Killing of Bangladeshi Labor Organizer Signals an Escalation in Violence
A labor activist who was arrested two years ago for his role in
protests against low wages in Bangladesh's garment industry was found
murdered outside this city last week, labor rights advocates and the
police said on Monday.
The killing of the activist, Aminul Islam, marks a morbid turn in the
often tense relations between labor groups, on one side, and
Bangladesh's extensive garment industry, which makes clothes for
Western companies like Walmart, Tommy Hilfiger and H&M. In 2010, Mr.
Islam, a former textile factory worker, was arrested and, he and other
labor activists said, was tortured by the police and intelligence
services.
Mr. Islam, 40, was last seen alive on Wednesday near Ashulia, a
garment-industry hub outside Dhaka. His tortured body was found on
Thursday on the side of a road near a police station in Ghatail, 61
miles to the north, according to the police and labor activists.
Local police officials in Ghatail were unable to identify the body, so
they photographed it and buried it. Later, Mr. Islam's brother Rafiqul
saw pictures of the body in a national newspaper and identified him.
The body was exhumed Monday afternoon and reburied later in the day in
Mr. Islam's native village, Kaliakoir. He is survived by his wife, two
sons and a daughter.
"We found several marks of wounds from his waist to his foot," Rafiqul
Islam said in a telephone interview. "His big toes and his ankles were
smashed."
The garment industry is Bangladesh's largest industrial employer, with
3.6 million workers. It has been gaining ground as a lower-cost
alternative to the world's leading garment exporter China, where wages
have been rising sharply. Bangladesh is now the second-largest apparel
exporting nation with about $18 billion worth of clothes shipped
abroad last year.
The industry has periodically been shaken by protests and clashes
between workers and the police. But activists say the murder of Mr.
Islam would represent a disturbing escalation in violence.
"We are aware of no recent case of a trade unionist being murdered in
Bangladesh," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights
Consortium, a university-backed workplace monitoring group based in
Washington. "There have been unionists killed in clashes with the
police in the midst of protests, but no recent case of assassination.
Thus, this represents a deterioration of an already grim labor rights
situation in the country."
Workers and labor activists have complained that many Bangladeshi
factories pay wages that are difficult to live on, especially given
the country's 10 percent inflation rate. They have also criticized lax
safety standards that have led to the deaths of dozens of workers in
garment factory fires in recent years.
Still, in spite of the low wages, many workers, especially young women
who make up 80 percent of employees, have flocked to garment
factories, most of which are concentrated in and around Dhaka. They
see the jobs as a way to supplement family incomes, many of which are
still tied to subsistence farming in this country of 160 million.
Walmart and Tommy Hilfiger, in e-mail statements Monday, pledged their
commitment to improving conditions for Bangladeshi workers. H&M did
not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Islam was an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Worker
Solidarity, a group that has argued for higher pay and better working
conditions. The group helped lead protests in 2010 after policy makers
did not increase minimum wages in the garment industry as much as some
workers' groups had wanted.
The government raised the minimum wage to 3,000 taka a month, about
$36 at current exchange rates, from 1,662.50 taka — the first increase
since 2006. Labor leaders like Mr. Islam had demanded an increase to
at least 5,000 taka a month, a figure that many factory owners had
said would put them out of business.
In early 2010, the country's popular prime minister, Sheikh Hasina
Wazed, expressed sympathy for garment factory workers. But after the
government agreed to raise minimum wages to 3,000 taka, she said that
her government would not tolerate any more protests.
Soon after, the police arrested Mr. Islam, along with more than a
dozen other workers and activists. Mr. Islam and several of his
associates were charged with instigating riots — accusations that he
and the others denied. Criminal cases against him and two other senior
labor leaders, Kalpona Akhter and Babul Akter, are pending.
On Monday, Mr. Akter, the president of the Bangladesh Garment and
Industrial Workers Federation, said Mr. Islam's killing was intended
to scare other activists from protesting against the low wages and
working conditions in the industry. But he and other activists said
they would not back down and threatened to organize protests if the
police did not arrest and prosecute the killers.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the
industry's main trade group, called for a full investigation into Mr.
Islam's death on Monday. In Washington, labor rights groups also
called for an investigation and said the United States and
multinational companies should put pressure on Bangladesh to conduct a
thorough and impartial investigation.
Labor leaders have become targets around the world. Human Rights Watch
says that more than 2,880 labor leaders have been murdered in Colombia
since 1986. Labor unions in the United States pointed to those murders
as a reason to block any trade deal with Colombia, but Congress
nevertheless ratified a trade pact with Colombia last October.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Solidarity Center has protested what it says were
the murders of six union activists in Guatemala — all involved in that
country's banana industry — over the past 15 months.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Vikas Bajaj from Mumbai,
India. Steven Greenhouse and Stephanie Clifford contributed reporting
from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/world/asia/bangladeshi-labor-organizer-is-found-killed.html?_r=1
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