and opportunities for training and schooling. Clothes and household articles are also given to attract the parents. Sending the girls to work in the mills where they will receive daily meals is a relief for the household; the (small) income girls bring in is a much needed addition to the means of the family. The lump sum offered to the girls is a way to meet the social pressure to purchase jewels for their daughters’ marriage. [These recruitment and employment practices are often referred to as 'Sumangali scheme.’]

The Tamil word sumangali refers to a married woman who lives a happy and contented life with her husband with all good fortunes and material benefits. Workers under this scheme are recruited with the promise that they will receive a considerable amount of money after completion of three to five years of employment. This amount could be used to pay for a dowry. In this report, these workers are referred to as ‘scheme workers’. [Often, completing the contract period is a condition to receive the lump sum amount, which is not a bonus but made up of withheld wages.] If the lump sum is added to the monthly wages, the total amount earned in the contract period in most cases does not equal the amount a worker would have earned if she had received the minimum wage for an apprentice in the garment industry.

“[Labour migrants often live in strictly supervised factory-owned hostels where they have little opportunity for contact with their families, let alone with trade unions or labour advocates. Workers make long hours, including forced overtime, in some cases even up to 24 hours on end, for low wages, and under unhealthy conditions. Verbal and physical abuse is frequently reported.]”

Read the full report: “Maid in India”

See also:

Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO press release)

MIGRANT WORKERS FROM OTHER PARTS OF INDIA FACE EXPLOITATION, OPPRESSION

Come south, young man, but here be dragons by Madhumita Dutta (The Hindu)

“Tamil Nadu has more than 10 lakh migrants, doing jobs that local workers shun because of poor pay and dangerous working conditions, but they are easy targets of prejudices against ‘north Indians’. [...]

“Hailing from Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal, these men come to work on private and government construction sites, in small engineering ancillary units, steel rolling mills, lathe, hosieries, foundries, in roadside eateries as well as fancy city restaurants, as security guards and even as farmhands. [...]

“Most of the migrant workers in the State land up through informal arrangements orchestrated by multiple contractors and sub-contractors. Munniraj, a Dalit labour contractor in Hosur, has 650 Bihari workers whom he supplies to the various small-scale engineering units in the industrial area. The workers, who earn anywhere between Rs.3,500-Rs.4,000 per month, give him 10 per cent of their wages, which works out roughly to Rs.2 lakh a month. [...]

“‘I left my job in a food company in Delhi three months back and came here. They used to make me work for 16 hours a day and paid Rs.5,000. Here I have better pay for less number of hours of work. But I don't want to stay here. I feel insecure. Police has made our lives miserable,’ said Nandlal from Gaya who sends his family of six Rs.4,000 every month. As if waiting for a cue, Manas, who had so far not said anything about the police harassment, said: ‘I am too scared to step out of the house after seven p.m., the police patrol stops us and asks for ID proof, and if you don't have one you are taken to the police station for enquiry’. After the bank robbery last month, police have been visiting the slums where large migrant populations live and asking the ‘north Indians' to show their IDs or proof of employment. ‘Where will these migrant people get any proof of employment or any ID for that matter?’ asked Geeta Ramakrishnan of Unorganised Workers' Union. [...]

“The interstate migrant is a much-reviled figure, often unjustly so. Ghettoised and insecure, and lacking any legal or social protection, the interstate migrant workers become easy targets for the state, administration, overzealous nationalist forces and, more worrisome, the local working class.”

IMPORTANT CLASS BATTLE AT MARUTI SUZUKI: WORKERS SHOW THEIR POWER USING SIT-DOWN TACTICS, STRUGGLING FOR THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE

Maruti workers seize control of Manesar plant wracked by unrest (The Economic Times)

“Striking employees of Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest carmaker, have seized control of a factory hit by weeks of labour unrest, the company said on Monday, as a stand-off that has cost the firm over $150 million descended into violence.[...]

"‘The plant is effectively captive in the hands of striking workers who are bent upon violence,’ the company said in a statement, describing the situation at the factory as ‘grave.’

“Maruti, 54.2-percent owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor, said 1,500 workers were inside the factory on Monday. The plant produces about 1,000 vehicles a day and the unrest has caused a production loss of 2,600 cars since Friday afternoon.

“Supporting strikes by workers at other Suzuki-owned plants in India that supply parts to Maruti's second car factory have resulted in a total loss of production of about $22 million.

“Maruti announced an agreement with striking workers last week to end a month-long strike that has already cost the automaker 6.6 billion rupees ($134 million) in lost output and contributed to a 21-percent slump in September sales.

“The carmaker's total losses due to labour unrest this year stand at close to $250 million, following a 13-day strike by 800 workers in June at Manesar that crippled production and caused more than $90 million in lost output.[...]

“‘The company cannot throw out mobs of people,’a Maruti spokesman said. ‘The action has to come from the police and the authorities.’"

See also:

Speed and Control at Manesar: Why is the Maruti-Suzuki Management Keeping Workers Out of Its Factory (Kafila, September 6, 2011)

“Since June this year, perhaps even earlier, discontent at the Maruti-Suzuki plant has peaked. June saw the eruption of a wildcat strike and a momentary occupation of the factory. Eleven ‘ring leaders’ were suspended. The issue that led to the strike was the appalling intensity of work conditions. The media and the management were content to report it as a dispute over union formation. Yes, the workers at Manesar had wanted to form an independent union. And yes, the management wanted them to remain under the umbrella of MUKU (Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union – the ‘Company’ union – which has remained an effective tool of management control over workers). But the reason that led the workers to express a desire to form their own union – The Maruti-Suzuki Employees Union (which is their constitutional right, by the way) was the ineffectiveness of the company union in addressing their complaints about the increasing intensification of control and speed at the factory. Working at the Manesar plant was becoming torturous and attrition was at an all time high.

“The twelve-day long strike in June did not end in attention being paid to the workers demands about working conditions. The eleven suspended workers were re-instated, pending enquiries. This was translated as a ‘victory’ for the workers by their newly formed (and still unrecognized independent union), even though all the workers had to agree to a penalty of a cut in two days wages for the transgression of their strike. The work conditions stayed exactly as before. According to some, things got worse.”

And see:

Why they strike. Why you should care. (Tehelka, September 24, 2011)

“Here is what a Maruti Suzuki worker says his average day at the Manesar plant is like. You catch a bus at 5 am for the factory. Arriving a second late to punch in your card means a pay cut, but you can’t leave the premises once you’ve entered. At 6.30 am, you exercise and supervisors give you feedback on your previous output. Start work at 7 sharp. Everyone does his one task — assembling, welding, fixing — for a minimum of 8 continuous hours. A car rolls off the line every 38 seconds, which means you can’t budge from your position, ever. You get two breathless breaks during the day. At 9 am, a 7-minute break to drink tea or go to the loo, or both. After a while you might, like many of your friends here, end up taking your hot tea and kachori to the bathroom with you. Then a lunch break of 30 minutes, in which you walk about a half kilometre to the canteen, wait in line with everyone, eat and walk back. Returning even a minute late from any break, or leaving the assembly line for any reason even for a minute, means half a day’s pay cut. Older systems used to include an overseer for every small group of workers who could step in if someone needed to take a breather. But, the cost logic of production is perennially at odds with workers’ rights.

“If we don’t blink at seeing a man climbing down to unblock a sewer for a few hundred a month, it’s likely we think of a Rs 16,000 factory job with a uniform as clean and comfortable. But even the salary is an illusion, as the workers’ salary slips show. A baseline of Rs 8,000 is all most are guaranteed. Take a day from your legally granted casual leave or sick leave, for any reason, and lose Rs 1,500. Take two and lose Rs 3,000, and so on up till half your salary disappears.”[...]

“On 3 June, the Manesar workers formally applied to form a separate union called Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU). They say the company responded by suspending 11 workers and sending bouncers to force them to sign blank pieces of paper. The workers struck work on 4 June and held a sit-in inside the plant for 13 days till their 11 colleagues were reinstated, though the main issue of unionisation remained unresolved. [...]

“Meanwhile, the file to register MSEU in the labour office was cancelled. Reasons: the employees resorted to an illegal strike; among those who’d signed for a new union, many still retained MUKU membership; some signatures didn’t match with the registered ones. The revolting workers say they’d all resigned from the old union and these technical reasons merely indicate how hand-in-glove the Haryana government is with Maruti Suzuki.”

And see also:

Maruti’s Modern Times clash (The Telegraph (Calcutta), October 19, 2011):

“The Maruti Suzuki workers were recruited when they were about 18 years of age in 2006. The Manesar plant opened in February 2007 and the first batch of trainees became permanent workers only last year. Almost immediately, the workers were urged to become members of the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (Muku) that is the only workers’ outfit in the company’s Gurgaon plant. (Manesar is about 18km south of Gurgaon).

“The workers were hesitant. As more batches of trainees became permanent workers, the demand to form a union — basically the right to collective bargaining — was raised towards the end of 2010.

“Maruti Suzuki now has 970 permanent workers in a total workforce of around 3,000 — a majority being contractual, casual or trainees and apprentices, who are worse off than the permanent workers.

“‘We knew that Muku was a pliant union with workers in Gurgaon who are much older and have families and, since their strike was broken in the year 2000, they do not have the stomach for a fight,’ says Naresh.

“His friend, the French-bearded Jitender Barot, who at 28 years is among the oldest permanent workers, raises his palms: ‘These hands have worked so hard that had I put them to use in my family farm in Hisar, my folks would have been very happy. We have delivered 2 lakh cars when the management wanted it, working overtime and breathlessly and we have been taken for granted.’

“Asked why he does not go back home to work on his farm, Barot shoots back: ‘I wanted to be something else.’ [...]

“The rent for the one-room tenements in Gurganva where many of the workers live is between Rs 3,000 and Rs 3,500. A permanent worker technically earns about Rs 18,000 per month. Of this less than half is the fixed component of the salary and the rest are added incentives.

“Maruti Suzuki’s punitive measures often mean that workers have to make do with cuts. In the case of Naresh and some 30 others who are suspended, this means that their salary slips show a negative pay of Rs 3,800, meaning that the amount would be deducted from their next salary. [...]

“For now, the workers are not even demanding a hike in salaries. But what they are asking for — the right to form a union of their choice — is a political demand that may actually spell more trouble.

And see further:

Workers' struggle in Maruti Suzuki by Prasenjit Bose and Sourindra Ghosh (The Hindu, September 28, 2011):

“The stand adopted by the MSIL management in the ongoing dispute was endorsed by the Chairman and CEO of Suzuki Motor Corporation, Osamu Suzuki, during his recent visit to India. He said: ‘Indiscipline is not tolerated . . . not in Japan, not in India.’ Mr. Suzuki seems to have completely missed the larger picture.

“Over the past three years, MSIL has emerged as the most productive and profitable subsidiary of the Suzuki Motor Corporation. Its Annual Reports show that while Suzuki's car production and sales in Japan registered absolute declines in 2008 and 2009 following the recession, MSIL's production and sales in India have registered steady growth during this period. Could this be achieved by an ‘indisciplined' workforce?”

And:

Debate over trade unions rages in India (BBC, October 19, 2011):

“This is the Maruti workers' third strike this year for the same demand. And Maruti is not the only case. Strikes demanding the right to form workers' unions have hit the automobile sector in northern India at frequent intervals.

“Spare parts production company Rico faced a strike in 2009 which affected production in Ford and General Motors plants in Canada and the US.

“Suzuki plants in different parts of India are seeing protests by workers Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India saw a strike in 2005 which was ended by violent police action.

“While the Hero Honda agitation was successful and the company now has a robust workers' union, Rico workers had to bow down to their management.

“Despite a chequered history, workers here seem to have faith in the organised trade union.”

And:

Material for the Debate on Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Struggle in Maneswar, India (GurgaonWorkersNews, October 28, 2011)

Maruti Suzuki Workers Strike: A Report from Gurgaon (GurgaonWorkersNews via Sanhati, July 16, 2011)

And also see anti-caste: A PERSPECTIVE FOR INDIAN LABOR

UNTOUCHABLES AND TRIBALS: LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED

SC/STs missing in private sector jobs: India Inc’s first caste census (Indian Express)

“The first-ever caste census of India Inc’s human resources has revealed that the proportion of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees in the private sector in some of the most industrialised states of the country hardly reflects their strength in the general population of those states.

“The only exception is Tamil Nadu, which ranks number one in industrialisation and employment (by number of factories and persons, according to the Annual Survey of Industries 2008-09). SCs/STs account for almost 18 per cent of the industrial workforce and 20 per cent of the state’s population.

“In sharp contrast are some of the other most industrialised states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, which show a sharp mismatch between SCs/STs as a percentage of the total workforce in the private sector and as a percentage of the states’ total population.”

CLASS STRUGGLE IN BANGLADESH: WORKERS SAY WAGE HIKE WON IN 2006 IS NOT ENOUGH!

[See also: Bangladesh: Women Garment Workers Fight Starvation Wages,
Workers Hammer (Winter 2010-2011)]

Thousands protest Bangladesh wages for fourth day (AFP)

“Bangladeshi garment workers blocked roads and attacked factories on Monday as protests over the level of a new minimum wage spilled into a fourth day.

“Around 10,000 workers in Fatullah, south of the capital Dhaka, pelted police with rocks as they demanded a minimum monthly wage of 5,000 taka (73 dollars), rejecting a 3,000 taka deal offered by the government last week.

“‘They attacked factories, set up barricades in the road–we had to use tear gas and batons to disperse the workers,’ district police chief Biswas Afzal Hossain told AFP.

“The government said last Tuesday that the minimum monthly wage for garment workers would rise to 3,000 taka from 1,662 taka, but the new wage will not be implemented until November.

“Some major unions have accepted the 80-percent hike, but a string of smaller unions have rejected the deal, and violence erupted in Dhaka on Friday with workers blocking roads, vandalising factories and shops and looting goods.”

See also:

Cheap clothes shortchange garment workers (The National (Abu Dhabi), August 14, 2010):

“Bangladesh’s garment industry is the country’s biggest employer after agriculture. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, Bangladesh’s 3.5 million garment workers, most of them women, are the ‘world’s most poorly paid workers.’

“Many work 12 to 14 hour shifts, six days a week, often in hazardous conditions.

“The 5,000 taka they are demanding is less than half the monthly wage of workers in China, the world’s largest producer of garments.

“In recent years, Bangladesh has emerged as an attractive manufacturing centre for top multinational clothing retailers such as Tesco, Gap, H&M;, Walmart and Marks & Spencer because of its low-cost labour, believed to be the world’s cheapest, against more expensive manufacturing centres such as China and India.”

And see:

Dhaka garment workers in violent protests over low pay (The Guardian (UK), July 30, 2010)

And see all anti-caste posts on Bangladeshi garment workers.

DOWN WITH CASTE BIGOTRY IN THE WORKERS’ MOVEMENT!

The caste train by Gail Omvedt (Himal Southasian)

“Those who deny that caste is really much of a ‘problem’ should look at the case of Chitralekha. She is a Dalit (Pulaya caste) woman in Payannur in Kerala, married to an Other Backward Caste man. In 2003, she decided to take up the profession of autorickshaw driving (as her husband does), since the nursing course she was in training for required night work, which would have impeded on her ability to care for her children. Since then, she has been constantly harassed by the ‘caste Hindus’ who dominate the Communist Party of India (Marxist) autorickshaw union. Her autorickshaw was torched; then a new one was also ruined by having salt poured into its gas tank. Finally, she herself was beaten by a mob working with the police. When we talked to the aggressive members of the union in the local CPM office, they refused to even recognise Chitralekha’s marriage, calling her a “woman who lives outside the tracks”. After all, she and husband, Sheeshkant, had committed what the ‘sacred books’ call varna-samkara, mixture of castes.”

See also:

A Critique of the Hindu Council Report 'Caste in India' by Gail Omvedt (via Dalitica)

DEBT BONDAGE AND CHILD LABOR IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan's Kiln Workers Bricked In by Debt (The Washington Post)

"'This work shortens your life. No one would do it by choice,' said the man, Abdul Sadiq. 'The problem is that you can never earn enough to leave. If your wife needs an operation or the rainy seasons lasts too long, you have to borrow from the kiln owners. You try to repay it, but the debt stays with you, sometimes for your whole life. It's like a pair of invisible handcuffs.'

"Brickmakers toil near the bottom of Pakistan's economic and social ladder, forever at the mercy of heat, dirt, human greed and official indifference. By law, they cannot be compelled to work or be kept in bondage; in practice, the great majority are bound to the kilns by debt. The work is seasonal and families move often, but if they leave one kiln for another, their debt is transferred to the new owner. If they try to escape, they said, they are hunted down.

"At least 200,000 Pakistanis, many of them children, work in more than 2,500 kilns across the country, according to studies by labor advocacy organizations. Their plight is well known and often described as a national disgrace. Human rights groups have exposed cases of kiln owners chaining or imprisoning workers; reformists have initiated programs to forgive their debts and educate their children.

"But resistance to change has been stubborn. Kiln owners tend to be economically powerful and politically well-connected, while many brick workers are illiterate, nomadic, cut off from modern society and unaware of their rights."

See also anti-caste: ESTIMATED 8 MILLION BONDED LABORERS IN PAKISTAN (June 26, 2006) and CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN PAKISTAN (March 13, 2006)

MILITANT MASS STRIKES NEAR DHAKA

50,000 Bangladesh garment workers in wage protest (AFP)

"Two people have died and scores have been injured in violent clashes as protests entered a second day and spread to scores of factories at the Ashulia industrial zone 30 kilometres (19 miles) outside Dhaka, police officials said.

"'More than 50,000 workers have joined the protests. They have become violent and hurled stones and rocks at our officers. We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters,' Dhaka district police chief Iqbal Bahar said.

"The new clashes came a day after one garment labourer was shot and killed and several injured when around 7,000 workers clashed with police over wage cuts and unpaid salaries. Police officer Rehana Begum said the body of another labourer was recovered from the area Sunday, taking the death toll to two.

"Scores of officers and workers were also injured in the clashes, she added.

"Factories in the South Asian nation have been hit hard by the global economic crisis with several reportedly cutting wages to compete for orders with other producing countries, such as Vietnam, China and India."

Bangladesh textiles unravelled by price war, protests (AFP, July 1, 2009)

"Kamaluddin, 18, has seen his factory salary slashed from 7,000 taka (100 dollars) a month, to around 3,000 taka, although he is still expected to put in the same gruelling hours.

"His shift involves standing all day at his sweater knitting machine—exhausting work that he blames for his deteriorating health, including two recent bouts of hepatitis. 'Before, it was bearable because I was sending 3,000 taka home to my mother each month, now there's barely enough to live on for me, let alone for her,' he said.

"In leaving his home in northern Bangladesh, Kamaluddin had been following in the footsteps of hundreds of thousands of rural labourers, lured to Dhaka's clothing factories by the promise of doubling or tripling their wages.

"Bangladesh has a legal minimum wage of around 25 dollars per month. With overtime, a skilled garment worker can earn up to 150 dollars—or rather he could.

"Since early 2008, salaries have been cut by an average of up to 30 percent, according to union leader Tauhidul Islam who said this week's violence had been fuelled by desperation.

"'The workers hit the streets because their backs are up against the wall,' Islam said."

See also anti-caste: IN MASS WILDCAT SRIKES, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS SHUT DOWN GARMENT INDUSTRY (May 23, 2006)

CONGRESS-LED GOVT'S NEW "ANTI-TERROR" LAWS THREATEN WORKERS, MUSLIMS, SIKHS, UNTOUCHABLES WITH STATE TERROR

New Anti-Terror Laws Draconian, Say Activists by Praful Bidawi (IPS)

"Parliament - meeting under the shadow of the November 26-29 attacks on India’s commercial hub resulting in close to 200 deaths - approved the legislations on Thursday with no considered debate and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pushing them past amendments tabled by several parliamentarians.

"One law, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, seeks to establish a new police organisation to investigate acts of terrorism and other statutory offences.

"The other, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA) Act, radically changes procedures for trying those accused of terrorism, extends the periods of police custody and of detention without charges, denies bail to foreigners, and the reverses the burden of proof in many instances.

[...]

"'The UAPA Act is particularly vile, and will have the effect of turning India into a virtual police state,' says Colin Gonsalves, executive director of the Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network. 'It basically brings back a discredited law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2002 (POTA), except for admitting confessions made to a police officer as legal evidence.'

"POTA was an extremely unpopular law, which the UPA government abrogated upon coming to power in 2004 in response to innumerable complaints of its selective and discriminatory use against India's Muslim minority, and its cavalier and irresponsible application to offences not even remotely connected with terrorism.

[...]

"In its desperation to be seen to be taking a tough stand against terrorism, the Manmohan Singh government also tabled the NIA Bill earlier this week. The new agency will specifically investigate offences related to atomic energy, aviation and maritime transport, weapons of mass destruction, and Left-wing extremism, besides terrorism.

"Significantly, it excludes Right-wing terrorism, which has become a greater menace in India.

[...]

"POTA and its predecessor, Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), were extensively abused. They typically targeted the religious minorities, specifically Muslims, and allowed for their harassment and persecution.

"The TADA story is especially horrifying. Some 67,000 people were arrested under it, but only 8,000 put on trial, and a mere 725 convicted.

"Official TADA Review Committees themselves found the law’s application untenable in all but 5,000 cases. In 1993, Gujarat witnessed no terrorism, but more than 19,000 people were still arrested under TADA.

"Religious minorities were selectively targeted under both Acts. For instance, in Rajasthan, of 115 TADA detainees, 112 were Muslims and three Sikhs.

"Gujarat had a worse pattern under POTA, when all but one of the 200-plus detainees were Muslims, the remaining one a Sikh.

"The passing of the two new laws is certain to increase the alienation of India's Muslims from the state. They have been the principal victims of India's anti-terrorism strategy and activities in recent years.

"Muslims are first to be arrested and interrogated after any terrorist incident, even when the victims are Muslims, and although strong evidence has recently emerged of a well-ramified pro-Hindu terrorist network, in which serving and retired army officers were found to be key players."

See also, on UAPA's predecessors:

Anti-terror laws: Tools of state terror (People's Union for Civil Liberties, March 2007):

"A survey of TADA cases reveals many instances of false arrests, police excesses, and extortion. People were imprisoned under the act for matters entirely unconnected with violent political acts. In 1987, six workers of Reliance Industries Limited in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, were arrested under TADA for legitimate trade union activity."

NATIONWIDE STRIKE AGAINST SELL-OFF OF GOVERNMENT BANKS

Over 800,000 bank employees strike work across India (Indo Asian News Service)

"More than 800,000 bank employees from 50,000 branches across India started a two-day strike Wednesday to oppose privatisation, merger and acquisition of state-owned banks. Reports from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir said the strike was total."

NATIONWIDE GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST CONGRESS-LED GOVERNMENT

Millions strike against inflation and government policies (Radio France Internationale)

"Flights from New Delhi to Kolkata have been cancelled and rail traffic in West Bengal severely interrupted due to striking transports workers.

"Workers in the telecom and banking industries were also staying away from work.

[...]

"The trade unions that have called the strike are supported by the country's communist parties, which last month withdrew support for the government."

See also:

Left trade unions shut down West Bengal (Sindh Today, August 20, 2008):

"CITU is the national trade union front of the Communist Party of India (Marxists) (CPI-M) which leads the ruling Left Front coalition in the state.

"CITU is also one of the largest trade union of workers in the country.

[...]

"The call for the August 20 county-wide strike has been given by the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions comprising All India Trade Union Centre (AITUC), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), Labour Progressive Force (LPF), All-India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU), Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC), and All-India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) apart from CITU.

"The six-point charter of demand of the trade unions calls for containment of unprecedented price rise, widening economic disparities, falling real wages and mass-scale violation of labour laws, rising unemployment and increasing atrocities on labourers."

PAKISTAN: TELECOMMUNICATION WORKERS WIN MAJOR CLASS BATTLE

PTCL accepts workers’ demands; strike ends (Dawn)

"The two-week tussle between the Pakistan Telecommunication Company [PTCL] and its employees ended when the management accepted the latter’s demands on Wednesday.

"Soon after the management’s decision, the PTCL United Workers Alliance called off its nationwide strike that had disrupted phone service and rendered more than half a million fixed line connections non-functional.

"The management issued notifications to regularise contractual employees on the New Compensation Pay Grade (NCPG) and increase the salaries by 35 per cent."

The PTCL is the largest telecommunications company in Pakistan, employing 40,000 workers. Formerly government-run, it was privatized and sold off to a Dubai-based company in 2005 despite workers' protest.

(image via Daily Voice (Pakistan))

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF GARMENT WORKERS STRIKE TO PROTEST RISING FOOD PRICES

Bangladesh workers riot over soaring food prices (Agence France-Presse)

"About 20,000 workers rioted over high food prices and low wages on Saturday close to the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, police said, amid spreading global unrest over soaring grocery costs.

"Police fired tear gas and used batons to break up the protests and at least 50 people were injured, most of them police officers.

"About 20,000 textile workers from more than a dozen factories went on the rampage in Fatullah, 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Dhaka, demanding better pay amid soaring rice prices, police chief Bhuiyan Mahbub Hasan said.

[...]

"'With our poor salary, it is now impossible to buy three meals a day. Some of us are even going hungry some days,' said Jamal Uddin, a sweater machine operator, who earns 30 dollars a month."

See anti-caste: IN MASS WILDCAT STRIKES, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS SHUT DOWN GARMENT INDUSTRY (May 23, 2006)

HOMICIDAL WORKING CONDITIONS

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India (New York Times)

'We can’t maintain the luxury of Europe and the United States, with all the boots and all that,' said Sunil Modi, director of Shakti Industries.

YET ANOTHER STATEWIDE GENERAL STRIKE IN DEFENSE OF NANDIGRAM VILLAGERS

Shutdown over Nandigram cripples West Bengal (Indo-Asian News Service)

"Train passengers were stranded, several flights cancelled and buses torched in various places on Monday as West Bengal shut down over the ongoing bloodbath in Nandigram that has allegedly been sponsored by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

"The 48-hour 'immobilisation' programme of the Trinamool Congress and a 24-hour general strike called by Congress and Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) saw life in the state coming to a virtual standstill."

See anti-caste: IN NEW ASSAULT, CPI(M) REIMPOSES ITS BLOODY CONTROL OVER REBELLIOUS VILLAGE (November 17, 2007)

And see anti-caste: CAPITALIST STATE TERROR IN WEST BENGAL: POOR VILLAGERS RESISTING LAND SEIZURE—UNTOUCHABLES AND MUSLIMS, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CUT DOWN BY POLICE AND PARTY ACTIVISTS IN CPI(M)-RULED STATE (March 22, 2007)

LANDLORDS ABANDON PLANTATIONS, LEAVING WORKERS TO DIE

Workers starving due to closure of tea estates in North Bengal by Maureen Nandini Mitra (Down to Earth)

"More than 17,000 workers at these tea estates have been struggling; there are no other means of livelihood. An estimated 1,000 people—workers and family members—have died of malnutrition and related diseases since 2003 in the Dooars region.

[...]

"Most of the affected gardens are far from towns and villages, limiting employment options and healthcare services for the unskilled workers. Public transport to towns is infrequent and expensive—it costs Rs 60 for a 30-km bus trip to Jalpaiguri town from Raipur. The Plantation Labour Act of 1951 makes it the estate owners’ responsibility to provide the workers basic needs—food, education, healthcare. With the tea estates becoming unprofitable after the late 1990s, the owners abandoned their responsibility.

[...]

"Ethnicity of the workers has also been a crucial reason why this abysmal situation has been allowed to drag on for so long, human rights activists allege. More than 85 per cent of the workers are tribals—fourth generation immigrants of migrants brought in by the British from Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh or low-caste refugees from Bangladesh’s Jassore, Khulna and Barishal regions."

See also:

Hundreds of workers die as India's tea industry suffers crisis (Guardian (UK), June 11, 2007)

And see:

Study on Closed and Re-opened Tea Gardens in North Bengal by Anuradha Talwar, Debasish Chakraborty and Sarmishtha Biswas for Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity and International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, Plantation and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) (September 2005):

"In spite of the spate of re-openings that have taken place in the past one year, the 22 gardens seem to still be crisis ridden. Many may be on the verge of closing down once again. Huge amounts of money are owed to the workers. This is a criminal offence, but action has not been taken on this by the Government and/or union leaders against the rogue employers. At the same time there has been little long term planning by any of the stakeholders to ensure that these gardens become viable in the long run.

"Owners on the other hand in the closed gardens and in the industry in general are taking advantage of the closed gardens and the defensiveness of the workers and the unions to gradually cut down on the workers’ benefits."

And see also:

in Assam: A storied industry falls on hard times (Associated Press, September 29, 2007):

"The 'burra sahib'—the big boss—still lives in a cavernous house, overseeing nearly every aspect of life for thousands of employees, from housing to schools to medical care. Planters still gather from far-flung estates to drink at century-old clubs, and their wives still pass their days tending elaborate flower gardens.

"The laborers—tea plantations employ nearly 3 million, mostly women, in jobs often handed down through families for generations—are unionized these days, but most live just a few steps above the poverty line. In Assam, tea workers earn about $1.25 a day, plus free housing and subsidized food. According to union leaders, only about a third are literate."

tea worker in North Bengal (image via arnabchat)

REPORT ON CASUAL LABOR IN INDIA

“Most unorganised workers paid poorly” (The Hindu)

"An overwhelming 79 per cent of workers in the unorganised sector live with an income of less than Rs. 20 a day, according to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS).

"A report on 'Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in Unorganised Sector,' released by the Commission here on Thursday, says over 394.9 million workers (86 per cent of the working population) belong to the unorganised sector and work under 'utterly deplorable' conditions with 'extremely few livelihood options.'

"The report says that 88 per cent of the Scheduled Tribes [oppressed tribals] and the Scheduled Castes [untouchables], 80 per cent of the Other Backward Classes [other oppressed castes] and 85 per cent of Muslims belong to the category of 'poor and vulnerable,' who earn less than Rs. 20 a day.

Rs. 20 is less than fifty cents a day. In 2004 the National Commission of Rural Labour determined that the minimum subsistence wage was Rs. 66. The NCEUS report described above found that a total of 836 million people in India, or 77 per cent of the population, including wage-earners and non-wage-earners, were living on less than Rs. 20 a day.

"Unorganized" workers are those who do casual labor that does not pay regular wages and carries no legal protections. The term does not refer to workers not represented by a trade union, as it does in the U.S. and Britain: most workers in the "organized sector" are not unionized. Unorganized workers include piece workers, migrant workers, vendors, and unskilled laborers in quarries, kilns, and farms.

See also:

'Most Indians earn less than Rs 20/day in India' (Reuters)

HINDUSTAN MOTORS STRIKE: DIVIDED, REFORMIST LEADERSHIP HOLDS BACK WORKERS' POWER

CPM union for work, CPI’s says no: Hind Motors stalled (Indian Express)

"Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee may be trying to take West Bengal into the new age with the Tata Motors’ small-car project at Singur but Left Front partner CPI has revived the ghost of a fractious past by forcing the management of Hindustan Motors to declare suspension of work at India’s oldest automobile facility.

"Hindustan Motors today announced suspension of work at its Uttarpara plant near Kolkata after a month-long agitation by a section of workers backed by the CPI. With the Government keeping itself out, operations at the 70-year-old plant, which employs around 4,500 workers grouped under five registered unions, had been severely hit.

"Incidentally, CITU, the CPM’s labour arm, had opposed the agitation from the very beginning and its supporters clashed violently with those blocking access to the plant yesterday. But its union, which secured only 36% of the votes in the last election, lacks bargaining power which rests with the HM & Hyderabad Industries Ltd Sangrami Shramik Karmachari Union (SSKU).

"Kali Ghosh, state CITU secretary, said: 'The unilateral decision of the SSKU to call a strike and the hooliganism that followed cannot be supported.'"

See also:

Cops, Hindustan Motors' workers clash in W[est] B[engal] (Times of India, April 10, 2007):

"A scuffle broke out between agitating workers and police at the factory gate of Hindustan Motors' Uttarpara plant in West Bengal's Hooghly district on Tuesday, police sources said.

"Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Sreerampore Ajay Thakur said that a scuffle broke out between the agitating workers of the Sangrami Shramik Karmachari Union (SSKU) and the police as the SSKU was preventing 'willing' workers to join work.

"Thakur said police has dispersed agitating workers.

"However, Amitabha Bhattacharya, president of SSKU claimed that eight SSKU workers were injured in the police lathicharge. He alleged that rival CITU was bringing temporary outside workers to work in the factory, which SSKU workers objected and tried to stop their entry."

And see:

Hindustan Motors strike ends partially (Indo Asian News Service, May 10, 2007):

"Work resumed at the Hindustan Motors' Uttarpara unit, Thursday with some unions withdrawing support to the ongoing strike and the management taking back the 'suspension of operation' notice.

[...]

"Unions like Centre for Indian Trade Union - and two other unions - SSU and IFTU - withdrew their support to the strike to demand regularisation of salary and resumption of payment of dearness allowance that has remained frozen since 2001.

"However, workers affiliated to the Sangrami Shramik Karmachari Union - and INTUC, which are spearheading the strike - had stayed away and continued with their movement at the factory gate demanding Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's intervention to resolve the stalemate."

And see also:

Strike jolts Hindustan Motors' Uttarpara project (Indo Asian News Service, June 25, 2007):

"[...t]he strike in March-April by the majority workers' union to protest against the suspension of 15 employees and alleged non-payment of salary for two months, took a heavy toll on its production as well as renewal programme. 'We were producing 1,000 units of Ambassador before March and during the strike the production came down to zero. But now about 92 percent of the workforce has signed the settlement and things are coming back into normalcy,' said Santhanam."

union member attacked by police for defending strike
(image via SSKU website)

STATEWIDE GENERAL STRIKE TO PROTEST CPI(M)-GOVERNMENT MASSACRE AT NANDIGRAM

Strike halts life in W[est] B[engal], 100 arrested (Times of India)

"About 100 people were arrested in various parts of West Bengal on Friday as bandh [strike] supporters beat up government officials, torched a bus and disrupted rail and road traffic during an opposition-sponsored general strike to protest the police firing at Nandigram.

"Roads wore a deserted look as vehicles kept off roads while train services on both Howrah and Sealdah divisions were disrupted.

[...]

"The strike was called by Trinamool Congress, Congress, BJP and Socialist Unity Centre of India in protest against the police action on the villagers of Nandigram that claimed at least 14 lives on Wednesday."

See anti-caste: CAPITALIST STATE TERROR IN WEST BENGAL: POOR VILLAGERS RESISTING LAND SEIZURE—UNTOUCHABLES AND MUSLIMS, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CUT DOWN BY POLICE AND PARTY ACTIVISTS IN CPI(M)-RULED STATE (March 22, 2007)

WOMEN WORKERS REDUCED TO REVERSE-COMMUTING FARMHANDS WHEN LOCAL INDUSTRY MOVES AWAY

It's been a hard day's night by P. Sainath (The Hindu)

Hundreds of women in Maharashtra's Gondia district travel from small towns to the villages to earn a daily wage.

"At the station are many other women without options. They are also unusual in one sense: these are not migrants from village to city. They are footloose workers from an urban setting seeking work in the villages. This search takes them from moffusil towns [i.e., those away from urban centers] — Tiroda is a tehsil headquarters [i.e., the main town in its administrative area] — to toil as agricultural labour in the villages almost every day of their lives. Spending up to 20 hours away from home daily. There are no weekend offs and no jobs in Tiroda. 'After the beedi [cigarette] industry went,' says Mahendra Walde, 'it is impossible for them to find work here.'"

REVERSAL OF NEGATIVE TREND FOR INDIAN LABOR?

Big rise in trade union membership (The Hindu)

"While the biggest gainer is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), which that has added almost 33 lakh members to its 1996 strength of 27 lakh, the CPI-affiliated All-India Trade Union Congress has moved to the third position with 33 lakh members from the fifth slot in 1996 when its membership was nine lakh."

CLASS BATTLE IN BANGLADESH CONTINUES

In a concession following the convulsive struggles of May-June (see anti-caste: IN MASS WILDCAT STRIKES, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS SHUT DOWN GARMENT INDUSTRY, May 23, 2006), the government offers garment workers a minimum wage, but one set at starvation levels. As the factory owners complain that even this is too high, and in the context of redoubled class struggle in other sectors including jute mills, river transport, and railways....

Thousands protest 25 dollar minimum wage in Bangladesh (Agence France-Presse)

"The government's minimum wage board commission last week fixed the monthly wage at 1662.50 taka (25 dollars) after four months of negotiations between unions and factory owners.

"The figure was agreed by employers and one leading textile workers' union. Other unions, however, called for earnings to be set at at least 3,000 taka (44 dollars) and called protests for Tuesday to press their demands.

"Several thousand workers set fire to a factory and attacked several others with stones at Pallabi, 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of central Dhaka, said Major Ehtashamus Samad of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) security force.

"'They held protest marches, set fire to one factory, smashed the windows of cars and also tried to set fire to another factory before police came to the scene and brought the situation under control,' he added.

"Police also clashed with at least 10,000 workers who attacked a factory in the city's northern suburb of Uttara, sub-inspector Malik Khasru of Uttara police station said."

[...]

"Impoverished Bangladesh, which has some 4,200 garment factories, relies on the industry for more than three-quarters of its 10.5 billion dollars in export earnings.

"More than two million workers, 85 percent of whom are women, work in the sector which is notorious for poor salaries and shabby safety standards.

"Business, however, has boomed since the end of global textile quotas last year. Garment exports in the last financial year alone grew by more than 24 percent."

BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS STRUGGLE: "one of the first instances of successful mass direct labor action against the export manufacturing sector in a developing country"

Industrial Riots Reveal Bangladesh's Crisis of Governance (Power and Interest News Report drafted by Michael A. Weinstein)

"Between May 20 and 24, the South Asian country of Bangladesh underwent the most severe and widespread industrial rioting in its history, as workers in its booming textile export industry torched 16 factories, ransacked 300 more and went on a general rampage, destroying cars, blocking roads, intimidating perceived adversaries and looting.

"As the rioting spread from the Gazipur industrial district throughout the textile belt and into the capital Dhaka, government security forces held back from making a decisive response, triggering a counter-demonstration by factory owners, who sat cross-legged in Dhaka's main thoroughfare, demanding that the army be brought in to quell the disorders on pain of indefinite plant closures.

"The violence peaked and seemed to be getting out of control on May 23—'Black Tuesday'— finally impelling the government to deploy paramilitary forces, which succeeded in quieting down the situation. Meanwhile, negotiations began between labor unions and the owners, mediated by the government, that resulted in an agreement fulfilling many of the workers' demands for higher wages and more favorable work rules. By Thursday, May 26, the violence had ended; factories were reopening and owners were demanding government compensation for their losses. The death toll stood at two workers, with hundreds of people injured.

"The riots have geoeconomic significance because they mark one of the first instances of successful mass direct labor action against the export manufacturing sector in a developing country.

[...]

"Half of Bangladesh's population of 152.6 million—densely concentrated in the delta region on the Bay of Bengal—lives on less than US$1 per day. Two-thirds of the labor force is employed in agriculture and the literacy rate is 41 percent. The country is a large net labor exporter, with 400,000 Bangladeshis working in the United Arab Emirates alone, and remittances from abroad contribute the largest portion of foreign exchange.

[...]

"The rise of Bangladesh's garment sector has not been attended by a corresponding improvement in labor compensation and working conditions. The monthly minimum wage of $14 was set in 1994, but the cost of living has doubled since then. Workers often put in 20 hour days, have not had guaranteed holidays, are frequently required to work overtime—sometimes without additional compensation—and sometimes have their wages go into arrears for more than two months.

[...]

"With an insurrection in process, the Bangladesh Garment Workers Trade Union Center issued a series of demands, including Friday holidays, a 30 percent wage hike, no forced overtime, payment of wages in arrears and release of arrested workers and union officials. Alarmed by government inaction, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association demanded that the army be deployed to suppress the riots and expressed willingness to negotiate with the unions at the same time that it filed a suit against six labor leaders.

"The manufacturers failed to convince the government to bring out the army and were unsuccessful in their attempts to get the Commerce Ministry to mediate the conflict. With Prime Minister Khaleda on a visit to the United Arab Emirates with the purpose of gaining energy concessions and expanding the number of guest workers, the government was unable to come up with a unified response. Finally, the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles were dispatched and relative order was restored on May 24.

"The government also stepped in on May 24 to bring the unions and manufacturers together in a six-hour bargaining session that resulted in an agreement in which the manufacturers promised to raise wages, provide a 90 day maternity leave, issue appointment letters to all employees and pay workers full wages for the month of May.

"The government agreed to release arrested workers and union officials, and to drop the cases against them. It also promised to set up a 'minimum wage board for the garment sector and take steps to meet the demands of garment workers,' and—in a bow to the manufacturers—to investigate the causes of the riots.

"The unions declared victory and the owners demanded government compensation for their losses, which they estimated to be $70 million."

IN MASS WILDCAT STRIKES, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS SHUT DOWN GARMENT INDUSTRY

Thousands of Bangladeshi textile workers burn factories as wage protests spread (AFX News)

"Tens of thousands of Bangladeshi textile workers demanding better pay set fire to 14 more factories today, the second day of violent demonstrations that spread to the capital Dhaka.

"The demonstrators, including barefoot women, opened up a battlefield in the country's biggest textile industrial belt covering Dhaka and its adjoining industrial towns of Ashulia, Savar and Tongi, police said.

"Some 50,000 protesters armed with bamboo sticks and chanting slogans burnt garment factories at Ashulia, while police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse them, local police chief Jamiruddin Ahmed said.

"In the capital, more than 10,000 workers from Dhaka's Tejgaon industrial area and from the Mirpur, Uttara and Wari districts poured into the streets demanding better pay, overtime and a mandatory weekly holiday.

"The workers torched and smashed dozens of cars and buses and stormed dozens of factories before blocking major roads and bringing city traffic to a virtual halt, the Dhaka police control room said."

Update: This important class battle, which has been going on for over a month and is continuing, has already won notable—though far from sufficient—concessions:

"Following the unrest in the garment sector, the factory owners at a tripartite meeting late last month accepted almost all demands of the garment workers, including the right to form trade unions, weekly holiday, maternity leave and issuance of appointment letter and identity card. The meeting formed a minimum wage board comprising representatives from the government, the garment factory owners and SKOP [Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad, the trade-union federation] as the workers demanded increase of minimum salary from Tk 940 to Tk 3,000 because of the unprecedented price hikes of essentials." (New Age (Bangladesh)), June 29, 2006)

The garment industry in Bangladesh employs around two million workers in over 4,000 factories. Ninety per cent are women and girls; more than eighty per cent are between the ages of 14 and 29. Most are peasants who have migrated to the capital seeking work. They make up 75 per cent of the industrial labor force in this desperately poor and largely agricultural country, working in a sector that accounts for three-quarters of the nation's export earnings. But they receive little of this: according to Amirul Haq Amin, coordinator of the Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council, "The garment workers of Bangladesh may be the most deprived labor force in the world. Most are paid between US$14 to US$16 per month, the lowest salary in the world."

See anti-caste: INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER IN BANGLADESH (March 13, 2006) and anti-caste: WORKFORCE OF 1.8 MILLION—MOST YOUNG AND FEMALE—DENIED LIVING WAGES, SAFE CONDITIONS, AND RIGHTS (May 01, 2005)

WORKING IN PAKISTAN'S COAL MINES

Exposé: Death in the Mines (Newsline (Karachi))

"Bonded for their working life through contractors, young boys of 13 work till they are 30 years old for a paltry sum until their damaged lungs can no longer withstand the chronic exposure to coal dust."

INDUSTRIAL MASS MURDER IN BANGLADESH

Booming RMG [ready-made garment sector] cares little for workers' life (Daily Star (Bangladesh))

"The goriest-ever garment factory disaster came on April 13 last year. The 9-story building of Spectrum Sweater and Knitting Factory in Savar collapsed with a resounding thud, crushing 74 workers to death and injuring over a hundred others, including 12 handicapped for life.

"'That was not an accident. It was a wilful violation of safety laws to increase profit,' ruled Kalpona Akter, secretary general and executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Workers' Solidarity.

[...]

"The garment sector, which accounts for 75 percent of the country's export earnings, soars above any other sector in both frequency and scale of workplace mishaps.

"Yet, it continues to keep its 2-million-strong women-majority labour force toiling in the so-called factories, most of which are ultra-poor in safety. Whatever they may say in public or in paper, in practice the investors in the sector every day put the bulk of their employees at risk of death and physical harms, knowing well the dangers yet shirking rectification in order to maximise the profit. 'Well, it definitely smacks of crime,' said the outspoken Kalpona."

MILITANT STRIKE BETRAYED BY LEFT FRONT

After a four-day strike by over 20,000 workers against selling off the Mumbai and New Dehli airports to private companies, part of the Congress-led government's privitization drive, is called off by union leaders from the reformist left parties, the capitalist press celebrates:

PM shows 'spine', wins battle with Left (Reuters):

"India's government has won a crucial victory against its Communist 'allies' over airport modernisation, and will now move forward more confidently on its own reform agenda, analysts said on Monday."

The Left's 'own goals' (rediff.com):

"Even tactically, the Left bungled because air traffic controllers and public sector airline employees continued to work, so all that the strikers could achieve was nuisance value, not disruption of air services.... It might be argued that some of this is just shadow play, and the Left didn't really want to stop the privatisation of airports, since one of its leading lights, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the chief minister of Left Front-ruled West Bengal, had said last year that he would like to privatise Kolkata airport. Equally, the Left Democratic Front in Kerala has never criticised or come in the way of the privately-run Kochi airport. The Left's aim, ahead of the elections in West Bengal and Kerala, was probably to demonstrate to the big public sector unions and their members that it still supported them, a sort of Communist equivalent of going to a temple or church."

STRIKING WORKERS REPRESSED BY STATE AS IMPERIALISTS WORRY

Toyota workers arrested in Bangalore, strike continues (Hindustan Times)

"Hundreds of workers of the Toyota Kirloskar plant in Bidadi near here, were arrested today after they continued their strike even as the company lifted the factory lockout.

"On January 8, the Toyota Motor Corporation had declared an indefinite lockout at its plant after a strike by workers following the dismissal of three of their fellow workers.

"The workers, however, said that since the company wanted them to accept formally their mistake and stand against the office-bearers, they decided to continue the strike."

See also:

Labor rigidity in India keeps firms on edge by Saritha Rai (International Herald Tribune)

"A recent strike at the Indian unit of Toyota Motor is officially over, but the carmaker's problems with labor are still simmering behind the scenes, providing a cautionary tale to the wave of foreign companies setting up shop in one of Asia's fastest-growing economies.

"A two-week strike at the 2,350-employee plant here in January cost Toyota 900 Corolla and Innova cars. The carmaker is now trying to make up for lost time by running double shifts. An ensuing court battle could last two years, and some employees this week began taking turns fasting at the factory gates in protest.

[...]

"The strike has also led to doubts about the country's allure as a destination for foreign manufacturers. Foreign direct investment in India rose to $6 billion in 2005 from $5.3 billion in 2004. Many experts say India, already attractive for its cheap labor and its engineering skills, could bring in even more foreign companies if it could free its labor market of red tape.

[...]

"The Toyota strike is not an isolated incident. In the middle of last year, in the Gurgaon suburbs of New Delhi, there was a violent confrontation between the police and disgruntled workers of Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India, owned by Honda of Japan. Workers demanding a raise tried to form a labor union, but management fired four union leaders and suspended 50 workers.When the workers went on strike to demand that their colleagues be reinstated, a clash with the police led to 700 injured workers, and the episode was broadcast worldwide."—see anti-caste: POLICE REPRESSION OF HONDA WORKERS IN GURGAON, HARYANA (August 13, 2005)

POLICE REPRESSION OF HONDA WORKERS IN GURGAON, HARYANA

On July 25 Indian television showed footage of hundreds of striking workers surrounded by cops and made to crawl on the ground as the cops worked their way through the crowd beating heads, backs, and limbs with thick, metal-tipped clubs and continuing to beat as their victims lay bloody and senseless for a full 45 minutes. It was like the Rodney King video on a tape loop.

The workers were highly skilled technicians recruited two years ago from training institutes all across India to work at a factory in Gurgaon, Haryana owned by the Japanese auto company Honda. It was supposed to be a dream job but they ended up working long shifts for less-than-average pay and under humiliating conditions where they couldn’t even use the toilet when they needed to. Finally 2000 workers were told that they would not be taken on when their two-year training period was up; new trainees would be hired in their place. The workers decided to form a union. The company fired the four workers who were leading the organizing drive and suspended 50 more as troublemakers. When the workers responded with a slowdown to try to get their coworkers’ jobs back, the company locked them out.

On July 25 a group of over a thousand workers marched from the factory gate to the district administrative center to ask the chief minister there to intervene. Police tried to stop the march but couldn’t hold it back. So they called in reinforcements from neighboring cities and got ready to teach the workers a lesson....

...see anti-caste article: on the repression of striking Honda workers in Gurgaon, Haryana

See also:

Target, trade unionism (Frontline)

For a 'New deal' for labour by Praful Bidwai (Frontline, August 13-26, 2005)

Malls of the few, chawls of the many by P. Sainath (The Hindu, Opinion)

WORKFORCE OF 1.8 MILLION—MOST YOUNG AND FEMALE—DENIED LIVING WAGES, SAFE CONDITIONS, AND RIGHTS

In Bangladesh, garment workers' payday not a sure thing by Syful Islam (American Reporter)

• "'The garment workers of Bangladesh may be the most deprived labor force in the world. Most are paid between US$14 to US$16 per month, the lowest salary in the world', said Amirul Haq Amin, Coordinator of the Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council (BGWUC)."
• "And even though the salaries are very low, most of the garment factory owners do not pay workers their salaries on time. There are many garment factories in Bangladesh where the workers may not get their paychecks for two to five months after they are due."
• "Trade union activities in the garment factories of Bangladesh are now strictly prohibited. Many garment workers lose their jobs because they try to form trade unions. Labor laws here are circumvented with ease."
• "About 90 percent of garment workers in Bangladesh are female. Though most work until after dark, there are no safety measures for them and no residential facilities provided. As a result, they frequently feel insecure, and for good reason: many garment workers are raped and abused by criminals who specialize in preying on them."