Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...
Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...
Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...
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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh<br />
1. Emergence of industrial conflict: unions vs. the owners<br />
a. The unionization process and the owners<br />
Labour-management relations in the RMG industries are affected<br />
by a lack of mutual trust between union leaders and owners. That is<br />
why union leaders always try to pursue their unionization process as<br />
secretly as possible, while the garment factory owners always try to<br />
find out what the federations and garment workers in respective<br />
factories are up to. In fact, most of the male federation leaders as well<br />
as female unit union leaders whom we interviewed claimed that in<br />
order to remain in<strong>for</strong>med of the activities of the federations and their<br />
activists, most garment factory owners place people in crucial places<br />
both in the factories and at the Directorate of Labour. Tables 8 and 9<br />
explain at what stages and how the owners — according to the<br />
federation and unit union leaders — came to know about the<br />
unionization processes of our 28 respondent federations and unit<br />
unions. It should be mentioned here that none of our respondent<br />
owners contradicted the in<strong>for</strong>mation provided in Tables 8 and 9, which<br />
was provided by the federation leaders. In other words, the owners<br />
implicitly corroborated the in<strong>for</strong>mation of Tables 8 and 9 regarding<br />
the unionization process.<br />
Table 8:<br />
The stage at which the owner came to know about the<br />
unionization<br />
Stage that owners learned<br />
about unionization<br />
Number of respondent unit unions<br />
Be<strong>for</strong>e submitting the application to the<br />
office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 7<br />
After submitting the application to the<br />
office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 15<br />
After getting Registration Certificate<br />
from the office of the Registrar of<br />
Trade Unions 6<br />
Table 8 supports the contention of our respondents that in seven<br />
factories the owners had employed agents provocateurs so that they<br />
could know be<strong>for</strong>ehand which workers of their factories were trying<br />
to <strong>for</strong>m unit unions, in order to <strong>for</strong>ce those workers out from the<br />
factories be<strong>for</strong>e they could even submit applications <strong>for</strong> registration<br />
to the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions. It was important <strong>for</strong> the<br />
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