M. Sophia Newman
By now, many of the 1,600 workers from Tuba Group have finally collected some unpaid wages. It took a ridiculous amount of effort for these workers to collect what was owed to them. They struck for nearly three weeks, went on hunger strike (with some people hospitalised), and endured attacks from police.
The beginning of payment three days ago was a compromise that not everyone wanted to accept. The BGMEA stepped in to pay the two of the three months’ wages the Tuba Group denied to its workers. But the BGMEA claimed that some activists had locked up workers inside the factory to stop them collecting the money. In contrast, activists alleged that some workers had been forced to go collect their wages from the BGMEA.
Despite the infighting, the payout was a victory for everyone who wants garment sector conditions to improve. In fact, the situation is rather curious. It appears that the BGMEA, in an ultra-rare twist, actually did the right thing. Even more strangely, it points to a pathway that few in Bangladesh seem to have considered: the BGMEA can take more ethical actions out of its own self-interest.
The BGMEA stepped in as the guarantor of the money owed to workers. This does not mean that the BGMEA supports workers or champions garments industry improvements. As an entity that crosses the line between a trade group and a government office, they are tightly entangled in garment industry profits and so remain troublingly corrupt.
The fact is, the workers are getting what they should have gotten: the pay they earned. It was correct to guarantee the workers’ money someway, and it happened. It is a relief to see these people finally get some part of the dignity they deserve.
Of course, there was complaining the whole time. The BGMEA resisted paying up until the Government put pressure on them. Then they ended up committing the necessary funds using government money.
The complaining was not entirely wrong. The organisation seemed to dislike helping Tuba Group owner Delwar Hossain. It appears their resentment makes a lot of sense.
During the strike, Delwar was released from jail. This raised questions of whether his release was opportunism. But it is also possible that the BGMEA wanted him to take the heat for the terrible suffering of the workers. After all, if Delwar did not accept financial and moral responsibility for the strike, then the BGMEA itself was under pressure to do it.
But of course movements are built on personalising the enemy. Humans by their very nature will not rally against a faceless group as much as they unite against a single person who has done them wrong. So the BGMEA had two options, both unfavourable to them: support keeping Delwar in jail and take the blame in his place, or put him in public and stoke the fires of an enraged popular movement against him (and them).
In the end, what happened favoured Delwar too much. He got out of jail and thousands of people reacted with outrage. (Those people were right.) Yet somehow BGMEA paid two-thirds of his debt and ran all the press conferences, too. It seems like the BGMEA got a bad deal. If I were them, I’d feel humiliated to do favours for a greedy monster who so many people despise.
Doing this set an important precedent: pressuring the BGMEA to guarantee workers’ salaries works. The workers who courageously risked their own lives for this struggle are to be applauded for advancing workers’ rights in the country. International sympathies lie with these workers, as they should. To stand up for workers’ rights is clearly the only morally correct position. No one benefits when workers must fight factory owners as a matter of sheer survival.
Amid the pressure now from workers, the government, and international observers, the BGMEA cannot return to leaving workers deprived. But paying workers every time a factory owner pockets their salaries could actually present a challenge they can’t meet.
What makes most sense, of course, is what all these other groups are saying. Almost everyone wants workers’ pay to come from exactly where the contracts say it will: the factory owners. It’s obvious why. They’re the ones with the profit money.
Of course, there’s a clear (and corrupt) reason people at the BGMEA haven’t wished to enforce wage standards. Heavily entangled with garment sector profiteering, they perceive it as driving up the cost of doing business, thereby reducing their personal gain. This has a lot to do with why they (a clubhouse for the garment industry) have done such a poor job of enforcing standards in the past.
But right now that should not matter so much. If factory owners are so greedy as to demand workers labour in near-starvation in unsafe buildings, I’d imagine they are also greedy enough to consider it stupid to pay off a competitor’s debts. It’s obvious the best environment for growing a business is one where your competition isn’t getting an unfair boost. (This is especially true if you have to pay his debt and take heat from people angry at him.)
Of course, this emphasis on fairness – rather than some sort of shady collaborative looting scheme – is not the BGMEA’s typical position. But since Tazreen and Rana Plaza, the odds of continuing the old way have been slowly but steadily decreasing. The world is keeping its eyes on what the garment industry is doing. The real question is not whether the BGMEA will change. The real questions are how long they will stay on the wrong side of history, and how long they will endure the shame of covering for criminals like Delwar Hossain.
Above all, a factory owner with unpaid debts puts the government, the BGMEA, and the workers all in basically the same position: pressed to endure his overwhelming negligence while he gets off scot-free. Refusing this exploitation looks smart from every angle.
In the future, BGMEA should ensure the swift payout of wages to workers – not by reluctantly reacting to hunger strikes and government demands, but rather by proactively inventing ways that push all factory owners to pay workers on time, every time.
They can start by making sure Delwar pays the July wages he still owes to the Tuba Group workers.
Source: Bd news24
