– Continuano le prevaricazioni e le violenze fisiche del padronato nei distretti tessili del Bangladesh per impedire che i lavoratori si organizzino,
– nonostante la pressione internazionale per il miglioramento delle condizioni di lavoro e di diritti dei lavoratori seguita alla tragedia dello scorso aprile della fabbrica tessile di Rana Plaza, Bangladesh (nel crollo della quale morirono 1129 lavoratori, che erano stati costretti ad entrare in fabbrica, nonostante fossero comparse crepe nella struttura) e dell’incendio che nel novembre 2012 uccise 112 operai;
– e nonostante la sottoscrizione di un Accordo per la sicurezza strutturale e anti-incendio (Accord on Fire and Building Safety) da parte di oltre 80 rivenditori occidentali (tra i quali H&M, Carrefour, Marks & Spencer e PVH, casa madre di of Calvin Klein e Tommy Hilfiger), che riconosce il ruolo del sindacato. Poche le società americane che vi hanno aderito, (tra queste PVH, Abercrombie & Fitch e Sean John. e il canadese Loblaw), poche anche quelle asiatiche e australiane, tra cui Esprit. Le americane Walmart, Gap, Target e diverse altre hanno aderito ad un progetto alternativo, che secondo i critici contribuirà molto meno di quello europeo a migliorare la sicurezza nelle fabbriche.
– I rivenditori occidentali hanno acconsentito a rendere pubblico il nome e l’indirizzo di tutte le fabbriche da essi usate in Bangladesh, che si calcola sono circa 1000.
– Inditex, proprietario della catena Zara, usa circa 350 fabbriche; H&M 260, l’olandese C&A23.
– Le società che hanno sottoscritto l’accordo, legalmente vincolante, devono costituire commissioni per la salute e la sicurezza, la metà dei cui membri deve essere costituita da lavoratori scelti dai sindacati o dal voto dei lavoratori. (NYT) Esso è composto da 6 membri, compresi dirigenti di PVH, N Brown, Inditex e due grandi federazioni sindacali con sede a di Ginevra, IndustriAll e Union[e] Global, e di un rappresentante del Consiglio dei sindacati del Bangladesh (Council of Trade Unions).
– Circa il 60% delle esportazioni di abbigliamento del Bangladesh vanno in Europa; il 25% negli Usa.
Oltre 4000 le fabbriche di abbigliamento in Bangladesh, ma le organizzazioni sindacali funzionanti sono poche a causa delle intimidazioni subite dai loro organizzatori.
Almeno 4 circa dei 30 nuovi sindacati nel settore creati abbigliamento negli ultimi mesi hanno subito ritorsioni, licenziamenti o angherie:
vengono imposte multe pari a due ore di lavoro ai lavoratori che parlano con i compagni; è fatto divieto agli attivisti sindacali di entrare nella mensa aziendale;
i capi-reparto hanno aumentato la produzione per i lavoratori sindacalizzati da 400 a 900 magliette al giorno, anche se non riescono a produrne 800.
Intimidatori inviati dalla direzione aziendale nelle case dei dirigenti sindacali li minacciano se osano intraprendere azioni legali.
– La polizia è stata chiamata diverse volte in fabbrica a maggio e giugno.
– A fine giugno in una delle numerose manifatture del Bangladesh, la Sadia Garments Ltd, uno stabilimento a 5 piani nell’area di Rampura, a N-E di Dakka, è stata attaccata con cesoie e gravemente ferita alla schiena e al petto l’operaia che ha organizzato un nuovo sindacato e del quale è segretaria.
– I padroni hanno tentato di impedire l’organizzazione sindacale con tutti i mezzi, dall’offerta di denaro all’uso della violenza.
– Non è chiaro quali marchi siano legati a Sadia, ditta subappaltatrice non autorizzata.
– A cinque mesi dalla tragedia in Bangladesh della fabbrica di Rana Plaza, vicino a Dacca, alla quale erano legati oltre 40 marchi (tra cui Benetton, Matalan Bonmarché, e Primark)
– Amirul Haque Amin, presidente della Federazione nazionale dei lavoratori dell’abbigliamento del Bangladesh, partecipa al congresso annuale della confederazione sindacale britannica TUC, e alla settimana della moda (che inizia il 13 sett.) per denunciare la situazione dei lavoratori dell’industria internazionale della moda.
– A fronte di profitti milionari dei rivenditori come Topshop e Tesco, Amin chiede consistenti aumenti salariali per i lavoratori del settore; i salariati di Rana Plaza guadagnano £25/mese (3000 taka).
– Tesco, e altri grandi marchi come Primark, Gap, Monsoon Accessorize, Marks &Spencer, Asda, aderiscono alla Ethical Trading Initiative e hanno firmato un codice di condotta che comprende il sostegno ad un salario minimo,
– che però non viene applicato.
– In un suo rapporto “Il salario minimo”, l’associazione di beneficenza War on Want (Guerra alla Povertà) dimostra che un salario minimo avvantaggia lavoratori, imprenditori e l’economia nel suo insieme, e cita l’esempio della fabbrica Alta Garicia nella Rep. Dominicana. La questione del salario minimo è usata elettoralmente sia dai Conservatori e labouristi britannici.
September 11, 2013, 8:13 p.m. ET
Bangladesh Workers Face Fight to Form Union[e]s
Months After Deadly Building Collapse, Organizing Garment Employees Report Threats, Violence
By PATRICK BARTA and SYED ZAIN AL-MAHMOOD
DHAKA, Bangladesh—When workers in the Sadia Garments Ltd. factory tried to start a union[e] here recently, they learned some things haven’t changed in Bangladesh’s rough-and-tumble garment trade several months after the deadly Rana Plaza collapse.
– Despite international pressure to improve factory conditions and workers’ rights since the disaster, Sadia is one of several garment factories where union[e] organizing efforts have run into fierce opposition, workers say.
– Maksuda Begum, above, who says she was attacked with shears after forming a union.
– According to more than half a dozen workers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, managers or pro-management staff pressured workers not to join the new union, sometimes violently, and offered cash and other treats to employees to oppose it.
– In one episode in late June, pro-management staff attacked one of the unionizing workers with cutting shears, according to several women, including the one who was attacked, Maksuda Begum. Ms. Begum, the 35-year-old general secretary of the new union, says she was rushed to the hospital, bleeding and barely conscious. Photos of the incident viewed by the Journal showed Ms. Begum with crisscrossing cuts across her back and chest.
"The owner doesn’t want unions in his factory," said another worker, Puspo, a 27-year-old seamstress who, like some Bangladeshis, goes by one name. "He knows that if the union[e] were to register, he would have to improve conditions and give us our rights."
Nasir Majumder, the managing director of Sadia Garments, denied unions ran into trouble in his factory, a five-story operation in the blue-collar neighborhood of Rampura in northeast Dhaka. "The violence, that is old news," he said in a telephone interview. "The union[e] is functioning perfectly, everything is now going well."
– In a second interview several days later, Mr. Majumder said management never pressured workers or offered them cash to oppose the union. No one was let go for unionizing, though few of the workers who had led the union[e] still worked there, he said. "Workers leave all the time," he said. "They get a better salary, they leave." He said the photographs of injuries suffered by Maksuda Begum were fake. "Art work," he said.
The troubles reported by workers at Sadia and similar factories suggest the hurdles Bangladesh must overcome before it can clear its reputation after the April collapse of Rana Plaza, which killed more than 1,100 people.
Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest apparel producers, pledged soon after to make it easier for workers to start unions to advocate for employees and abolished a rule that forced workers to get factory approval before forming them.
– Such rules—and a history of intimidation of union[e] organizers—had left Bangladesh with only a handful of functioning apparel unions for its more than 4,000 garment factories.
– Some 30 or more unions have registered in garment factories in recent months, according to activist groups. But at least four of them have faced retaliation, such as management firing or harassing unionized employees, labor leaders said. Many activists fear such cases will proliferate as more unions try to organize.
"What happened at the Sadia factory is a clear example of the hostile reception unions are getting in some factories," said Rukshana Yasmin, program officer at Solidarity Center, a nongovernmental organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO. "The law says the right to organize cannot be denied. But the reality is very different."
A Bangladeshi safety accord that more than 80 Western retailers, such as Hennes & Mauritz AB and Zara-brand owner Inditex SA, recently signed in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster also gives unions a central role.
– Companies signing on to the legally binding pact must require factories to set up health and safety committees, half of whose members must be workers chosen by union[e]s or by an employee vote.
– It isn’t clear, though, which brand or brands are involved with Sadia, and unauthorized subcontracting—a common practice—often makes it difficult for brands to determine where their clothes are being made and under what conditions.
– Workers at the factory provided labels to a Journal reporter indicating that it produces shirts sold under the Tommy Hilfiger brand name. PVH Corp., which owns Tommy Hilfiger, is part of the Western retailers’ accord, which aims to improve conditions in Bangladesh factories and finance upgrades to ones that don’t meet their standards.
PVH said Sadia wasn’t an authorized factory for Tommy Hilfiger or any of its brands. When presented with photos of labels taken from the factory, it said it was unable to trace them to Tommy Hilfiger merchandise.
– Mr. Majumder, Sadia’s managing director, declined to say which labels’ clothes the factory produced, other than to say they were "small" European brands.
Government officials and industry leaders have said that they’re confident that recent changes to Bangladesh’s laws will expand rights for union[e] organizers and that they’re taking complaints of worker abuse seriously.
"Unions in the garment sector are a new thing and both owners and workers need to get a better idea of how to make unions work," said Reaz Bin Mahmood, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. "Workers should not use unions to create chaos in the factory and owners should not try to suppress unions."
He said BGMEA had looked into the Sadia incidents and found that violence there was the result of "friction between two groups of workers," adding, "we are not aware of harassment on the part of the owner."
– Factory owners have long argued unions are unusually disruptive in Bangladesh. Unions in other parts of the economy are known for frequent strikes and infighting, and have caused productivity to plummet in some industries.
But activists say that having stronger unions in apparel factories could help prevent another tragedy such as Rana Plaza. A government inquiry committee found that workers had been intimidated into entering the building even after cracks appeared in the structure.
Ms. Puspo, the Sadia employee, said workers wanted to form a union[e] to increase leverage with management amid complaints of verbal and physical abuse. Workers found worms in the factory’s drinking water, she said.
Management told workers it wouldn’t allow unions and stepped up the pressure, Ms. Puspo and other workers said.
– Union[e] workers who spoke to each other while sewing were disciplined with their pay sometimes docked by two hours, Ms. Puspo said, while union[e] agitators were barred from the company canteen.
– Supervisors upped daily production targets for union[e] workers by 200 shirts per day to 900, even though they struggled to make 800, she said.
To defuse tensions, union[e] leaders met with management at the end of May in the presence of police officers. The management promised to treat union[e] members fairly and signed an agreement to that effect. The agreement, seen by The Wall Street Journal, states that management would not sack workers for involvement in unions.
– Delwar Hossain, the officer in charge of the Rampura Police Station, confirmed that police went to Sadia several times in May and June in response to reports of unrest. But he said the police didn’t act since roads weren’t being blocked.
"We usually let the owners and the BGMEA handle problems inside the factory," he said.
– Workers say tensions continued, erupting into a pitched battle in late June in which pro-management workers grabbed union[e] workers by the hair and beat them.
"We were kicked and punched. Our clothes were torn," said Moina Akter, a union[e] member at the factory. Some union[e] workers were fired or fled the area, said Ms. Puspo, who quit and landed work at another factory.
The union[e] still isn’t functioning in the factory, workers say.
– Men hired by management visited the homes of union[e] leaders and warned them of dire consequences if they took any legal action, several workers say.
"I have a small business selling bottled water," said Abul Kalam, Ms. Begum’s husband. "The factory owner’s men warned me that they would put me out of business if I filed a case over the assault. We live in fear. I wish my wife had never joined a union."
—Suzanne Kapner and Shelly Banjo contributed to this article.
Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com and Syed Zain Al-Mahmood at zain.syed@dowjones.com
Bangladeshi union[e] chief brings living wage campaign to London fashion week
Clothing retailers urged to back anti-poverty drive five months after 1,129 people died in factory collapse near Dhaka
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Garment factory
– A union[e] leader representing millions of poverty stricken Bangladeshi garment workers is to use London fashion week to confront Britain’s top fashion retailers and clothing brands and urge them to support fresh demands for all employees to be paid a living wage.
– Nearly five months after 1,129 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers’ Federation, will join forces with British union[e] campaigners to highlight the plight of workers in the global fashion industry.
– Amin, who arrives in Britain on Friday, will address delegates at the TUC’s annual conference on Monday, alongside Heather Wakefield, who heads the local government service group of Britain’s largest public service union, Unison. He plans to take the same message to London’s high-profile annual fashion week which starts on 13 September.
– The link between cheap fashion in Britain’s shops and shockingly poor worker conditions was again highlighted following the collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza garment manufacturing building.
– Amin will use his visit to persuade UK retailers to pay a wage far in excess of the £25 (3,000 taka) a month earned by the Rana Plaza workers.
He will contrast the hardship endured by millions of Bangladeshi garment workers with the multi-million pound profits accumulated by retailers such as Topshop and Tesco, which (the latter through its F & F clothing range) sponsor London fashion week.
– Tesco and other leading brands, including Primark, Gap, Monsoon, Accessorize, Marks & Spencer, and Asda, belong to the Ethical Trading Initiative and have signed up to a code of conduct that includes support of a living wage. But the wage aspect, Amin will stress, has failed to materialise, and, he says, more pressure is needed.
"The Rana Plaza disaster not only exposed unsafe conditions for workers turning out British stores’ clothes, but the pittance on which they struggle to survive. It is high time UK retail chains, and other companies sourcing from Bangladesh, matched ethical claims with action to lift their suppliers’ workers out of poverty."
– In advance of his arrival, the NGWF’s partner, the charity War on Want, is publishing a report entitled The Living Wage: Winning the fight for social justice, which cites evidence that a living wage benefits workers, employers and also wider economies.
The report points to the success of the Alta Gracia factory in the Dominican Republic, reportedly the world’s only supplier producing clothes for a mainstream brand that is also paying its workers a living wage.
– The report comes amid news that Conservative policy advocates want David Cameron to promise a higher minimum wage during his speech at the party’s conference in the coming weeks.
– Labour’s shadow Treasury team is considering whether to say that living wage zones would be established if they won power at the next election.
Meanwhile, War on Want is demanding full compensation in relation to the Bangladesh disaster, for victims’ bereaved families and injured workers, before a two-day meeting in Geneva this week hosted by the International Labour Organisation.
– More than 40 brands were linked to the Dhaka factory that collapsed, including the retailers Benetton, Matalan and Bonmarché as well as Primark.
Now, more than 50 brands have signed up to a legally binding building safety agreement backed by the international trade union[e] IndustriALL and the Bangladeshi government. Topshop, Gap and Walmart, however, have not yet done so.
War on Want is urging the public to apply pressure on retailers over the accord and compensation.
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
The New York Times
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
– A mostly European consortium of 70 retailers and apparel brands has agreed to inspect within nine months all Bangladeshi garment factories that supply the companies.
– In a plan to be announced on Monday, the companies agreed that they would take responsibility and immediate action wherever serious safety problems are found. They pledged “to insure that sufficient funds are available to pay for renovations and other safety improvements.”
– The companies are announcing details of their ambitious, legally binding plan after negotiating with labor unions and nongovernment organizations since mid-May, when the effort was originally announced. The first group of companies signed on three weeks after 1,129 workers died when a factory building collapsed in Bangladesh. The number of signatories has increased to 70 from 30 in mid-May, and includes H&M, Carrefour, Marks & Spencer and PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
– Very few American companies have joined the effort. Several said they disliked the plan because it was legally binding, might subject them to lawsuits and included some ill-defined potential obligations. Several European retailers and labor groups asserted that these concerns were overblown and that the Americans were mainly worried about the cost of the plan.
– Walmart, Gap, Target and many other American retailers have instead joined an alternative plan for which they are working out details with help from former United States Senators George J. Mitchell and Olympia J. Snowe. That group said it hoped to announce details of its plan by mid-July. Critics say the United States plan will do far less to improve factory safety in Bangladesh than the European-dominated plan.
Among the few American companies that have joined the European-dominated plan are PVH, Abercrombie & Fitch and Sean John. Loblaw, a Canadian retailer that produces the Joe Fresh clothing line, has also joined.
“We’d love to have the rest of the American companies join us,” said Andy York, ethical trading manager for the N Brown Group, a British retailer.
– About 60 percent of Bangladesh’s garment exports go to Europe. About 25 percent go to the United States.
– Only a few Asian and Australian retailers have joined the effort. They include Esprit, which has financial headquarters in Hong Kong.
Under the plan, whenever inspectors find a problem immediately threatening to cause death or serious injury, the factory’s owner will be told to cease operations during investigation and repairs. The group’s new executive director is to alert Bangladeshi officials, all signatory companies and the factory’s workers about the dangers.
– The plan’s signatories agreed that money to correct safety problems could come from joint investments, direct payments, negotiated commercial terms, government or donor support or any combination of these mechanisms.
“This is the only way to bring about long-term, sustainable change to the garment industry in Bangladesh,” Mr. York said.
Labor and consumer groups have pressed Western retailers to join the plan, especially after the factory building collapse and after a fire last November killed 112 workers in a Bangladesh factory. The plan, which many labor unions and nongovernment organizations also have signed, is called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
To allow for inspections, the Western retailers agreed to send in the names and addresses of all the Bangladeshi factories they use by July 15. In an unusual move, the list of these factories, expected to total nearly 1,000, will be made public, as will the inspection reports. Companies often resist disclosing the names of their overseas suppliers for fear of competitors stealing them.
– Among the signatories, Inditex, the owner of the Zara apparel chain, uses about 350 factories in Bangladesh, H&M 260 and C&A, a Dutch retailer, 230, said Jyrki Raina, general secretary of Industriall, a union[e] federation with 50 million members in 140 countries.
Under the plan, international teams of fire and building safety inspectors, working with their counterparts in Bangladesh, will inspect all the supplier factories within nine months. They will focus on serious concerns like inadequate fire exits and fundamental structural flaws that could cause buildings to collapse. The agreement also calls for developing “action plans” to correct serious safety problems within nine months.
The accord’s members said that when inspectors uncovered severe safety risks at a factory, “a viable plan with renovations and repairs undertaken to address the hazards will be produced and workers will be paid while the factory remains closed.”
The group said it would seek to hire an executive director, a chief safety inspector and a training coordinator to help educate Bangladeshi factory owners and workers about safety and developing plans so workers can voice concerns about safety. “The direct involvement of workers in the factories is key to the success of this program,” Mr. Raina said.
– In a statement prepared for Monday’s announcement, the signatories said that they had elected a six-person steering committee, including executives from PVH, the N Brown Group, Inditex and two large union[e] federations based in Geneva: Industriall and Uni Global. The steering committee includes a representative of the Bangladesh Council of Trade Unions. “The brands and retailers are proud of the accord, and they really want to make it a success,” Mr. Raina said. “This is about creating a safety culture that doesn’t exist in the Bangladesh garment industry.”
– Several officials said the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, and the British, Danish and Dutch governments have offered to help finance safety renovations in factories in Bangladesh.
– Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory monitoring group based in Washington, said that prosperous Bangladeshi factory owners would be expected to help finance safety improvements and that in such situations, Western companies would not be expected to shoulder the burden alone.
The signatories say that when serious hazards are found at a factory, they will try to engage nonsignatory companies that also use the factory in the efforts to make needed safety upgrades.