Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh of the predominantly female garment workers in the RMG sector was such that they were not in a position to provide their own leaders, be they at the federation or at the unit union level, because of their lack of experience as new entrants into formal employment, societal vulnerability, and the threat of unemployment, so that it would have been relatively difficult for them to form federations or unit unions without having some interested “outsiders” as their patrons. This assumption seemed to be supported, because legal, political and other support from either various political quarters or from a particular NGO seems to have played a vital role in the formation of most federations. Even the two out of seven federations which grew out of workers’ movements were initially backed by supporters of one leftleaning political party and a left-leaning structured trade union. f. Socio-political background of the founding leaders In order to have a clearer picture of the role played by interested male outsiders in the formation of these federations — whose membership comprised almost exclusively female garment workers — we wanted to know next about the socio-political background of the founding leaders. We were not surprised to find that very few garment workers, particularly female workers, were able to establish federations themselves. Among our seven respondent federations, only in one case (non-registered Federation G) did the leadership come originally from the garment workers themselves, and these leaders, incidentally, were female. However, we must reiterate here that a foreign NGO played a significant role, both in terms of finance and organizational support, in promoting the above-mentioned female leadership. In six other cases, the leadership came either directly from former and active male political activists of various centrist or leftleaning political parties, or from former student leaders or activists (again, mostly male) affiliated with student front organizations of different political parties. It is interesting to note here that none of these political activists and former student leaders had anything to do with the RMG sector or the garment workers until they decided to get involved in garment federations. Some of them were interested in a new kind of trade unionism in this particular export-based private sector out of political conviction, and joined the union movement because of their interest in organizing the female workers oppressed in the labour process and improving labour conditions. However, others joined union organizations, as we understood, with long-term career ambitions in mind, and with the hope of being able to use these federations as 189
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco springboards for reaping the political-economic benefits resulting from increasing international support for NGOs in the developing world. Other leaders, as per our observations, ventured into this new avenue of labour politics primarily to gain political advantage in their own political parties or in the student or labour front organizations of those parties where, otherwise, their status as activists and leaders would have remained rather marginal. The secondary reason for their venturing into RMG labour politics is, again, economic. With the possibility of the emergence of a larger private sector in the horizon, these leaders, by becoming a part of labour-management relationship in that sector, also want to have a say in the state of affairs of the country, where politics has already become a kind of business with two methods of exchange: money and connection. In fact, during interviews, most of the federation leaders blamed each other for misusing their labour organizations for their own personal interests. Some even called the other federations’ leaders agents provocateurs of owners. g. Sources of finance of the federations Our next area of interest was the sources of finance of garment federations. We hypothesized that a vulnerable financial base might have been one of the reasons that federation leaders, as it is often alleged by some of the federation leaders themselves, readily fell for graft. During interviews, we were repeatedly told by most federation leaders that the overall financial situation of the federations was not very sound, but were also told that they had been extending various legal and other material support to their unit unions. During our interview, when we asked the seven respondent federations how they met the costs incurred for supporting unit unions, non-registered Federation E mentioned annual subscriptions by worker-members as its only source of financial earnings. Registered Federation B and registered Federation C identified workers’ subscriptions along with financial contributions from friends and wellwishers as its sources of finance. Non-registered Federation F stated membership fees as its only source of finance, while registered Federation A and non-registered Federation H reported that their money came from friends and well-wishers. Only non-registered Federation G reported that it received financial assistance regularly from a US-based NGO. Its leaders expect this NGO to continue to support it financially until it completes the development of its institutional infrastructure and becomes financially solvent. 190
Page 1 and 2:
Women’s Employment in the Textile
Page 3 and 4:
This United Nations Research Instit
Page 6:
Acknowledgements Many people have b
Page 9 and 10:
notwithstanding the inertia of the
Page 11 and 12:
Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
Page 13 and 14:
xii VII. Contribution of different
Page 15 and 16:
Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
Page 17 and 18:
Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
Page 19 and 20:
Introduction women have been tradit
Page 21 and 22:
Introduction The chapters on Bangla
Page 23 and 24:
Introduction occurs, on average, at
Page 25 and 26:
Introduction women workers related
Page 27 and 28:
Introduction in low-income countrie
Page 29 and 30:
Introduction by repaying their “d
Page 31 and 32:
Introduction participate in labour
Page 33 and 34:
Introduction their bargaining power
Page 35 and 36:
Introduction processing zones hypot
Page 37 and 38:
Introduction IV. The case studies T
Page 39 and 40:
Introduction experience in garment
Page 41 and 42:
Introduction V. Conclusion Although
Page 43 and 44:
Introduction improved technology. T
Page 45 and 46:
Introduction References Afsar, R. (
Page 47 and 48:
Introduction Household Power Relati
Page 49 and 50:
Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Gender and employment in Moroccan t
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Gender dimensions of labour migrati
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Table 1: Total number of male and f
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Table 9: Distribution of the sample
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152: Gender dimensions of labour migrati
Page 165 and 166: Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
Page 167 and 168: Becoming a garment worker garment w
Page 169 and 170: Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
Page 171 and 172: Becoming a garment worker view of t
Page 173 and 174: Becoming a garment worker that time
Page 175 and 176: Becoming a garment worker 2. “I e
Page 177 and 178: Becoming a garment worker out that
Page 179 and 180: Becoming a garment worker being. Th
Page 181 and 182: Becoming a garment worker support t
Page 183 and 184: Becoming a garment worker they firs
Page 185 and 186: Becoming a garment worker V. Conclu
Page 187 and 188: Becoming a garment worker is a job
Page 189 and 190: Becoming a garment worker Endnotes
Page 191 and 192: Becoming a garment worker Cole P. D
Page 193 and 194: Women’s employment in the textile
Page 201: Women’s employment in the textile
Page 253 and 254:
Women’s employment in the textile
Page 255 and 256:
Page 257 and 258:
Page 259 and 260:
Page 261 and 262:
Page 263 and 264:
Page 265 and 266:
Page 267 and 268:
Page 269 and 270:
Page 271 and 272:
258 Women’s employment in the tex
Page 273 and 274:
260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
Page 275 and 276:
show all

Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?