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print version(New Age, 2 August 2010)
The revised wage structure for workers in the apparel industry ultimately points to the inherent apathy of the ruling class to workers’ welfare,
writes Mir Ashfaquzzaman
BELIEVE it or not, the prime minister, her Awami League-led government and its Minimum Wage Board believe that Tk 3,000 per month is a ‘sufficient and human’ salary for an entry-level worker in the apparel industry. It is not clear how they have arrived at such a conclusion but Tk 3,000 is what the minimum wage will be for RMG workers, from November this year.
The labour minister, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, unveiled the revised wage structure for the apparel industry at a news conference on July 29. The Minimum Wage Board chairman and the presidents of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association were present at the news conference.
The new wage structure is claimed to have been ‘unanimously’ recommended by the wage board, which had 14 rounds of talks with the representatives of the factory owners and the workers over the past six months (‘Apparel workers to get Tk 3,000 at entry point: Govt announces new wage structure’, New Age, July 30).
The workers do not seem to have been part of the consensus, so suggest their protests at Gulshan, Banani, Mohakhali and Tejgaon in the capital Dhaka the next day, during which the protesters clashed with the police, blocked roads and vandalised several vehicles and ATM booths of some commercial banks. At least 25 people, mostly workers, were injured and traffic movement in these areas was suspended for nearly five hours (Apparel workers on rampage in protest at new wage: Scores of vehicles, shops vandalised, 25 workers arrested’, New Age, July 31).
Perhaps, their consent was never the issue. Perhaps, the negotiations that the government brokered between the factory owners and the workers were, after all, part of an elaborate deception.
The factory owners, one might say, were at least honest. At no stage of the negotiations did they agree to a significant increase in the minimum wage for the workers. They stuck to the position that the depressed prices of readymade garments because of the global recession and production losses due to gas and electricity supply crisis made it impossible for them to make any substantial increase in the workers’ wages. Their claim may be based on falsehood and their argument fallacious; however, they hardly dithered.
The same cannot be said about the government, though. Right from the start of the negotiations, it dealt in empty promises and false hopes.
When the government reconstituted the minimum wage board on April 28 – needless to say, following a series of violent agitation by workers in Dhaka, Gazipur and Narayanganj in the preceding few days, demanding increase in their minimum wages and other incentives, the labour minister said the revised wage structure would be announced ‘in three months’ and ‘in keeping with the price hike of essentials’ and put into effect ‘from the month of Ramadan’ (‘Wage board for RMG workers reconstituted’, New Age, April 29).
While he was more or less right about the timeframe, albeit a day later than what he had promised, the revised structure neither appears to be in keeping with the price hike of essentials nor will take effect from the month of Ramadan. His failure to live up to the promise, however, pales against that of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
During her question hour in parliament on July 21, the prime minister termed the wages the factory owners currently pay the workers ‘not only insufficient but also inhuman’ and observed that they ‘workers cannot even stay in Dhaka with the peanuts they get in wages’. She also said the ‘owners should feel that they make profit through exports as the toiling workers strive for the readymade garments industry and they (the owners) should give a portion of the profit to the workers for their survival (RMG workers’ pay meagre, says PM; bdnews24.com, as printed in New Age on July 22). Her words must have raised the hopes of the workers; they must have thought that the government had finally come to sympathise with their misery.
That the minimum wage that the government has fixed for the workers in the apparel industry is not even the minimum of the minimum need not be overemphasised. Different experts at different times have pointed out that a family of four needs more than Tk 3,000 to sustain, whatever the yardsticks are – be it the World Bank’s definition of poverty or minimum calorie intake; in fact, Tk 5,000 that the workers have been demanding is not enough, either (see, for example, Jakir Hossain, ‘Good intentions hardly enough’, New Age, July 27).
It seems, now, that the government has never cared to look at the workers’ minimum wage rationally and has been predisposed to ‘coming up with some arbitrary numbers (could even be with fractions of amount in order to give an idea of serious exercise and negotiations) for the minimum wage which might show a certain percentage of increase as was the case in the 2006 minimum wage in comparison with that of the 1994 minimum wage for the sector.’
It also seems that the government has known it all along that the wage to be announced will be neither just nor acceptable by the workers. The day the labour minister announced the revised wage structure, the local government, rural development and cooperatives minister called in the members of parliament of Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur constituencies and asked them to be ready to face ace any disorder over the issue. Quite predictably, the minister, who is also the general secretary of the ruling Awami League, Syed Ashraful Islam, unreeled the conspiracy theory. ‘A quarter is trying to cause unwanted incidents using the issue of the wage board,’ he said (‘Ashraful alerts MPs to possible RMG unrest’, bdnews24.com, as printed in New Age on July 30).
The prime minister was quick to chime in and warned of ‘zero tolerance’ against those stoking unrest and anarchy in the apparel industry. ‘Such activities… are designed to destroy the country’s garment sector,’ she said in a teleconference from her official residence Ganabhaban, marking the launch of Bangabandhu Poverty Reduction Complex of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association at Tungipara in Gopalganj on Saturday. ‘Who will benefit if the industry that earns the bread of workers is destroyed? Workers should not involve themselves in activities that might put their source of income at risk, because if the sector closes down due to the anarchy they will become unemployed,’ she added (‘Hasina warns against RMG anarchy’, bdnews24.com, July 31).
Her words tend to betray more than the government’s apparently pathological inclination to explaining away labour unrest, regardless of how legitimate the grievances are and how intense the sense of deprivation, as conspiracy; they seem to provide a glimpse of how the incumbents generally view the workers. The prime minister’s words seem to suggest that the factory owners have actually done the workers a favour just by employing them; otherwise, they would have been unemployed and gone unfed.
Many, if not most, of the factory owners appear to entertain similar thoughts. Indeed, the apparel industry continues to buttress the economy and contributes the lion’s share of the country’s foreign exchange earning. However, what they seem to conveniently forget is that whatever business they do or profit they make would not have been possible without the hard work of the so many millions of workers. These workers sweat away hours after hours, more often than not for pittance of a salary and in miserable working conditions, so that the factory owners can deliver on their commitment to the buyers. Needless to say, such self-righteousness defines the elite in our society, the political class included.
Not surprisingly, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has sought to take the high moral ground in the wake of the labour unrest over the revised wage structure. Its joint secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, on Friday said the government’s ‘wrong policies’ were responsible for the unrest and instability in the readymade garment sector. ‘A tripartite understanding involving the employees, owners and the government could resolve the crisis but the government did not try it,’ he said (‘Fakhrul blames “wrong policies†for crisis’, New Age, July 31).
Perhaps, the BNP leadership needs to be reminded that when they were in power between 2001 and 2006, they did not do any better when it came to resolution of the RMG workers’ grievances over poor pay. Perhaps, they need also to be reminded that they had allowed exploitation of workers to continue until they took to the streets in violent protest. Perhaps, they need to be reminded, too, that they also branded the agitating workers as ‘conspirators’ out to cause instability in the apparel industry when they were actually demanding an upward revision of their minimum wages, which had remained unchanged for 12 long years.
On July 30, after the violent protest by the workers, the commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, AKM Shahidul Hoque, urged the protesters not to fall into the ‘trap’ of the ‘conspirators’ (‘Workers urged not to fall into trap’, bdnews24.com, July 30). While it sounds like an iteration of the official take on the ongoing unrest, it has the merit to be taken seriously – needless to say, not for the reason that the government propagates.
The workers need to realise that violence and vandalism are deplorable, regardless of the legitimacy of their grievances. Moreover, such actions do not hurt the factory owners alone; these also inconvenience the people, even endanger their safety and security. If the workers continue along the path of destruction, they may soon find themselves isolated from the people at large and bereft of public sympathy and support, which is perhaps what the ruling elite wants; for, it will give them the legitimacy in the public perception to clamp down on the agitating workers. In other words, repression will be added to exploitation and deprivation.
The DMP commissioner was right, albeit unwittingly, to say that there was a trap out there; there is indeed a trap, laid out by the elite over the years of discrimination, deprivation and deception. It will be in the elite’s interest if the workers can be portrayed as the demons. Hence, the workers need to take a pause and desert the path of destruction, and instead take their case to the people and work on their sympathy towards them, mobilise the public opinion and, most importantly, show that the disdainful disregard of the factory owners for their well-being and the ruling quarters’ indifference to such injustice ultimately boil down to their deep-rooted class orientation. All said and done, it is a class issue.
