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

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
Two thirds (19) of our respondent unit unions were formed
with the direct initiative and support of the federations. Even those
unit unions (nine) which tried to form their unions independently at
the initial stage, had to seek the help and support of a federation at
one stage or other. Only one succeeded in getting registration but
even it could not sustain the union for long because the owners simply
fired the office bearers on charges of “misconduct”, even though the
Industrial Relations Ordinance of 1969 (Section 15) protected their
jobs as trade union leaders. Subsequently, the office bearers, with the
help of a federation, non-registered Federation F, filed a case at the
First Labour Court. The case is still awaiting judgment.
Table 5:
Present conditions of the respondent registered unions
Present conditions of unit unions
Number of registered unit unions
Still active 2
Still registered but not active 8
Claim to be registered but have no committee 1
Cases pending in labour courts 2
The federation and unit union leaders indicated in interviews
that, among the 28 respondent unit unions, only 13 unions (12 from
the 19 federation-initiated unions and one from the nine
independently formed unions) were able to complete the full
registration process and had succeeded in getting registration (Table
5). In the two factories where the units unions were still found to be
active despite continuous harassment on the part of the management,
the unit union leaders were successful in getting recognition from
their owners as legitimate collective bargaining agents. Not only that,
they have also successfully negotiated with the owners on behalf of
the workers on issues related to timely payment of wages and
improvement of the working environment in their respective factories.
Among the 14 unit unions where registration procedures were
claimed to be fruitless by the federation and unit union leaders, in
five cases the registration procedure was stopped due to “harassment”
by the owner. In the remaining nine cases, the applications for
registration were rejected by the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions
on what the federation and unit union leaders called “flimsy grounds”.
The primary reasons for inactivation and non-existence of nine
unit unions, as portrayed in Table 6, were both the voluntary migration
(for better job prospects) and forced migration (due to the fear of
harassment) of the office bearers of various unit unions.
200