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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh 1. Emergence of industrial conflict: unions vs. the owners a. The unionization process and the owners Labour-management relations in the RMG industries are affected by a lack of mutual trust between union leaders and owners. That is why union leaders always try to pursue their unionization process as secretly as possible, while the garment factory owners always try to find out what the federations and garment workers in respective factories are up to. In fact, most of the male federation leaders as well as female unit union leaders whom we interviewed claimed that in order to remain informed of the activities of the federations and their activists, most garment factory owners place people in crucial places both in the factories and at the Directorate of Labour. Tables 8 and 9 explain at what stages and how the owners — according to the federation and unit union leaders — came to know about the unionization processes of our 28 respondent federations and unit unions. It should be mentioned here that none of our respondent owners contradicted the information provided in Tables 8 and 9, which was provided by the federation leaders. In other words, the owners implicitly corroborated the information of Tables 8 and 9 regarding the unionization process. Table 8: The stage at which the owner came to know about the unionization Stage that owners learned about unionization Number of respondent unit unions Before submitting the application to the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 7 After submitting the application to the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 15 After getting Registration Certificate from the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 6 Table 8 supports the contention of our respondents that in seven factories the owners had employed agents provocateurs so that they could know beforehand which workers of their factories were trying to form unit unions, in order to force those workers out from the factories before they could even submit applications for registration to the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions. It was important for the 205
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco owners that, if they had to go for this kind of pre-emptive attack, they did so before the submission of the application for registration, because once the application for registration was submitted, it would have become not only more difficult for the owners to stop the process of unionization but any attempt to do so could have also made them subject to legal prosecution for misconduct under Article 15 of the Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969. As Table 9 further reveals, the owners also had their informants in the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions, who informed the owners as soon as they learned about the submission of the applications for registration. In most cases, the owners then traced the office bearers who were involved in the unionization process and tried to stop the process in various ways. Table 9: How the owners came to know about unionization procedures Channels through which owners came to know about unionization No. of respondent unit unions Through the agents of the owners among the workers 7 Through unofficial channels of the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions 15 Informed by the union leaders themselves after obtaining Registration Certificates 6 We were informed by federations and/or unit level leaders that in the cases that the owners were not informed beforehand of the unionization process, either the office bearers of the unit unions or the federations bribed officials at the Registrar of Trade Unions, or the federations had such political backing that the officials of the Registrar of Trade Unions did not dare to disclose the information to owners. The general response of the owners, as described to us by the federation and unit union leaders, are discussed in Table 10. The majority of our respondent owners did not agree with the information provided in Table 10. Some owners did not contradict the authenticity of the information, but claimed that they themselves never resorted to any such activity. The findings below clearly show that owners used all sorts of possible methods to stop the unionization process, and also to destroy, wherever they could, the unit unions. To achieve their goals, they first tried to employ pressure tactics, including verbal threats, physical 206
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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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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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260 Annex Table 2:Level of wages an
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Women’s employment in the textile
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