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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh assault, and intimidation through hired musclemen. If these pressure tactics failed to bear any fruit, they tried to stop the process simply by bribing influential federation and/or unit union leaders. When that ploy did not work, they started filing criminal charges against union leaders so that they could harass them with the help of the police. Since most of the unit union leaders were female and also often poor, they could not withstand such pressure indefinitely. In the end, many unit leaders left the factories. The unions, if constituted but not yet registered, ceased to exist. In other cases, the owners simply dismissed union leaders. It was often quite easy for owners to dismiss union leaders because many union leaders did not have proper appointment letters, and hence no proof that they were working in a particular factory. If the unions were registered, the owners sometimes Table 10: Immediate response of the owners toward unionization process Owners’ reactions to unionization process 1) Verbal threats; plus 2) Physical assaults; plus 3) Threatening through hired musclemen; plus 4) Filing false criminal charges; plus 5) Dismissing main leaders without compensation on charges of “gross insubordination”. 1) Verbal threats; plus 2) Physical assaults; plus 3) Threatening through hired musclemen; plus 4) Firing the main leaders with compensation on charges of “misconduct”. 1) Verbal threats; plus 2) Physical assaults; plus 3) Bribing the main leaders. 1) Verbal threats; plus 2) Physical assaults; plus 3) Threatening through hired musclemen; plus 4) Police harassment with false criminal charges; plus 5) Compelling the main leaders, through various means, to give up their jobs 1) Verbal threats; plus 2) Physical assaults; plus 3) Threatening through hired musclemen; plus 4) Firing the main leaders with compensation on charges of “misconduct”; plus 5) Fulfilling some demands. 1) Laying-off. 1) Transferring ownership and/or selling factories. 1) Forming counter unions. Number of respondent unions 6 3 2 4 5 3 2 3 207
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco tried to fire union leaders with packages of three months’ wage compensation. However, in some cases where the unions were very strong and the general workers were united, the owners either declared a lock-out of the factories or met, at least for the time being, some demands of the workers. b. The owners’ attitudes toward trade unions Irrespective of their educational, socio-cultural and economic background, most of the garment factory owners seem to have a very negative attitude toward the existing garment federations and their affiliated unit unions. The root cause of this negative attitude seems to be grounded in their perceptions of trade unionism which, again, emanates from what they have seen of the activities of the trade unions in the public sector. According to most of our respondent owners, the Bangladeshi entrepreneur involved in RMG industries at the moment faces a few common labour-related problems. These are: 1) lack of discipline among workers, 2) workers not committed to productivity, 3) illegal and unreasonable demands placed by representatives of garment workers, 4) an unfavourable labour code that specifies privileges but does not spell out duties of workers, 5) politicization of trade unions, 6) multiplicity of federations and unit level unions, and consequent rivalries between them, and 7) too many work stoppages. Under these conditions, according to some of our respondent garment factory owners, the situation is not yet ripe to allow fullfledged unionism in a nascent industrial sector like RMG. However, three of our respondent owners claimed that they would have no objection to unit unions if they were formed independently, and not through what they called the instigation of outsiders or “professional trade unionists”. But before these unions are formed, the workers must be properly educated regarding existing labour laws, basic rights, and inalienable obligations so that they cannot easily be manipulated by “professional unionists” with vested interests. These owners suggested that NGOs might like to develop awareness-building programmes for female garment workers which could provide education about their legal rights. They also suggested that there should be provision for on-the-job training programmes for garment workers but that these should be linked to their duration of service. Most of our respondent owners admitted that many garment factories do not have a proper working environment and adequate facilities for workers. But for that they squarely put the blame on the “corrupt” inspectors from the office of the Chief Inspector of Factories 208
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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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Becoming a garment worker garment w
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Women’s employment in the textile
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