Women Garments Workers - Nari jibon

The training of garment workers

There is no alternative to training to any types of work in order to train up the worker to fit in the job for which he/she has been employed. Most of the garment workers who work in many factories are not that skilled to do the job as required by the management; as a result in most cases the product produced are of inferior quality. Although there is demand of our garment products in the world, the demand would have been much higher if our products are produced with precision. To bring that precision the BGME must create training institution where for the workers whose 90% are young women, must be made mandatory to get admitted into the training institution for at least three months in their respective field for which they want to be employed. It is only then we can expect our products will be highly appreciated and ordered at a price higher than the prevailing price which means more foreign exchange for our country.

Female workers in a garments factor

Bangladesh is a small and poor country. It is an over populated country too. There are many people who live in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Dhaka is a very crowded city. Most of the people of Bangladesh live in villages. Many people, especially the women,come to the cities to do a good job to earn money. Most of them work in garments factories.But garments workers’ life is very difficult………

Living place of garment workers

Garments workers’ life is very simple.They come mainly from poor family living in village so these workers are treated as lower class by the so-called higher class people of our society. Most of garments workers live in slums.

The woes of garment industry workers

The most of our garment workers are women. They work from morning till late night with minimum wages. These workers are to report to their duties on time otherwise they have to come under many queries or cut in wages. They are the workers on whom our country earns 76% of total foreign exchange. The management only looks into their interest; do they ever think about their minimum interest or their real problems? In many cases the answer is no. This is high time they start give proper attention to these groups of workers for the greater interest of this industry.

Garment workers are poorly-paid

Many garment workers are poorly-paid. They work in garments for a long time. They even work during the weekend.It is for these workers Bangladesh earns huge foreign currency .But they can’t get their due salary.The government should look into this matter seriously so that they can get their due wages and other facilities as these sectors accounts for 76% of our total foreign currency.

Factory Conditions Are Unsafe

Still, many of the women toil in unsafe working conditions. Garment factory owners, who know the women will accept low wages and long working hours even if it takes a toll on their health, have no incentive to improve conditions.

Nari Uddog Kendra (Centre for Women’s Initiatives), a women’s organization working with women employed in the garment factories, conducted a study of the health conditions of the women. It found that 66 percent complained that their health had deteriorated since they began work in the factories. One quarter of those reporting respiratory problems had been working in the factories for five years or more, and one fifth of those reporting symptoms of repetitive strain injuries had been working for six years or more. Long hours of work in one particular position, lack of access to clean toilet facilities and inadequate ventilation in factories were major factors in health problems.

Inhuman life of Garments women workers

Most of the workers came from the village, could not income paper money in the village. After arrived Dhaka/ cities they could get a chance, at the same time bound to work as without money city life impossible, can not continue ever one hour. The garments owners take this change as there is huge number worker available with competitive price. Although they know there are doing more work compare to there salary, but they can not say anything. They work 12-14 hours daily, even for whole night during shipment, despite this violate legislation. They walk down 6-7 km to reach the factory, again walk the same way to return home. They face the danger of insecurity and sexual harassment. They feel helpless in the machine-like environment of the City. They are compelled to seek shelter in the suburban slum area to maintain their lives with such a meagre income. In spite of such ordeal she dreams of freedom, leading a decent life. The opportunity of work has enabled her to dream. But if that dream is shattered? If they lose job? If the factory closes down? So they accept all exploitation without question.

Garments women workers are deprived from their rights

The women are deprived too in their new workplace. She does not know what are her rights at workplace. So she is deprived of her rightful wages, though she exhausts her all life-energy competing with the machine at the factory. They are deprived from other rights of workers and human rights, as they are discriminated as women. These workingwomen are the most deprived section among the deprived class, poorest of the poor.

The garment owner’s indifference towards its workers

The garments workers, who are mostly women, and earns 76% of total foreign exchange,are ill paid and lead substandard life. These workers genuine problems are often over looked by the employers even after their repeated demands to look into their genuine demands and create an atmosphere so that they can have their minimum wages and other facilities like medical allowance, festival bonuses and others, so that they can put their best efforts to produce quality products and compete with countries like China and India .Mentionable that export of Bangladesh garments products remains still strong, while many countries have gone down. Unfortunately enough that the owners of many garment factories are yet to wake up to their call calling for unnecessary chaotic condition in the factory which leads to layoff of the factory, destruction of the factory and loss of lives of many who sometimes becomes unruly incurring huge loss of money. To sustain the momentum gained by our garment industries the owners of the garment factories must think seriously and meet their demands which are very negligible to what they themselves earn. And save the industry for the greater interest of the country.

The loss of property and lives from agitation

Due to obstinacy and obduracy of the garment owners, the garment workers out of rage come out of the factory and take to the street causing damages to the public and private vehicles, shopping mall and block the roads for hours together causing inhuman suffering to the general public. To make the situation worst some cadres of political parties participate in the destruction activities forcing the law enforcers to intervene. The police sometime have to open fire when situation goes beyond control causing loss of valuable lives. The government and garment owners must sit immediately and find some amicable settlement so that this untoward incident does not repeat again and save the industry from total ruination.

The impact of global economic recession in our RMG industry

The present status of our RMG industry shown in bar chart

The ongoing global economic crisis has been the cause of major concern of export dependent economies. It has been observed major industrial countries is experiencing sharp fall in export demand .Even high exporting countries like China and India recorded sharp decline in export in last few months. Other high performing countries like Indonesia, Malaysia.Phillipine and Thailand are also suffering badly due to the ongoing crisis. On the contrary export from our country so far has remained quite strong. Knitting and woven garment exports have increased by 41% and 36% respectively. In July-December period over the corresponding period last year. This is attributable primarily to low-end textiles product, which has been least affected by the crisis. And they will continue to import this low end product during the crisis period. From Bangladesh.

The expert of FOREIGN TRADE INSTITUTE differs in opinion and they rightly points out that garment sector is in deep trouble and the demands for these products will drastically will fall down when income will start improving. The BGMEA must look into it thoroughly and start thinking from now on without wasting time regarding how to tackle the situation and keep our products export on track which accounts for 76& of our foreign exchange.

The unwholesome environment and lack of safety measures of garment workers

Most of the garment factories in our country lack the basic amenities where our garment workers sweat their brows from morning to evening to earn our countries the major portion of our foreign exchange. Anybody visiting the factory the first impression he or she will have that these workers are in a roost. Improper ventilation, stuffy situation, filthy rooms are the characteristics of the majority of our factories. The owners profit are the first priority and this attitude has gone to such an extent that they do not care about their lives. How many of our factories have facilities to combat any hazard like fire? Are these workers properly trained to face the situation in the event of such hazard and what to do instead of getting panicked? There has been lot of such cases in recent years which resulted in lot of deaths of these workers. Countries like China, Italy give first priority of workers comfort and the safety so that they can get better out of this workers.in our countries most the workers get sick. So the time has come to improve their working environment and their safety without further delay if we are to expect uninterrupted

Some garment workers live in hostel

The garment workers are come from village that’s why they don’t have any house their own in the city. They live in slum or some time they live in hostel, especially who don’t have any relatives in the city. In the hostel one girl share her room with other two or three girl. There is two or three bed inside the hostel room. Those beds make the room congested. But still they have to stay here because they don’t have any other option for staying. The garment worker who stay in the hostel actually they prefer hostel because of safety. I heard that some time they fight with each other for some reason and one of them leave the hostel. Actually the main reason of fighting between the hostel girl is room sharing. In my point of view, I think it is really painful to share your room with unknown person.

RMG factories and the accommodation facilities

As most of the garment workers come of the poor family and comes from the remote areas and they have to attend to the duties on time, these workers have to hire a room near the factory where four to five huddle in a room and spend life in sub human condition. For four to five workers there is one common latrine and a kitchen for which they have to pay from Tk=2000 to Tk=2500/-.They share this amount among themselves to minimize the accommodation expense. One cannot believe their eyes in what horrible condition they have to pass out their time after almost whole day of hard work in the factory. After laborious job they come into their roost, cook their food and have their dinner or lunch in unhygienic floor or bed and sleep where they take their food. They share the single bed or sleep on the floor. The owners of these factories must not treat the workers as animals. The owners of these factories who drive the most luxurious car and live in most luxurious house do ever think that these are the workers who have made their living so juicy. Will these selfish owners ever think of these workers of their better living for the sake of humanity by providing better accommodation for these workers in addition to providing with the job.

Garment workers entertainment time

Garment workers are work very hard. They work for a long time. 90% of garment workers are women so they don’t get the chance of going market or Movie Theater to watch their favorite movie for their entertainment after their work or at night. Because it is not safe for a women that she go to market or Movie Theater alone at night. And of course after a long time work they get tired so they don’t have that energy to go anywhere for their entertainment. So in the weekend especially the girls who live in the hostel they get the opportunity to watch a movie from 3 to 6 pm on BTV. Because in the hostel there is a television for all hostel girls. The garment workers actually not only the garment workers the village people love to watch Bangla movies. I heard that maximum of the hostel girls sit together in the television room and enjoy the movie on weekend. I think this is a really good way of garment workers entertainment.

Power crisis and our garment industries

Bangladesh is suffering from acute power crisis since a quite long time without any respite. The present new Government which has put this problem in the priority list has so far not given proper direction as to what steps it has taken to mitigate the crisis. The crisis has deepened to such an extent that general people started to think that we should start practice of leading life of medieval ages. One understands what role power plays in making of a nation. The major concern that is going through the minds of general people is, will we be able to keep our industries alive specially the Garment industries which brings big chunk of our foreign currency? So far nothing appreciable has been done – except meeting and hope that power will be supplied uninterrupted in next three to four years. If this state of power supply goes on for one to two years imagine what will be the fate of many garment factories. Production will come down drastically: it will start loosing the international market and lastly and most importantly the undesirable cut in workers which will be a economic disaster for the nation. The crisis can be averted if Government start thinking without further delay of importing power from neighboring countries which are self sufficient in energy .and installing burger mounted power plant on short term basis as there is uncertainty of availability of gas on which the power plant of our country depends. There has been a lot of negligence in this sector. People don’t want to see any further negligence. The Government must put in their best efforts to solve this problem as soon as possible before it gets too late to incur the wrath of the general public and the RMG workers especially which may not be good taste for the Government.

Lack of standard machine in our RMG industries

Anybody visiting any of our garment factories, the first thing they will encounter is the machine-the sewing machine, knitting machine and other machineries-with help of which our workers produce readymade garment products from which our country earns a major chunk of foreign currencies. Has anybody ever gone deep into the facts that the garment products which are being produced with the help of the machineries are in what state and what special efforts and the time our workers have to give to make it worthy of making it of exportable standard. It is often seen in many factories the workers are using their hand instead of using the machine, stitching, fixing buttons, which results in poor quality and defects of our readymade garment products. In most of the factories there is theft cases of parts of machines and these are replaced with low quality parts or made from lathe machine to keep the machine operational. As such the products which would have been produced with a great precision and less time, reducing extra burden on our garment workers has a great negative impact on our RMG industries. To achieve better output the first thing that the owners have to ensure is to provide flawless machineries. The owner instead of going harsh against the workers must try to find out the real causes of low quality products and time wastage factors if they really want to bring qualitative changes in their products.

Bangladeshi garment products

Since the creation of Bangladesh one sector in which it has made appreciable achievement is its garment industry. Any Bangladeshi can boast of its garment products. It not only caters to our requirements but also our products are exported to different countries which earn about 76% of the total foreign currency it earns. Our products are highly acclaimed by the foreigners for its qualities and verities. As our products are produced at cheaper rate in comparison to other exporting countries the foreign byres evince a lot of interest in our products and invest quite remarkably than any other countries. It is very interesting to see and one can understand from the fact that foreigners visiting our countries are found loitering specially around our Bangabazar to buy the garment products. These are the products are directly brought from the factories and are sold at cheap rate. Here both our local people and foreigners are usually seen buying the garment products produced locally.

It is very unfortunate that some unscrupulous business man change the brand of the products and want to sell the products in the name of product of foreign made for higher price, which not only destroys the goodwill of our garment industries but also put the export of our garment products at risk.