6-21-07, 9:39 am
It was on 22 May 2006, that the flames of angry revolt were ignited and a massive upsurge brought out into the streets throughout the country hundreds of thousands of garment workers.
Discontent has been brewing for years. Wages were a bare minimum and kept frozen for the last 10 years. With inflation at over 6% annually, the real wages had actually halved over this time. Even the meager wages were not paid in time, and payment of dues for overtime work were left unpaid for months and years. Unsafe factory conditions caused occasional incidences of fire, building collapse, stampedes to come out of burning factories, trapped inside locked gates of burning buildings and consequent deaths of hundreds of garment workers.
Many owners, in their greed for profits, had turned the factories into death traps. Workers were seldom provided with appointment letters, were constantly abused in various ways including physical assaults and dismissed arbitrarily at the whim of the management.
All attempts to change the inhuman state of affairs and super-exploitation had brought very little results. A storm of burning anger was brewing up among the young and hard working garment workers, the greater majority of whom were young girls in their teens and twenties.
The storm erupted on 22 May 2006 in Saver. The entire area including the special Export Promotion Zone turned into a battlefield. Within the next 48 hours the storm spread with lightning speed to Uttara, Tongi, Gazipur, Tejgaon, Jatrabari, Narayanganj, Tarbo, Sonargaon and to other big cities like Chittagong. Khulna etc.
The fury of the workers increased in momentum by the hour, and the deployment of more and more police and para-military forces proved to be futile in front of the dauntless workers who were occupying the streets by the thousands, day in and day out, in hundreds of places.
The government was forced to sit down for negotiation with the leaders of the struggling workers, and the leaders of the owners-organizations were also brought in. A series of tripartite meetings ultimately precipitated an agreement which ensured the fulfillment of some of the main demands of the workers and an assurance of fixing new minimum wage within 30 days.
Order was restored in the garment industry after a week of battles and wounds. The agreement signed was, however, not properly implemented.
The owners delayed the fixation of minimum wage and it took 5 more months to get an assurance of about 1,600/- Taka (about $24) as the monthly minimum wage. This was supposed to be implemented starting October 2006.
A year has passed since the fury of the spontaneous battles of garment workers for their demands had shook the whole country. But the agreements signed at that time are yet to be fully implemented.
The Garments Trade Union Center led by the communists, turned out to be the main organizer and leader of the struggle for full implementation of the agreement. Local struggles had to be fought constantly week in and week out to gain every grain of benefit from each owner.
Arrests, retrenchments and threats continued. Not only that, incidents of police shootings and murders and assaults by gangsters hired by the owners were frequent. The leaders and activists of GTUC were particularly targeted. The proclamation of State of Emergency has now put the workers in a further difficult position.
Taking advantage of the restrictions on fundamental rights due to Emergency, the owners delayed the implementation of the agreement and increased their attack on workers.
This provoked the workers to protest. Angry workers once again started to occupy streets in isolated regions separately.
The government moved with tact and caution to pacify the angry workers. Along with repressive measures, including a few cases of firing and assault, it at the same time has declared that all agreements will have to be implemented before the 30th of June, and if any owner fails to do so his factory will be closed down.
This declaration by the government has resulted an increased pressure for implementing minimum wage and other articles of the agreement. Big entrepreneurs are speculating that some smaller factories will fail to implement the agreement, and this will create an opportunity for them to take over the failed enterprises.
But the workers wait eagerly for the 30 June deadline and diligently guard against any encroachments on their hard earned gains. Firm in their determination to fight on for their demands, the 2.2 million garment workers and 140 million people of Bangladesh remember with honour and respect their sisters and brothers, their dear comrades, who had shed their blood and sacrificed their levies in the garment workers upsurge of May 2006.
From the Communist Party of Bangladesh
