Who represents garment workers?
Syed Fattahul Alim
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| Photo: STAR |
What is happening in the garment sector? The garment workers have grown restive and violence-prone even after the announcement of the minimum wage for the workers by the government in concurrence with the owners of garment and knitwear industries.
We witnessed their madness in Gazipur and in the capital on the day following announcement of the minimum wage (Friday). They rampaged through the roads and damaged vehicles plying the roads in the Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Banani, ransacked roadside shops and looted many of those.
The manner in which the violence broke out raised many eyebrows. The police, the garment industry leaders and even some labour leaders disapproved of the way the garment workers went ahead with their destructive activities, rejecting the just announced minimum wage structure at Tk.3,000 and demanding Tk.5,000 as the minimum wage instead. The government is of the view that outside forces are behind this anarchy in the garment sector.
Meanwhile, the violence spread to Ashulia in Savar and Narayanganj on Saturday. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has issued stern warning against the troublemakers, who, she said, were out to foil the trial of the war criminals.
After Friday's outburst in the capital and Gazipur, even some well-meaning people were suspicious of the identity of the violent demonstrators. Were all of them garment workers or were they hired goons of the vested quarters? Some of them questioned.
The government leaders have already pointed their accusing finger at the main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami. But after further intensification and spread of the garment sector violence on Saturday, the nature of the demonstration took a fresh twist.
The demonstrators, who blocked traffic movement on the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road for more than three hours, were protesting against the arrest of Montu Ghosh, adviser to the Garment Sramik Trade Union Kendra and general secretary of the Narayanganj district unit of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).
What is more, thousands of workers came out from dozens of garment factories in Ashulia of Savar and engaged themselves in pitched battles with the police, causing injuries to hundreds of workers and police.
The entire development testified to the fact that the violent demonstrators were not outsiders. And there was no mistaking the fact that they were demonstrating against the declared minimum wage structure.
And seeing that well-known trade union leaders are also supporting the garment workers' agitation, it becomes still harder to dismiss the latest eruption of militant demonstration and violence by the garment workers as purely the work of outside agents.
The scale and spread of the workers' agitation and violence in the garment industry is unquestionably an alarming turn of events. The violence that often broke out before were in most cases triggered by rumour over the captivity or death of their colleagues at the hands of the bullies engaged by the factory management. Sudden lockout of a factory by the management was also another reason for the wildcat agitation of the workers that took destructive form.
To be more to the point, the garment workers in those situations behaved like violent mobs as they lacked any leadership. Neither were they guided by any specific agenda.
The allegation of outside intervention to destroy Bangladesh's thriving garment industry was also being made in the case of those outbreaks of violence. And such allegations had justification in those cases.
But when the agitations were evidently driven by legitimate demands of the workers, for example, raise in pay, then the argument that outside agents are out to destroy the industry loses much of its ground.
But still one can hardly justify why the workers' agitation for higher pay or benefits should take such destructive form, especially when one sees that the workers are destroying the factories that provide them their bread.
Again, the violence that has erupted after the declaration of the minimum wage by the government raises more questions than it answers. The government made the announcement after it had discussed the issue with labour leaders and leaders of the garment industry.
Why, then, should the garment workers engage in such violence the very next day after the announcement? Were not the workers properly informed by the labour leaders about the minimum wage announcement? For one could notice a sense of frustration and desperation in the behaviour of the angry workers.
There is clearly a serious information gap between workers and their putative leaders who represented them at the talks with government and of course the industry management. The argument gets more credence when one hears complaint from the agitating workers that they have been betrayed.
Who betrayed them? With whom then the government and the industry leaders talked as workers' representatives when the minimum wage was being fixed?
To all appearances, the garment workers are not being properly represented during any talks, either with factory owners or the government. And this single factor apparently lies behind all the confusion, fears and uncertainties, and the resulting chaos in the industry.
So, the government, the industry leaders and all others concerned must first ensure that the workers are being properly represented during any deal with the factory management, or the industry leaders or the government. That calls for the growth of healthy trade unions in the industry.
Strikes, demonstrations or any other form of workers' movement would take organised shape only when those are guided by proper leadership. Otherwise, it becomes an amorphous and chaotic mob. And the industry then turns into a happy hunting ground of the outside agents who have an axe to grind.
Syed Fattahul Alim is a senior journalist
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