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Trade unions, gender issues and the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh membership of 30 per cent of the total number of workers employed in the establishment or group of establishments in which it is formed. The Industrial Relations Ordinance of 1969 also stipulates that nonworker trade unionists cannot become members or office bearers of any trade union unless it is a federation of trade unions. After an application on behalf of a federation or union is submitted, if the Registrar of Trade Unions is convinced that the federation or union has complied with all the requirements of the Industrial Relations Ordinance of 1969, including the minimum membership of 30 per cent, he/she will issue the Registration Certificate. Before issuing the Registration Certificate, the inspectors of the office of the Registrar of Trade Unions will normally try to verify all factual evidence by going to the garment factories. There are allegations that it is at this stage that the owners try to sabotage the whole process of unionization. The Registrar of Trade Unions did not rule out the possibility that some garment factory owners might try to bribe the inspectors so that they do not write positive reports regarding the federations’ and/or unions’ fulfilling all their requirements for obtaining Registration Certificates; however, he claimed that his office always tries to cross-check those reports through other factual evidence before deciding whether or not to issue any such Certificate. The controversy, however, does not end there. The Industrial Relations Ordinance of 1969 also stipulates that the registration of any trade union can be cancelled by the Registrar of Trade Unions after obtaining permission from the Labour Court if, among other things, the membership of that trade union falls short of 30 per cent of the workers of the establishment or group of establishments for which the union was formed. Now, there are also allegations that the owners always try to keep the inspectors in “good humor” so that they always look for excuses to prove that the membership has fallen short of the required 30 per cent. When the author raised this issue with the Registrar of Trade Unions he did admit the possibility that his office may not be in a position to monitor the activities of the trade unions all the time. But he added that if there is a dispute regarding the current legal status of a federation or unit union, his office attempts to resolve the dispute in accordance with the law and to the satisfaction of the parties concerned. If, however, the efforts of his office prove to be futile in resolving union-management disputes, the Directorate of Labour issues a certificate to that effect, and then the concerned parties are free to seek remedies through other legal and judicial procedures. 211
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco 2. The Labour Courts In the event of failure of efforts for resolution of unionmanagement disputes regarding the formation of unions or dismissal of union workers, the Labour Courts are responsible for their disposal following more formal judicial procedures. The verdict of a labour court in a rights dispute is termed a “decision”. All decisions of the Labour Courts are final and cannot be called into question in any manner by, or before, any other court or authority. But the main problem with the compulsory adjudication of the Labour Courts, as some of the garment federation and unit union leaders have pointed out, is that the adjudication can take a long time. In at least three cases for which we were able to trace the final stages of the courts’ proceeding in the 1st and 3rd Labour Courts of Dhaka, the proceedings took seven to nine years before they came to a decision. The reasons for this long delay can be attributed to the enormous number of cases that the three Labour Courts of Dhaka are required to deal with. During the period from August to September in 1996, there were more than 3,000 cases pending in the 1st and 3rd Labour Courts only. Moreover, the penalty for non-compliance with the courts’ orders seems to be very minimal: a maximum three months simple imprisonment or a fine of maximum Tk 1,000. Therefore, many garment factory owners do not take the verdicts of the Labour Courts seriously. V. No easy partners: The structured trade unions and the garment federations and unions of Bangladesh Since the early 1980s, the Government of Bangladesh has adopted a series of structural adjustment programmes. One major effect has been a somewhat lopsided emphasis on the private sector with the hope that, through its profit maximization policies, private enterprises will be able to raise the level of efficiency in industrial management. The major political parties of Bangladesh are now putting more emphasis on the private sector than on the public one. Even the Awami League, the pioneer of the nationalization programme in the early 1970s, has now acknowledged the importance of the private sector, though its party manifesto is still quite vague on issues related to trade unions and labour laws. Equally vague is the party manifesto of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party on issues related to trade unions, 212
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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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Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
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Becoming a garment worker view of t
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Women’s employment in the textile
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