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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh and Establishments. According to those owners, the inspectors are busier collecting “tolls” from the garment factory owners than checking the real conditions of the factories. In this connection, one owner compared the role of the Inspectors of Factories and Establishments with the inspectors of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority who are responsible for providing “Fitness Certificates” for automobiles. He added that no inspector would issue a “Fitness Certificate” even for a brand new car unless he received something in cash from the owner of the car. Likewise, no Inspector of Factories and Establishments would be satisfied with the prevailing conditions and working environment of any factory — however excellent the condition of that factory might be — until and unless he receives a significant cash contribution from the owner. Consequently, as he argued, for some garment factory owners it really did not matter whether or not the working conditions in their factories were up to the standard, for they would have to pay a few thousand taka monthly to the inspectors in any case. Most of our respondent owners refuted the allegations of the federation and unit union leaders that they resorted to all kinds of intimidation tactics to sabotage the unionization process in RMG industries. Rather, they mentioned the preoccupation of the garment workers, and their high turnover rates as the two most important factors hindering the process of unionization. As far as existing labourmanagement relationships in the garment industries are concerned, most of the owners indicated that they maintained contacts with the general workers primarily through the floor supervisors and/or production managers. Only two owners claimed that they sat with the workers in general meetings at least once a month. Two other owners claimed that they always encouraged the general workers to come to them, with prior appointments, whenever necessary. Regarding the linkage of wages with labour productivity, most garment factory owners opined that the RMG industries’ capacity to pay the workers a minimum wage should be linked to their profitability, which, again, depended on the prices of their products relative to material input prices, and on labour productivity trends. However, the owners were divided on the issue of providing wages on the basis of piece rate work. Some favoured the idea but others expressed apprehensions that this would increase the cost of supervision. The reason for this is the fact that in RMG industries the workers work in an assembly line according to their job specialization, and a piece rate work wage system would require much better coordination in terms of speed and specialization. Federation leaders 209
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco and garment workers were also equally divided on the issue of piece rate work. For some garment workers, the main benefit of a piece rate work was that it would make their work more quantifiable in terms of production performance and therefore would make it easier to link performance with the wage structure as well as the pay for overtime. It would also help to take into consideration the existence of different levels of expertise in the work force, and the value of overtime work could then be measured in terms of production rates instead of time frames. Others, however, argued that the piece rate wages would work to the disadvantage of workers because, in the name of differentiating between different levels of expertise in the work force, the owners would simply manipulate the principle of “equal wages for equal work” to their advantage and, if and when necessary, try to play one worker against the other. IV. Watching from the sideline: The so-called resolution of rights disputes Rights disputes relate to conflicts over matters of rights resulting from contractual relationships, which may include grievances with respect to unfair treatment, denial of entitlements as well as unjustified punishments (Pakistan Labour Policy 1969). Such disputes may be either individual or collective, but more frequently these are individual cases. As far as unionization in RMG industries is concerned, two state machineries are involved: 1) the Directorate of Labour, and 2) Labour Courts. 1. Directorate of Labour In conformation with the requirements of ILO Conventions No. 87 and 98, Bangladeshi workers and employers have been granted the right to establish and join associations of their choice without permission from any authority. Further, they have the right to draw up their own constitutions, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organize their programmes, and to establish and join federations, confederations and international organizations of workers and employers. There are no restrictions or requirements to form and organize an association. It is only when an association is to be registered as a trade union that certain requirements must be met. Among these requirements, the most important one, under the Industrial Relations Ordinance of 1969, is that it must have a minimum 210
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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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Table 9: Distribution of the sample
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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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Becoming a garment worker garment w
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Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
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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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