Labor Union in the RMG sector - 1

Research Paper

Labor unions in the garment factories in Bangladesh

Abdullah Al Habib
(071 398 030)

English 105. Section 7

Faculty : MkS
August 17, 2010
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 2

Abstract
The working condition of the workers is not satisfactory in Bangladesh and they suffer

from low wage rate and poor safety measures. The labor unions which have been

established due this unsatisfactory condition could not improve it either. The research is

based on analyzing the current working condition of the labors and also why the labor

unions are failing to propose a suitable solution. Both primary research and secondary

research was done for the paper. Workers were surveyed through a questionnaire and

interviews were taken. From the analysis it is found that the owners are not concern about

the work environment and the labor unions are failing due to lack of skill of the union

leaders and corruption. The literacy rate of the workers also has an affect, since it is low.

The industry as well as the country might suffer if this persist.

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Chapter 1: Introduction
Bangladesh had entered the RMG industry in the late1970s. It was a prospering

sector to invest in and government considering the long team economic benefit of the

country as well as the opportunity this sector could create for the country, the government

waived many laws including labor laws in favour of the garment factories in order to give

the industry a chance to flourish. The entry in the RMG industry was made right after the

Liberation War, when the economic development in the country was very slow and it was

going through a bad economic phase. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics

(1991), the growth rate of Bangladesh was over 4.75 per cent from 1975-80, which

however slowed down considerably to an average of only around 3.8 percent in the

1980s. Both the poor economic condition and the waived labor laws were responsible for

creating an unsatisfactory working condition for the workers. The workers were deprived

of many privileges, so that the industry could grow at the expense of the workers.

Today, the RMG sector accounts for more than 70 percent of the country’s

foreign earnings. The industry is in good shape but the workers are still enduring the

same treatment as before. The working conditions of many garment factories are still

unsatisfactory and sometimes the conditions are life-threatening. As stated by Islam

(2005, January 5) “The garment workers of Bangladesh may be the most deprived labor

force in the world”. The minimum wage rate was $25 or Tk.1662 per month previously

which currently rose to only Tk.3000 or $45 per month in 2010, whereas the inflation rate

has increases by much more than 80% in the past 5 to 10 years. The workers in the

garment industry are deprived from a living wage.

 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 4

In his article, Islam (2005) states that international standards are not maintained

and many factories do not implement health and safety measures. The workers are still

poorly paid and are forced to work overtime without any incremental payment or weekly

day off in many cases. They are routinely fired, harassed, threatened and beaten on a

regular basis.

So in response to the labor condition, a few labor unions were established, but

most of them were related to the political parties, favoring only the workers belonging to

that party and the numbers of independent labor unions were very few.

The working conditions of the workers are still not improving even after the

introduction of the labor union. There is also a concern that labor unions are failing due

to corruption as many experts and journalist identified it as the main reason behind the

failure of the labor unions. Through this report I hope to identify the reasons why the

overall working conditions of the garment factories are not improving.

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Chapter 2: Background
Early during the Industrialization period it was soon understood, that there will

always be conflict of interest between the employers and the blue collar labors. For the

industry to flourish the workers interest in certain areas must be overlooked. According to

Marx (1867), a German philosopher and economist, “Capital is dead labour, that,

vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it

suck…”, he also added that interests of capital and the interests of the wage-labour are

‘diametrically’ opposed to each other. By capital he meant the government, who owned

all the assets, that is the factories, offices, etc of the country according to socialism which

was also suggested by Marx (1867) himself. Concisely, an employer will always try to

exploit the workers for their own benefit.

Soon the workers began to feel that they need unite among themselves to have a

better bargaining power to communicate and negotiate their problems with the

employers. Thus the idea of a forming a labor union was born.

Webb and Webb (1894) had described trade union as a ““a continuous association

of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their

working lives”. Through a labor union, the labors can bargain and ensure their status,

rights, wages and demand. It is a worker’s right to be part of a labor union, and

depending on their will they may or may not be part of a labor union, as suggested by

Crane and Matten (2007).

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A labor union is formed as per the Trade Unions Act, 1926. According to the act

any group on organization whether temporary or permanent formed for the purpose of

regulating the relations between workers and employers is a labor union.

In Bangladesh forming and joining a labor union is a constitutional right

according to the Constitution of People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Considering the low

wage rate and the poor working condition of the employees labor unions where

established in response to the working. Most of the unions are limited to the public sector

or state-controlled enterprises, but trade unions in the private sector are practically

banned.

Bangladesh stepped into the RMG industry in the year 1978. Since the labor laws

were waived by the government to give the industry a chance to grow, the labors were

deprived of many privileges. Now, more than three quarters of Bangladesh’s export

earnings come from the garment industry, which began attracting foreign investors due to

cheap labor and low conversion cost, which is described by Crane and Matten (2007) as

the race to the bottom effect. The race to the bottom effect is when foreign investors look

for alternatives to reduce their cost by outsourcing it to the developing countries; those

developing countries usually have a competitive edge in producing cheap labor and can

offer the lowest price. In 2002, the industry exported US$5 billion worth of products. The

industry now employs more than 3 million workers, 90% of whom are women.

As the industry developed itself and reached its full potential in the following

years, the working condition of the labors still remains unsatisfactory. The labors in the

garment factories have to work in life-threatening working conditions. They are poorly
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 7

paid, and are forced to do overtime. Many female workers are denied maternity leave or

flexible working hours, where as 85 percent of the workers are women.

Though many labor unions are formed in response to these problems, but the

improvement of the working conditions for the workers are still elusive. The labor unions

are mainly failing due to the labor union leaders, as suggested by Ali and Andaleeb

(2008, May 4). They write “it has been open secret trade unions leaders are mostly

corrupt”. They are mostly working for the fulfillment of their personal interest.

“The literacy rate of the workers is also adding up to the pressure, since it is

considerably poor, the workers are easily manipulated” as stated by Syed Hamidul

Karim, manager of Arunima Apparels Ltd, a sister concern of Rising Group. He was

interviewed regarding the research topic, he said that the labor union leaders use the

workers and call for strikes for serving the leader’s personal interest; it is use as a weapon

to threat the factory owners to comply with the leader’s personal demands, this scenario

persist in most cases.

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Chapter 3: Research questions and Hypothesis

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

 Do the garment factories have labor unions?

 If not, do they need labor unions?

 What is the viewpoint of garment workers regarding labor union?

 What is the employer’s perspective regarding labor union?

 Are the working conditions satisfactory?

 If not, what are the reasons behind the failure to improve the working conditions?

 What kind of problems is faced by garment workers in their workplaces?

 Can a labor union solve the difficulties in workplace faced by the workers?

 Does a labor union act as a communication link between the workers and

employers?

HYPOTHESIS

There are quite a few labor unions in the garment sector in Bangladesh that are

currently working for the welfare of the workers. Among them The National Garment

Workers Federation (NGWF), Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union

Federation (BIGUF) and Bangladesh Garment & Industrial Workers Federation

(BGIWF) are the ones that solely concern with the garment industry.

The workers are constantly suffering from health hazards due to the poor safety

measures, and sometimes they even get killed for the risky structure of the factories.

Despite such risk and hard work the labors are mistreated and poorly paid. If the workers
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 9

try to stand up and protest against this injustice they are fired and blacklisted so that they

are not recruited by other factories. A labor union is created so that the workers can

negotiate with the employers through their collective bargaining power and improve the

working condition. So considering the working condition in Bangladesh, labor unions are

very much needed.

Though being part of a labor union is a worker’s right and though it is not at all

illegal, many workers are scared of joining a labor union due to fear of losing jobs, being

victims of misbehavior in the hands of the employer or getting blacklisted.

In the context of Bangladesh, it is often heard that the factory owners are accusing

labor union leaders for creating an aggressive attitude in the workers’ mind for the

leader’s personal interest. They also complain that labor unions in garment factories do

not collaborate with the workers in many occasions and bargains more than is applicable.
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 10

Chapter 4: Research Methodology

For this research paper both secondary and primary data were used. The primary

research consisted of analysis of data that was acquired by means of a survey and

interviews. The survey was planned for the workers in garment factories through a

questionnaire to find out the difficulties they face in their workplace and also their views

concerning labor union and whether established labor unions are able to solve their read

problems and defend their rights. The worker were suppose to answer the questionnaire

themselves but due to the constraint that they could not read English and it was also

difficult finding suitable candidate for the questionnaire when it was translated it Bengali,

so instead of a questionnaire survey, thirty randomly chosen workers were interviewed

separately and the questionnaire was filled up according to their response.

A top management official of a garment factory was interviewed for the research

paper though initially, the interview was planned for the owner of a garment factory. The

interviewee Syed Hamidul Karim, manager of Arunima Apparels Ltd. discussed different

aspects regarding labor union and the impact of having labor union in an organization.

Since the interview with a labor union leader could not be done due to some constrain a

labor committee member of the same factory was interviewed.

As for my secondary source for the research paper, most of the articles were

collected from the internet which included newspaper articles, journals and research

paper of other authors that was related to the research topic. Ideas and concept from two

books and a book review was also used in the research paper.
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Chapter 5: Analysis and Findings

The analysis was done by surveying 30 garment workers. The overall result of the

respondents is discussed in this section. Among the 30 interviewee, 18 were women

workers and the other 12 were men. The age range of most of the workers, who are

surveyed, is within 18-40 years and almost all of them were working in the garment

industry for more then 3 years. The employment periods of the workers were the

maximum in 5-10 year category. For details please refer to the bar chart in the appendix.

Among the workers who were interviewed only 7 workers were member of a

labor union, and 3 of them were not a member of a labor union but a labor committee. A

labor committee is like a labor union is essence, its sole purpose is to protect the right and

to improve the working condition of the workers but they are deprived of some rights that

a labor union enjoys. It is a committee consisting of members from both the top

management and the workers. Most workers did not give any reasons for being part of a

labor union. Most of the workers who were not a member of any form of labor union did

not join the labor union mostly because it is of no use and they were also not very

interested to join. From their interview it seems they were reluctant to join since most of

thought it was quite unnecessary.

The difficulties that most workers faced in their work place were delay of

payment and unavailability of safety precaution, though many workers complained that

the wage scale is inappropriate compared to the work done. The average wage rate is

below the standard of a living wage, that is their wage is so low that it is difficult for

them to maintain their family life.

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How often workers face difficulties in workplace

12

10
No. of workers

0
Almost always Very often Often Rarely Never

The graph above shows how often does garment workers face difficulty is their

workplaces. The graph shows that 10 people out of the 30 workers who are surveyed

think that they rarely face any difficulties and 11 of them never face any difficulty in their

workplaces. There is only 2 respondent in the ‘very often’ segment and 6 in the ‘often’

segment.

The workers who rarely faced problems say that most of the problems were

unavoidable and bound to happen in any organization. Problems they faces apart from the

delay in their payments are mainly disorder in the production systems, which is more

related to the efficiency and skill of the labors then the fact that it is regarded as a

employers’ fault. Personality clashes between the workers themselves or the supervisor

is also very common. The more common types of problem that the workers face is

difficulty in flexible working hours and leave for personal reasons during peak

production period, or when significant number of workers are on leave.

Other than these problems, very few workers in the other to categories faced

unhealthy working condition and misbehavior by supervisor or employer.

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Alaborunioncanimprovetheworkingconditionofthe
workers

12 11
No. of workers

10 9
8
8
6
4
2
2
0
0
Strongly Agree Agree No opinion Disagree Strongly
disagree

The graph shows whether the workers believe that the labor union can improve

the working condition in Bangladesh. As we can see from the graph that most people

have responded by saying that they disagree with the statement a labor union can improve

the working condition and nine people have no opinion regarding whether labor union

would be beneficial for improving the condition or not. They might have had no opinion

because they are happy with the current working condition or they are not sure whether

labor union would help or not.

Only 2 of the respondent agree with that a labor union can improve the work

environment. They think so perhaps because they might have faced or have heard people

facing difficult situation where the intervention by a labor union helped to improve the

condition.

Eleven of the respondent disagrees and eight people strongly disagree with the

fact that a labor union can improve the working condition. They think that labor union

leaders only pursue their self interest they have faced situation where the labor union

failed to help them.

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The graph above shows the workers attitude towards labor union, union leader

and the work environment. Most of the respondents have a negative attitude towards

labor union and union leader and a positive attitude towards the work environment. The

following table will help to understand the attitude of the workers and also relation

between the attitude towards labor union and the other two.

Labor Union -0.8000

Union Leader -0.9333
Work Environment 0.8778
Correlation (Labor Union and work Environment) -0.8798
Correlation (Labor Union and union leader) 0.7154

It can be seen from the table that the correlation between the attitude of workers

towards labor union and work environment is negative, that is they are strongly

negatively correlated. This implies that if the working condition or the work environment

which consist of all the factors such as having better safety measure, healthy environment

and supporting and understanding employer is satisfactory to the worker than the need for

going to or forming a labor union is less. A satisfied worker will not be too willing to join
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 15

a labor union since it is not necessary for the worker to achieve his personal interest. On

the other hand unsatisfied workers would be willing accept any help they can get from

improving their working condition.

There is strong positive correlation between the attitude of the workers towards

labor union and that of the union leader. It is so because the effectiveness of a union is

judged by the efficiency of the union leader, who is representing of the labor union. If the

workers perceived that the union leaders are not truthful to their cause, the workers will

have a negative attitude towards the leader as well labor union itself. Many experts feel

that the workers are manipulated by the union leaders for their own personal interest and

they are highly indulge in corruption.

The values in the above table are calculated by assigning different values within a

scale of -2 to +2 to the different questions in the questionnaire. The questions are grouped

together accordingly and the average of the grouped questions is calculated to find the

attitude of the workers regarding the different aspects discussed above. For example

The question in the questionnaire “To what extent do you think a labor union leader

collaborates with its members?’ and “Do you think the labor union leaders are acting as a

good representative on your behalf?” are used to calculate the attitude of the workers

towards union leaders. The options scaled with the most positive option being +2 and the

negative being -2. The average value of the answers of the both questions is the value to

represent the attitude of the workers. The mean of all such values gives the overall

attitude of the respondents.

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Interviews

According to Syed Hamidul Karim, manager of Arunima Apparels Ltd, in

Bangladesh having a labor union in any organization has a more adverse effect than

positive ones. He believes that the union leaders are not well educated in most cases and

lacks the skill to negotiate with the employers to achieve the best outcome for the

workers. They are more concern about their personal interest. He thinks that the way they

handle any issues or problems of the labors is better than having a labor union. The

literacy rate of the workers is also adding up to the pressure, since it is considerably poor,

the workers are easily manipulated. The strikes that are caused by the union leaders are

called only to pursue their own needs, these strikes are crippling the overall garment

industry, and the country is losing potential foreign investors and income sources. All

these factors are the reason for the failure of a labor union in Bangladesh.

They have introduced the idea of a labor committee due to the pressure from

foreign buyers and also seeing the need for a reporting channel so that the workers can

have a better work environment. He thinks in context of Bangladesh it is the best possible

solution for improving the working conditions of the labors.

A labor committee is a group which is formed by people who are from the top

management of the organization and a few workers are in that committee. The committee

has regular weekly meeting where all the different issues and complains of the workers

are discussed and a possible solution is prescribed. The only difference a committee has

from labor union is that it does not have the right to do unofficial meetings and also they

are deprived from having the right to call for strike.

 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 17

A committee member, who is also a garment worker, was interviewed to

understand the functioning of the committee. The interviewee Laili Begum, an operator

said that the members of the committee is selected through a voting process, the workers

select the ones, who according to them would be suitable for the role. The members are

reelected after every two years; it is done too avoid any form of biasness or corruption.

The workers are encouraged to report to the committee about any problems they

face in the work place. If the workers wants to be anonymous while reporting a problem,

there is a complain box in the restrooms where the workers can drop their complain

letters in the box. The box is weekly checked for any complains and suitable corrective

actions are taken to correct the issues.

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Chapter 6: Recommendation
Steps should be taken by the workers, employers and authority to improve the

current condition of the labors. The labor unions can be more efficient if all the

stakeholders come together to diminish the causes of the failure to improve the working

condition of the workers such as corruption and lack of knowledge of the workers and

union leaders as well as of the owners. A healthy democracy should be established in the

country so that the labor can enjoy their fundamental rights to form any trade union. The

workers should be trained so that the cost of related to inefficiency is minimized.

The union leaders should be more accountable to the workers. The decisions

taken by the union leaders should be made discussed and approved by the workers. There

should some kind of regulatory body, so that the workers can take action again the union

leaders if they are involved in corruption.

The employers can encourage the workers to discuss their problems directly to

them. They can form a committee with members consisting of both workers and higher

management officials to discuss different issues relating to their problems. They can have

an anonymous reporting system for the labors, so that they present their problems to the

authority directly.

The foreign buyers have a huge role to play to improve the working conditions of

the workers. They should not look for only cheap labors but also quality and pay more to

the factories, so that they can maintain a higher wage rate. It would be possible if the

developing countries form an association and charge a fair price to the foreign buyers, so

that they can pay higher wage to the workers

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Chapter 7: Conclusion
The unsatisfactory working conditions of the labors still persist due to the

exploitation of the workers by both the labor union leaders as well as the employers. The

workers are still deprived from their rights and are suffering from low wages and poor

safety measures. There is no implication of any law for protecting the rights of the labors

in the RMG sector in Bangladesh. Corruption and illiteracy of the workers are the main

reasons for the failure of labor unions, since they can be easily manipulated by the union

leaders for their own benefit.

If the factory owners and government does not take corrective measures to

improve the working condition of the workers then the country might lose its most

revenue earning sector. Recently, due to the increase in costs including wage rate and

constant occurrence of strikes many factories are shutting down or acquired by foreign

companies. If this persists in the long the government might fail to earn any revenue from

this once profitable sector.

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Chapter 8: Reference

Ali, A. N. M. A. & Andaleeb, Z. (2008, May 24). Say 'no' to corruption: Laws relating to

trade union needs amendment [Electronic Version]. The Daily Star.

Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (2005). Labour market statistics: Labour law.

Retrieved on August 2, 2010 from http://www.bils-bd.org/labour_law.html.

Crane, A. & Matten, D. (2007). Business ethics (2nd Ed.). New York: Oxford University

Press.

Islam, S. (2005, January 5). In Bangladesh, garment workers' payday not a sure thing.

The American Reporter. Retrieved August 1, 2010, from http://www.brain-

storming.info/article.php?ida=59

Marx, K. (2003). Das capital (Vol-1), (S. Moore & E. Aveling, Trans), (F. Engels, Ed.).

London, Great Britain : Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. (Original work published in

1867).

Sinha, M. B. H. (2006, January 10). Garment strike in Bangladesh: Whose responsibility,

whose interests? Workers World. Retrieved August 2, 2010 from

http://www.workers.org/2006/world/bangladesh-0615/index.html
 Labor Union in the RMG sector - 21

Webb, S. & Webb, B. P. (1920). The history of trade unionism(2nd Ed.) . New York:

Longmans, Green

(S. H. Karim , personal communication, July 21, 2010)

(L. Begum, personal communication, July 21, 2010)

Appendices
Appendix A Research Proposal

Appendix B Original Questionnaire

Appendix C Annotated Bibliography

Appendix D Detailed Outline

Appendix E 10 Completed Questionnaires

Appendix F Additional Charts and Graph

Appendix G Copies of Secondary Sources

Appendix H Drafts of the Paper

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