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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh unions, etc. For four other federations, we failed, despite all our efforts, to trace either the office bearers or their offices or to find even one clue regarding their existence. Of the remaining five non-registered federations, one is a comparatively new organization established by a former left-leaning female student leader, which had yet to start any significant activity at the time of the study. A federation we will designate non-registered Federation F is the second best organization among the non-registered federations in terms of organizational activity. Besides providing legal and institutional help to its unit unions, it also conducts, from time to time, it claims, various socio-political and paralegal awarenessbuilding programmes for garment workers. The remaining three federations are mostly engaged in mousumi (seasonal) activities such as organizing rallies and demonstrations in front of factories or the National Press Club, arranging processions to the National Press Club, sending workers’ delegations to the management on behalf of the garment workers in respective factories and so on in times of labourmanagement disputes. c. Interviews with office bearers We interviewed the Presidents and General Secretaries of the three active registered federations, whereas from the unregistered federations, we succeeded in interviewing the office bearers — Presidents or Vice-Presidents and/or General Secretaries — of only four federations. The reason for this is that the office bearers of some seasonally active (mousumi) federations were very busy with their work and other activities. This seemed to consist of participation in the election campaigns of different candidates contesting for national elections for the 7th Parliament at the time of our survey. Some others indirectly refused co-operation despite our repeated attempts to engage them. Consequently, we were able to interview the office bearers of only seven federations altogether. They are designated as the following: 1. Registered Federation A 2. Registered Federation B 3. Registered Federation C 4. Non-registered Federation E 5. Non-registered Federation F 6. Non-registered Federation G 7. Non-registered Federation H 187
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco d. Tapping the gender issues within the federations/unions Besides the office bearers of the federations, who were mostly male, we also sat independently on several occasions with only the unit union leaders, who were mostly female, as well as other female members and supporters of the federations in or outside their office premises. During our group discussions with female members and supporters we asked particularly to what extent their own issues and sentiments — such as, for example, ensuring separate toilets and changing room facilities at the work place, fighting against sexual harassment, ensuring personal security and safety both in and outside the workplace, overcoming various hazards of long working hours, ensuring health and childcare facilities and so on — were echoed in the activities and demand charters of the federations. We also wanted to verify whether any gender subordination existed in the hierarchy of the federations in terms of decision making. While most of the workers spoke positively about the inclusion of “all feasible women’s issues” in the activities and demand charters of the unions, their responses on issues related to gender subordination within the unions were varied. Some were quite ambivalent in their expression of opinions. Some accepted the prevalence of male domination within union leaderships as inevitable given the existing socio-political conditions in Bangladesh which, to their mind, were not conducive to women’s leadership, particularly when it came to industrial dispute resolution. For them, industrial disputes in Bangladesh are always confrontational, and therefore male leaders are better equipped to withstand the management in times of crisis. Some argued that given the opportunity and perhaps a little outside support, women workers would be equally able to lead their unions or federations. In support of their argument they pointed to the fact that both the President and the General Secretary of non-registered Federation G — a federation established with support from an American-based NGO — were women. For the majority of them, however, the issue of leadership within unions or federations did not really matter because the women workers constituted more than 90 per cent of their total membership. e. The garment federations: Formation and network During our interviews with both the federation leaders and general female members, the first thing we wanted to know was how their federations were established and whether there was any political or NGO connection during the inception of any of the federations. The reason for this query was our a priori assumption that the nature 188
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Women’s Employment in the Textile
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This United Nations Research Instit
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Acknowledgements Many people have b
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notwithstanding the inertia of the
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Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
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xii VII. Contribution of different
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Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
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Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
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Introduction women have been tradit
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Introduction The chapters on Bangla
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Introduction occurs, on average, at
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Introduction women workers related
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Introduction in low-income countrie
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Introduction by repaying their “d
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Introduction participate in labour
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Introduction their bargaining power
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Introduction processing zones hypot
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Introduction IV. The case studies T
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Introduction experience in garment
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Introduction V. Conclusion Although
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Introduction improved technology. T
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Introduction References Afsar, R. (
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Introduction Household Power Relati
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Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
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Gender and employment in Moroccan t
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Gender dimensions of labour migrati
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Table 1: Total number of male and f
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Table 9: Distribution of the sample
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258 Women’s employment in the tex
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260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
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