Bangladesh’s Garment Sector Grapples With More Unrest
Vandalism and violence in Bangladesh that drove almost 170 garment factories in the industrial areas of Ashulia, Gazipur and Savar to suspend production this week is being instigated by “outsiders” who are “trying to create chaos,” the head of the country’s apex trade group said on Wednesday.
“These outsiders are posing significant challenges to the smooth operation of factories,” Khandoker Rafiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) told reporters at the organization’s headquarters in Dhaka.
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But the factories, buoyed by assurances of safety and security by law enforcement agencies, including the Bangladeshi army, will reopen Thursday morning, Islam said. He said that garment workers weren’t involved in the demonstrations. Rather, they were trying to protect their facilities from the “jhut traders, political activists and other vested quarters.”
“They are not only trying to destabilize the RMG sector, but to create instability throughout the country,” said Abdullah Hil Rakib, senior vice president at the BGMEA and managing director at TEAM Group, using an acronym for ready-made garments. “When factories manage to fend off one group of outsiders, large numbers often arrive to launch follow-up attacks, leading to factory closures.”
Islam similarly hit out at what he characterized as baseless accusations against BGMEA office bearers, including those named in a case filed over the weekend on behalf of a rickshaw driver who was shot in the face during the anti-discrimination movement.
“The case alleges involvement in a serious incident during a student protest, naming several BGMEA leaders who have no connection to the events in question,” he wrote in an emailed statement. “These accusations are unfounded and seem to be a deliberate attempt to damage the reputations of individuals who have no political affiliations and are committed to ethical business practices.”
This isn’t the first time BGMEA officials have been linked to a crime. SM Mannan Kochi, who helmed the trade group for five months before stepping down in late August in favor of Islam, citing the need for long-term medical treatment, is the subject of several complaints, including one for murder, according to local media. Kochi also served as general secretary of the Awami League’s Dhaka City North arm, a fact that has led a group of BGMEA members to accuse his faction of rigging the March elections that awarded it with a clean sweep. Faisal Samad, managing director of Savartex Group and a former BGMEA vice president who ran against Kochi, is among those calling for a dissolution of the current board.
The renewed trouble for Bangladesh’s economic tentpole, which accounts for nearly 85 percent of its $55 billion in annual exports, comes amid a fragile transition period for the South Asian nation, whose interim government is still struggling to restore some semblance of stability after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s unexpected flight following escalating protests over the then-ruling Awami League’s increasingly autocratic rule last month.
Hasina’s increasingly deadly crackdowns on civilians, many of them students who originally challenged the renewal of quotas in public-sector jobs, included nationwide curfews and a lengthy communications blackout that garment makers say cost them $150 million a day in lost business. Recent monsoon floods that disrupted import-export activities at Bangladesh’s already congested ports have further drawn out delays, which many fear could imperil future orders from international brands and retailers whose confidence in the country’s ability to deliver is already on marshy ground.
And as members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and what remains of the Awami League jostle for power, garment workers continue to be caught in the middle, insiders say.
“It seems very political,” one garment manufacturer told Sourcing Journal. “We’re hoping within the next day or two things will be resolved. That’s really the focus of this moment.”
Another factory executive, who likewise asked not to be named for fear of backlash, blamed members of the Ansar, a paramilitary auxiliary force that has been seeking the nationalization of its position.
“You might know some groups always try to catch fish in troubled waters,” the person said. “They chose the time of interim government for that as they thought it was an opportune moment to pressure the transition government.”
Another issue is that a decade-and-a-half of the Awami League’s “dictator regime” has left behind too many grievances and too few meaningful outlets for redress, said M. Azizul Islam, professor of sustainability accounting and transparency at the University of Aberdeen Business School. This includes garment workers, who took to the streets last year to demand a minimum wage that could meet the demands of spiraling inflation.
“The central problem is every deprived person is seeking justice without understanding the capacity of government and industry at the moment,” Islam said. “Workers were deprived of their rights by the autocratic regime for the past 15 years. Now when they see [there is an] interim government, their expectation on this government to fix labor issues, including their wages, is high.”
Local media reported this week that some of the disputes involved workers demanding a 10 percent annual increase in pay, a higher food allowance, attendance bonuses and the recruitment of more male employees. Others centered on the restoration of lost jobs.
But some of the demands are so “illogical” that they must be coming from outside groups who “don’t want the peace of the sector and the country,” said Mohiuddin Rubel, a BGMEA director and an additional managing director at Denim Expert. Wages for July have been paid in full, he noted, and Bangladesh’s central bank has agreed to provide a soft loan to help factory owners pay workers’ salaries for August. At the same time, if factories cannot stay open, no amount of soft loans will help, he added.
“We believe that our chief advisor is an internationally acclaimed person, so we are hopeful that his expert participation shall improve the economic situation of the business with the U.S.A. and the European Union largely,” Rubel said of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate who has been tasked with getting Bangladesh back on track. “But if the situation of the country persists, it will be challenging to regain the original state. So the most important call is to improve the law and order situation right away, which we trust the government will overcome soon.”
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